Chief Operations Officer of Obiwezy.com Kofoworola Onanuga speaks on the e-commerce sector and how the firm is redefining operations. Excerpts:

Tell us about your career growth

I have moved from being a program analyst in a federal parastatal to an administrative officer, to full time HR manager and currently the chief process and operations officer at obiwezy.

You are in the e-commerce sector, providing IT solutions. What inspired this line of business?

My husband’s dream was to sell convenience and mine was to create the structure around any business.

What challenges do you face in the sector?

Price uniformity, talent wars, lack of sensitization of government agencies, scammer and impersonators, trollers, irregular government policies as we don’t know which is which…etc

How have you been able to surmount them moving forward?

Sticking to the best price with minimal margin, honing what we have and keep moulding them. Also, being on the right side of the law as much as possible, posting disclaimers and more sensitization to our customers from our own end, keeping up with integrity and honesty during issue resolutions, and keeping abreast with policies through our consultants.

How would you rate your customer relationship services?

Our customer relationship could certainly be better.

What distinguishes Obiwezy from other players in the industry?

Integrity, customer relationship. The mantra ‘obiwezyisyourguy’ is held with high esteem.

How do you develop growth strategies for your business?

Deliberations on identifying value propositions, concerned areas of growth, target audience, set goals and a plan.

What was your experience during the COVID-19 pandemic?

It was a very revealing year. It confirmed the need for an online business, and although it was initially slow, consequently the boom came.

What innovations were put in place to keep the business running?

We maximized all delivery platforms either for pick up or drop offs.

What lessons did the experience teach you?

Once you have it available, service delivery is attainable.

 

Future Concerns Nigeria Limited (FCNL), has been awarded for leadership in two categories, at the Wellness and Care, and Leadership Commitment and Leaners Mindset awards.

Both awards were given at the 2022 Shell Leaders and Contractors CEO Conference, held recently in Port Harcourt as part of the CEO leadership charter.

In acknowledging the awards, Chairman of Future Concerns Group, Engr. (Dr.) Anthony Oguike stated that FCNL strives to bridge the gap between knowledge, leadership, and learning as well as achieve results by empowering young vibrant and veteran professionals with leadership skills and values that will help them make long-lasting strides and contributions within society, and ultimately toward ensuring high performance at the Client location.

He said “We insist on not just professionalism, excellence as a habit, but integrity, happiness, knowledge, commitment, honesty, and innovation. Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other which is what drives us to collaborate and to innovate solutions for our clients.

“Leadership around here means that for everything we start, we will finish and learner mentality has helped us adopt winning ways and best practices from clients and Shell is at the pinnacle of such transfer of knowledge. Our growth stems from our mantra – CRIC- which stands for Competence, Respect, Innovation, and Client-focus, all these drive everything we do.

Engr. Oguike thanked Shell for such accolades, the awards and for providing industry relevant trainings through the years and he assured Shell of an even better performance moving forward.

Also in attendance at the conference was Mrs. Eunice Ekwenugo, Chief Operating Officer, COO Future Concerns Safety Center who was acknowledged for 25 years of meritorious service at The Future Concerns Group.

The Future Concerns Safety Center is an intelligent business platform and resource for corporate HSE & Emergency Response Services, and key service provider to The Shell Companies in Nigeria.

President Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR) has recognised and Confered the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) Award to Mr Wale Adediran, the Group Human Resources Director, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN).

The conferment event which took place on the 12th of May 2022 at the Banquet Hall, State House, Asokoro Abuja had players across various industries and sectors present to witness the celebration of excellence and productivity amongst patriotic Nigerians.

The National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) Award is designed to identify, recognize, and reward productive individuals and organizations in both the public and private sectors, for high productivity, hard work, and excellence. Having surpassed the meticulous assessment and independent transparent scrutinization of the National Productivity Centre, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr Wale Adediran, was conferred an ‘NPOM’ award. This was in recognition of his over three decades of commitment towards human capital development, productivity across varied touchpoints, and his patriotic contributions as an upstanding citizen of Nigeria.

In his Comments, Mr Wale Adediran, FMN’s Group Human Resources Director, expressed his gratitude to the organizers of the awards for their transparency, and most importantly to Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN) for giving him a platform to champion sustainable change within and outside the organization. “First, I wish to extend my utmost gratitude to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari for conferring this meritorious award on me. I also thank Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN), for affording me an enabling environment to orchestrate growth across all our value touchpoints. To the National Productivity Centre, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, I say thank you for keeping the NPON award process transparent and impactful.

Mr Adediran went further to state “Development, as we all know is a process, it requires an upward trajectory of growth at all levels and this growth eventually leads to productivity as everyone will begin to see the impact of actions taken. To me, the ability to invest in people so that they would be empowered to impact others is one of the most sustainable structures of development. As renowned Human Resource personnel and Practitioner, I find this award invaluable as it sought to recognize those humane and patriotic activities that seem to have gone unnoticed over the years. I wish to once again appreciate our FMN workforce, as well as their leadership in the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco sector of Nigeria, who have always been committed to productivity and industrial harmony in our businesses and in the sector. Finally, I congratulate other awardees and encourage Nigerians across varied industries to strive to be better and be more productive as that is one of the ways we can unanimously deinstitutionalize mediocrity in the Nation”.

 

Also, The Director, Group Strategy and Stakeholder Relations, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN), Mr Sadiq Usman, stated in his commendation remarks, “Having known and worked with Wale for close to a decade I can say that this award is well deserving. FMN as a Group has always been committed to its people by encouraging a work-life balance. The first value represented in our organizational core values (PILOT) is Performance, which inculcates the habit of productivity within our organization. Therefore, FMN continues to work in synergy with the holistic development of both our internal and external stakeholders driven by our purpose of continuously feeding the Nation every day.

The National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) Award 2022 award ceremony is the 19th edition of the event and it had about 37 highly placed individuals in Nigeria recognized for their invaluable contributions to National Growth.

Taxation has been a contentious issue in many developing countries like Nigeria, where the populace are convinced that the right formula has not been adopted. Yet, it is believed that there are several people outside the tax net that should be captured.The President, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), Adesina Adedayo, sheds light on what can be done for the country to improve on its tax revenue and expand the tax net. Adedayo, in this interview with TOFUNMI SANUSI, also touched on knotty issues like tax compliance, evasion and avoidance, among others.

What is your reaction to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) call for new increase of Value Added Tax (VAT)?

You see, my reaction anytime we are discussing issues that bother on economic intervention has to with: what are the facts? What are the fictions? What are the perceptions and what are our cultural orientation towards it? There is nothing new about increase or review or even downward review but the next question will be: What are the justifications, the principles behind what you applied before? What are the gaps we need to close that we did not envisage? That’s my challenge.

Now let me put it in perspective, which is, we have a population that is growing, we have a government that requires resources and we have a demand from those who are governed that desires accountability. So, where do we mix it up so that at the end of the day, what comes out is a finished product? We want to increase resources, so we need to review our tax system, we also want to ensure that there is accountability about those resources so the government should do more relating to accounting for what they have been collecting. So, what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said is a recommendation. Our decision as to what we need to do is to address our peculiar problem. Who knows where the shoe pinches and who is aware that we are having a situation where the issue of the growing population, of aging population, all these are the challenges we want our government to deal with. So, I will say this is a subject for further decision making.

What can be done to increase rate of tax collection and compliance ?

Let us first of all ask ourselves, what are the data that support our tax system? Who are those paying these taxes? Who are those not paying  either ignorantly or by virtue of the fact that our system is weak and has not addressed those who are evading and escaping taxes because they are not really accessible. All these are the areas we need to really take as a study for us to improve and block the loopholes, because the truth of the matter is that for you to say that you want to catch a big fish, you don’t stay in the ponds, you go to the ocean, and when you go to the ocean, you don’t use the same type of net you use to catch the small fish to catch the big one, you need to use a technologically sophisticated one for you to catch a whale. But we need to expand our resource base and generate more.

There is this notion that Nigerians are tax averse. Is there anything that can be done to enhance self-compliance?

The notion that Nigerians are tax averse is not peculiar to Nigeria.The truth is that nobody loves paying taxes but the system creates a situation where tax payment becomes compliance and mandatory.Therefore, you cannot escape it. Whether you rush this way, you will meet what you dodged at the other side. So, because a system has been created that makes it clear, you cannot evade. These are areas we need to work on as a country. Strengthen the system, tax evasion becomes very challenging, in fact, the cost of tax evasion will be far more than the benefit you think you are going to derive.

What are the roles of tax incentives in economic development, especially infrastructure?

Tax incentives are meant to stimulate productive capacity. When you give people incentives, you want them to focus less on the tax that is applicable to them and more on the productive impact on their effort; so, if that is the case, then it is clear. Tax incentives should be given to those who are vulnerable, those who are likely to become economically sensitive from the adverse side, if anything happens. A lockdown for three days, some people will find themselves on the receiving end. So, what should be done relating to this is to create more incentives that will stimulate the productive part of the system and in doing this, it means, check it out, those who are earning low income, it’s a challenge to them. We are not paying meaningful wages,  that is clear because when you look at the cost of living viz-a-viz the income we are paying, it is  adverse. Give them the incentives so they can use the money to buy more products which automatically stimulate consumption and, ultimately, increase VAT. If we have those who are in the ultra-rich category, buying private jet because they can eat three square meals, tax them a little more because for someone who can afford a private jet, a little more tax will not stop those things. So, that is the way we need to structure our system in such a way that for those who love luxury, let them pay for luxury tax. For those who are under the area where they are closer to poverty, relax the noose on their neck, in that way, we have a system that is work-friendly and also not adverse to you being rich.

What is your view of macroeconomic outlook?

I will say my view is cautious in the sense that our macroeconomic outlook from the perspective of fact, is not looking good. If you look at it from the perspective of faith, it can be better. Now coming back to specifics, the macroeconomic outlook is becoming a little more bearish because the challenge in terms of day-to-day living and ability to even be able to meet other issues require us to pay more attention on the way we structure our wages, our health intervention, do educational support – so these are areas we need to start watching the more and coming up with something better that will, at the end of the day, make it clear that people, no matter where they find themselves, are sure that their health will become compromised. A healthy nation is a wealthy nation in the making. They will also be sure that education is what they can easily get access to even if the system allows them to access a loan to finish their educational objective because it is clear, you cannot be thriving on ignorance and expecting a growing nation; so ignorance must be dealt with.

Deal with health and ignorance aspect and you will find out that gradually you are changing the outlook of the country by having educated, well-informed healthy nation and, then, for our growth, it is just going to be a question of time and when we grow, our economy will thrive. The tax we are talking about, this people become more productive, they are not lying there in the hospital or the IDP camp, they are not just roaming the street looking for the next work they are going to get. This thing always have a spiral effect.

What can be done to enhance inflow of foreign direct and portfolio investments ?

Let us address the trust deficit. Do people trust us enough for us to have a system that can protect their investment. For example, when you are peeling groundnut for the blind, you keep whistling because the blind will not know if you are eating the groundnut or not. A man  who puts money in your company is a blind man, the only way he will get to see what you are doing is for you to talk about annual report, financial statements and showing that you are transparent with the money he gave to you. Trust deficit is the starting point we need to address and it has to do with accountability and transparency and a little bit of addressing the corruption effect rather than reacting to what has happened. Corruption can be prevented by having a good system in place but reacting to corruption in a system when the judicial system takes so long before you get to know who is guilty or not is a problem. All I’m saying in summary is: let us address the systemic effect, once we address this, the trust factor keeps rising and then we find out that we do not really have problem, we just have a decision to make.

The Federal Government is increasingly turning to tax revenue to meet its financial obligation and fund infrastructure. How can Nigeria avoid heavy taxation that can stifle productivity ?

Any taxation that stifle productivity is not proper because it is meant to enhance it. Taxes stifle productivity when you tax a productive company out of existence or an individual into  poverty. Coming back to the model of tax, you are productive, the government takes its portion and provide some necessities for you – good roads, good infrastructure, your life becomes more convenient, you become more productive, that is the way it should be. So, the way to go is to have a progressive model of tax where taxes you put on those who can afford those taxes is used to lift up those that are in the position of poverty so that you are not taxing poverty, because when you are taxing poverty, you are taxing people who are finding it difficult already to live and when you do that, there is a problem but at the level of productivity, which is companies, when you are taxing a company that is barely making ends meet and the financial policies are not helping the company to survive, the trade policy is actually inhibiting the growth of the company and your monetary policy is  detrimental to the company in terms of interest rate, you are gradually taxing the country out of prosperity and when the companies die, the individual will be sacked, when this happens you have problem of social crisis like crime, health issues, etc. The model of tax is meant to be the backbone of development. So, we need to ensure our tax system is progressive and the proceeds from that is used to develop infrastructure.

Some Nigerians, especially private operators, favour widening the tax net rather than increasing taxes. What’s your take on this?

I agree with that popular opinion. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. You can widen, and increase, if necessary but what Nigerians need, which I agree with, is to widen the tax net. The question should be this: If we have the data, how many people are supposed to be paying taxes? How many are actually paying? These are the only questions for widening. Talking about 200 million Nigerians, how many are dependent; that is, those of school age? How many are also dependent; that is, those who have retired and have become social security issue? And then the question will be: How many of those people who are supposed to be working are working? Then if you take away those who are jobless from those who are working, the proportion of the people that are paying taxes is very low. So, what we should do first is to go after those who are not paying taxes, that is widen the tax base issue so those who are not paying tax are brought into light to pay.

Let’s deal with that first. If there is the need for increment and increasing taxes is not an easy decision, you must ask if it will have a boomerang effect. If the answer is yes, then you should be careful and rather focus more on creating the productive base, so that a lot of jobless people can have a job and they become part of tax payers. This is my view.

There has been complaints over tax evasion and avoidance by the public. How can Nigeria get round this problem?

Let me start with this quote: “The best of men is an ordinary man at his best.” No matter the policies you have, the tax legislative mode you create will be read by people and they will see the fine print. It is that fine print that they will try. For example, a law says do not smoke by noon, then you decide to smoke by 11am or 1pm, you have avoided the law, when you do it by 12, you have contravened the law. No matter the tax legislative worldwide, avoidance is an acceptable thing. What does the law say ? What should I do not to go against the law ? Avoidance is legal as long as it doesn’t follow an aggressive tone that shows you are trying to cover up something while it appears to an outsider that you are complying, so that becomes evasive tactics. Evasion is illegal, avoidance is legal but as much as possible in a progressive system of tax, you keep reviewing the law to make sure that mischief makers do not disguise evasion in form of avoidance. That is why legislative process is a continuous thing and you can imagine the issue of where we have a legislature, which is the National Assembly, laws are being made regularly because it requires thinking.

Yesterday’s law may not be good enough for today; today’s law may not be suitable for tomorrow’s economy. So, it keeps changing.

If Nigeria gets her tax system and administration right, how much do you think the country can realise from taxation yearly ?

The word ‘how much’ is subjective and you can only say that if you have an omnipotent outlook on the whole economy.

But I can go the aspect of a professional and tell you the impact of the right administrative system on the economy.

This will give us an impression where people who are in Nigeria will be known, those who are working will be known in public and private sector, those who are in the former sector will be known, the administrative sector will know those who are selling goods at any of these markets, they will know the tailors and hairdressers amongst us. That is a good tax administrative system, knowledge comes first and if knowledge comes first, then it means that it is on basis of this knowledge that you can now be talking about a system working to get a desired impact. So I can say as a professional, the right administrative system will lead to a magnificent jump in our tax revenue but in terms of Naira and Kobo figure, that may be difficult for me to say.

What advise will you give the government generally on economic growth and development?

My advice is, let’s look at Nigeria from a broad perspective, not a North-South divide. Let’s look at it that as at today, Nigeria operates from six geopolitical zones. If it is now pursued from infrastructural and productive development, it means we are going to have six economic power base, then there will be less pressure on Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano because these three critical areas are looking like the pressure point of our economy. Therefore any prospective candidate for employment now knows that he/she can go anywhere out of these six. Our security situation also makes it even worse in case of Kano. These are areas that it is only government that can do that not what any individual can do. An individual’s money can only go to where it is considered safe. You won’t work for your money and want to put it in a place where you lose it the following day so these are areas we need to address and I can tell you things will fall in place.

 

Group Managing Director, VFD Group Plc, Nonso Okpala, is a well-rounded finance and economy expert, with extensive coverage of the Nigerian and global economy. In this interview with Deputy Group Business Editor, Taofik Salako, Okpala speaks on financial inclusion, savings and investments, economic outlook and macroeconomic development among others

What factors will shape the overall macroeconomic environment this year? 

The Nigerian economy in 2021 experienced some improvement in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth as sectors that were shut during the heat of the pandemic in 2020 reopened. As 2022 progresses, the overall macroeconomic environment will likely be shaped by these major factors, including political environment, foreign exchange (forex), crude oil price and COVID-19 pandemic.

We expect that increased political activities towards 2023 general elections will, as usual, generate some economic uncertainties and tensions due to activities of politicians and political parties and may likely put more pressure on inflation and exchange rate, especially in the second half of the year.

Also, the complexity of accessing forex is most likely going to continue in 2022. This has always been a major factor that shapes our macroeconomic environment as a country. For listed companies or businesses that depend on imported raw materials, this will continue to affect their ability to pay dividends and ensure maximum returns to their shareholders.

We expect that the international crude oil price is likely to stay above the 2022 budget reference price of $62 per barrel and crude oil output is also likely to improve following implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). These will likely improve performance of the oil sector and the entire economy.

But we mustn’t forget that the COVID-19 is still very much around and will continue to be a major factor shaping the economy. How the government, institutions, and organisations-private and public respond to it in terms of instituted policies will have ripple effects on the macro-economic environment.

Nigeria has seen continuing decline in foreign direct investments (FDIs) and foreign portfolio investments (FPIs). What are the reasons for this and what can be done to reverse this?

The decline in foreign investments could be attributed to the condition of Nigeria’s economic and business space, as well as the security challenges, poor infrastructures, socioeconomic uncertainties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, negative macroeconomic indices and mismatch in policies that had failed to give direction.

Huge concerns around foreign exchange liquidity, capital repatriation, rising inflation and the deterioration in the macro-environment have also dampened the appetite of FPIs. In addition, the Nigerian Exchange (NGX), and mutual funds both recorded bearish performances with the NGX ASI on negative yield between January and June 2021 and only 25 out of 118 listed mutual funds posting growth in the first quarter of 2021.

A possible increase in foreign inflow will be supported by the combination of significant improvement in operating environment and the capital market, relative stability in the foreign exchange market, improved security conditions and deliberate government policies that impacts ease of doing business.

The Nigerian equities market has sustained two years of nominal positive returns. What’s your projection for this year?

The equities market is not reflecting impressive corporate earnings or a continuous uptick in fixed income enough to weigh on the market. However, a decline in inflation and a convergence of forex rates and forex stability will boost investor confidence and improve FPI in the equities sector. Those are a few of the conditions that will indicate whether a recovery will occur for NGX ASI, although some sectors are already seeing positive year-to-date (YTD) performance. In addition, the Securities and Exchange omission (SEC) is working on various initiatives, which, we are hopeful, would significantly increase local participation in the market.

The sticky issue of national debts and revenue remains. What’s your thought on national debt and national growth?

Our debt profile is on the rise, and this is well documented. The bigger challenge is our ability to generate revenue. Currently, most of the government revenue is used in debt servicing, which will keep on increasing as the Federal Government will likely obtain more loans domestically and externally to fund the 2022 budget. Hence the focus in the future should be on how to enhance our revenue, and how future debt utilisation must support actual economic growth.

What’s your group innovating in line with theincreasing digitisation of global economy?

In line with the increasing digitisation of the global economy, we have consolidated on our various investments in Tech companies and established our fully owned technology-focused subsidiary – VFD Tech Limited – which has been at the forefront of providing IT support services to the Group and also leading the various digitisation initiatives across all our subsidiaries.

We have digitised investments in artworks and at the moment, investors can own a share of the most expensive artworks across the world simply by buying units or tokens of the artwork. This is made possible through our alternative investment subsidiary – Artsplit.

We are also replicating similar initiative in the real estate industry. We are digitising approach to real estate investing through our real estate subsidiary – HEREL. And very soon, Nigerians will be able to own a share or unit of properties in choice areas by simply buying a token of the asset which can be transferable, used as collateral for credit facilities or sold off to potential buyers at a premium.

Despite recovery in the secondary equities market, the primary market is still somewhat inactive. What’s responsible for this and how do we reactivate a liquid and vibrant primary market?

The relatively dormant nature of the primary market has primarily been induced by a number of factors ranging from the lack of depth in the market to founders not wanting to go through the hurdles of exposing their books to the entire public, and a strong desire to remain in full control of their companies. In the last five years, the market has not seen up to 10 new listings, most of which were by introduction, like GSPEC Plc, BUA Foods, Airtel Africa listed by initial public offering (IPO) but only for qualified institutional investors. While listing in the market will allow these companies a greater access to funding and consequently expansion and give room for investors who are interested in the growth of the company a chance to own a part, albeit small, owners of these companies are still struggling to find a good use case for listing on the market considering they have access to alternative funding sources. Furthermore, by staying away from the market, they get to retain full ownership and control of their companies and avoid some of the stringent rules that come with being listed.

Further deepening of the market with the introduction of additional products and services, relaxing some of the stringent rules and listing conditions, and putting checks in place to ensure that insider dealing is as limited as possible could potentially improve participation in the primary market.

Nigeria’s savings and investment ratio remains within the lowest ebb globally. What can be done by stakeholders to enrich culture of savings and investments?

The first approach is to examine the various factors influencing the poor savings and investments culture among Nigerians. Some of them include economic conditions such as – high cost of living, lack of confidence in government and key stakeholders in the country’s financial system, impulsive purchase, cultural beliefs and poor infrastructural facilities that could promote savings habit.

Going by the way the country is structured, many economic activities take place in the informal sector which means that some savings are being held in the non-financial form, hence it is necessary to introduce financial products or instruments that will respond to these kinds of savings, permit easy accessibility and allow for small transactions at frequent intervals.This will encourage the informal savings to shift to the formal system and thus making such assets available for productive investments.

What are your corporate strategic plans in the short, medium to long term?

Currently, we are building Africa’s first truly diverse business ecosystem. Looking ahead, one of our key strategic plans is to be a global proprietary investment firm listed on one of the world’s leading exchanges, and we are already in the process of building this. We have designed a roadmap to take us there, with industry and cross boarder expansion plans staggered along the way, and I am positive that given our trajectory and the support of our stakeholders, we will achieve this.

Media strategist, web developer, and public relations practitioner, Bukola Sawyerr Izeogu is known for her groundbreaking image creation and strategic development. She works as a publicist, sending out news releases and coordinating promotional campaigns. Record releases or fundraising shows may be part of these promotional operations.

In other circumstances, working as an entertainment promoter with a strong network of correspondents and researchers to pitch new stories to print publications. Since then, Bukola Sawyerr has worked to increase the public acceptability of firms by dispelling myths and developing an advocacy strategy for building a positive reputation and increasing goodwill.

She is also reputed for developing various event approaches to promote marketing programs for music concerts, product lines, commercials, sporting events, non-profit, and philanthropic engagements.

Meanwhile, she has worked with the media to provide positive, consistent, and trustworthy information to the public about an organization’s mission, policies, and procedures. One can imagine her with her arms folded, planning tactics and solutions to offset the myriad of reputational losses that we have across the global sector.

The team delivers PR solutions to a lagging brand through her company, BukiHQ Media, by analyzing the brand strengths and Unique Selling Proposition to develop a credible image and perception for the business through strategic communications.

 

Furthermore, the brand monitors how consumers view their business and takes tactical steps in this regard to boost its image and reputation through a collaborative effort. As a result, it is all about keeping an eye on and safeguarding the brand’s online reputation in places like forums, online media, and search engines.\

Managing Director, Jaiz Bank Plc, Mr. Hassan Usman, leads Nigeria’s premier non-interest bank and flagship for the emerging alternative finance market. In this interview monitored by Tofunmi Sanusi, Usman speaks on alternative financing instruments, entrepreneurship and macroeconomic issues, among others.

 

Talking about Islamic financing, it’s obviously becoming more popular in the country with many new entrants in that subsector. How can the government leverage this mode of financing to solve problems, create jobs, promote agricultural revolution, provide energy and address the challenges of underdevelopment?

Islamic financing by its nature is transaction- or asset-based. The Federal Government can and has recently started using some of the instruments like the Sukuk, which it has used to raise well over N600 billion in the last three years to develop specific roads around the country. This mode of financing for public expenditure means you cannot divert the resources, you cannot use the money that you raised except for that which you had intended. So, it lends credence to the utilisation and also ensures that these resources are earmarked for specific developmental projects. If you look at the other side, while looking at small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs). Islamic finance tends to be more risk-bearing with the SMEs. This is so encouraging as it means that the SMEs sector can grow with the support of this type of financing. It makes gains by sharing risks and the reward of whatever business it supports. In essence, this variant of financing is more on the spot. It is not an absentee financing instrument. It tends to be more involved and therefore ensures more discipline in the utilisation of resources in such a way that you can ensure delivery. It also opens itself to the private-public partnership (PPP) environment where the private sector, using Islamic banking products, can actually work with the government to develop long-term infrastructure because the profit- sharing arrangement allows that to happen.

As a key player in the ethical banking sector, in what ways can you say Jaiz Bank has actually touched the lives of Nigerians?

Since we started in 2012, we’ve been able to grow our activities around financing real sector in the economy, bringing and supporting new companies and new industries coming up, which had, and to some extent, still very difficult. We have also been financing SMEs and working with vulnerable groups, women group, people at the bottom of the pyramid because we are ready to take that risk and to nurture them. We give them equity rather than loans and share in their profits and the downside, if it happens. We help in controlling the risk environment and ensuring that people do not take advantage of the group and we’ve been able to see that group financing can happen with very reasonable level of success, especially with our experiment and pilot projects working with women, over 5,000 over the last one and half years with very minimal default. This energises us and gives us hope that definitely with the right environment and orientation, we can work with people at the bottom of the pyramid, not as a gift or dash but to work with them so that they can develop their entrepreneurial skills and grow their businesses with multiple benefits to the bank, the economy and the individuals that are also involved. There are other things that we can do. What we have been trying to do is to work with the spectrum either from corporate to SMEs to bring this diversity to them in terms of product offering. Let them understand what Islamic finance is all about. Let them see the difference and also ensure that for those who are used to conventional financing, they have the opportunity to diversify the portfolio of financing mix that they are doing.They can take the conventional or Islamic product and they can see the difference.This gives them some  kind of portfolio diversification of their financing need. This is for  those that are in the mainstream. For those that we have to include, who for ethical reasons, have not been part of the financial system. We’ve been able to bring a lot of them into the financial system through our ethical products and that has proved, even in very difficult times, very satisfying to us. Because of our orientation and the type of products we have, we are able to deliver a number of transactions, like Takaful insurance, for those that never would have imagined that they would be adopting insurance. This is a major achievement in the national quest for financial inclusion, especially seeing that even as a nation, the level of insurance penetration is low.

 Jaiz Bank’s results have shown improved gross earnings and higher profits compared to the previous year. What is the bank doing differently for these significant results it has been recording?

As a modern bank, what we have tried to do is to work with our customer base to create value and share that value between us  and our customers with a very high level of equity around it, such that this will make them to patronise the organisation more. We’ve also tried to consolidate and expand, to cover many areas of the commercial centres in Nigeria. In addition to the fact that with the introduction of the Sukuk, our treasury function has improved because if you know, for more than six years as a bank, we didn’t have instrument to invest our surplus liquidity on until the Sukuk came in 2017. The fact that we are mindful of the cost that we incur make us to not only ensure that our profit is growing at more than 50 per cent per annum but also that the size of the organisation has been growing in the last three to four years by well over 30 per cent. As you know, in 2020, we grew our  balance sheet by almost 40 per cent. Overall, in spite of COVID-19, we experienced relatively a successful year in 2020 and this has also continued. We grew our profitability by almost 70 per cent in half year 2021. Part of what we have been doing is to try to optimise our treasury operations. We also have been able to expand the business by opening more branches as well as covering more SMEs space to grow the economy and balance sheet as well.

Read Also: Jaiz Bank completes N3.3b private capital raising

Let’s talk about the forex policy introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). What’s your take now that banks are the sole distributors of foreign exchange?

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has always taken a number of initiatives to ensure that foreign exchange is made available to those who genuinely need such, either because they have to travel to obtain tertiary medical care abroad, or they have wards that are studying and have to pay their fees. All of these, the CBN has tried to deliver through the Bureau De Change. As you know, traditionally, it is the bank’s job to provide all of these to bring them very close to customers. This process has been abused and is becoming a very big hole for leakages in the system. I think that the apex bank, if you watch over the last couple of years, has been trying to be very responsible and conscious of the nation. As banks, we have also been participating in every situation that requires our help under the leadership of the governor of CBN and Bankers Committee. We try to do almost everything that is possible to support the community and government to deliver whether social service or some issues of national interest. We do intervene where necessary. This is also a case where the Bankers’ Committee has taken it seriously, not only to ensure that this foreign exchange is available to customers but also to strengthen the system so that those abusing the system will be checked out and dealt with, so that the nation will be better for it because I feel people should not be abusing our system and thus making policy and strategies of the governor of CBN on fiscal and monetary policies difficult.

What is your assessment of the challenges of the economy and how they have impacted the banking sector?

The Nigerian economy is facing a lot of challenges. We’ve been a mono economy for a long time so anytime the price of petroleum products is affected, we are affected. In 2019, we had recession, 2020 we had COVID-19 and we have had Boko Haram for more than 10 years, exhausting our resources that could have gone into real development.The bandits are affecting farmers too, many farmers are unable to go to their farms and increase the production that would have compensated for the growth in population and also the challenges with the proceeds from the production of crude oil. We have fundamental issues around policies and ease of doing business, a lot, therefore, has to be fixed whether it has to do with land or infrastructure issues. Recently, insecurity has worsened the challenges that we, as a nation, are facing, both on economic and political fronts. These are things that affect all of us. I think that the government should continue to focus on dealing with security issues because without peace and security, we cannot increase or maintain growing economic activity. All the policies that are needed to reform our institutions and economy, to make business easy to do and encourage the development of infrastructure through public-private partnership should be attended to. To fix the economy is a big challenge, but when the right policies are put in place to attract both local and international investors, the private sector will ensure that we grow higher than the average of two per cent, which is really below the population growth, which is going to put us into more trouble, if we don’t really fix this growth problem.

The solutions are for the government to try and fix insecurity and do more reforms. For a nation to see growth, it has to invest in infrastructure.The capital budget is shrinking year in year out and even the utilisation of the budget is more on the downside. Even if you’re borrowing to fix some of these infrastructure, make sure that what you are fixing can also benefit the society or produce the kind of value that can repay those loans.

By Ibrahim Adams

Driven by the urge to awaken the consciousness of youths to realise their potential, Mayomikun Fadipe, a seasoned human potential coach has released an e-book titled untying the rope of depression.

This book was written to proffer solutions to youths caught in the web of depression due to their failed attempts while seeking for greener pasture and to teach them how they can take advantage of that period to start a journey to self-discovery like she also did.

Commenting on the e-book, the author highlighted unemployment as a major cause of depression among the Nigerian youths.

“If you’ve ever imagined the world without light bulb, art, music, phones, computers and other inventions created by men who utilized their potentials, you will understand how disastrous it is for potentials to lie untapped.

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“Considering the rate of unemployment and the insatiable needs of man, there has been a shift of focus to survival.

“Such focus that only seeks to find answer to the need to put food on the table, find a place to lay our heads and clothes to cover our nakedness.

“This has become a major distraction to young minds that they bury their potentials without even realizing it. The transition from the Paleolithic period to the modern age is instigated by the brain or mind of a child who chose not to settle for mediocrity but unleash their potential. This inspired my Vlog, 60Seconds+withMayo,” she said.

Fadipe’s passionate drive to see youths reach their highest potential has birth life transforming results. She has spoken on several stages addressing the reasons several potentials lie untapped and inspiring young minds to dare to go for more and become their best version.

With Fadipe you get access to premium coaching services as an individual who seek personal and career development, a startup founder who needs support or a company in need of boosting employee productivity and overall performance at work or collaboration with an insightful coach.

Victor Ola, CEO of TravelbySelf, a travel agency in Nigeria, is set to host a free webinar to provide Nigerians with travel knowledge on Canadian Immigration.

The webinar is open to those in need of guidance on the simplest and most reliable way to study, work and live in Canada without writing the IELTS exam or paying an exuberant fee to travel agents.

Speaking about the purpose of the webinar, Ola stated that there are opportunities available for Nigerians to obtain knowledge, skills and gainful employment in Canada.

He said the webinar was born out of the need to help people avoid hasty disappointments and prepare them for an intensive professional path towards international immigration.

“I know how arduous it is for youths to get access to the kind of education that they deserve in the country. TravelbySelf agency has been set up to help young Nigerians secure admission placement in Canada and also gives visa support to help bring their study ambition burgeons to life without being duped by fake visa agents,” he said.

Read Also: Centre gives free training to 26 youths

“This is my way of giving back to the community, by providing a unique opportunity for young stars to leverage on my experience to help fulfill their dreams.

“Many people are on the verge of giving up on their dreams of relocating to Canada, it may appear to be a difficult path to tread but it’s not impossible. There’s an easier way to go about it, the webinar will provide a solution to all the travel fears that people might have.

“I want to ensure that the youths get all they need to have that great future without having to break the bank. I’ll be disclosing the surest way for anyone to secure lucrative jobs that can guarantee them over $50,000 per annum.

“The good news about the pathway I’m revealing in the webinar isn’t limited by class or status, but works for all – skilled or not skilled, rich or average, there will be key learning to help every class of Nigerian.”

He added: “Participants of the webinar are expected to discover how to fast track permanent immigration to Canada, how to properly apply for a work permit, how to obtain a Canadian passport for themselves and their family members, the proper process to migrate a family to Canada legally and how to land a well-paying job with six months of arriving in Canada.”

Ola is an emigration expert with many years of teaching experience on Canadian immigration and citizenship.

Having studied in Canada via a fully funded scholarship, his teaching ranges from immigration process, applying for work permits and successfully immigrating families to Canada legally.

If there is one thing about Akinlolu Jekins that endeared him to many, it will definitely be his doggedness and focus on achieving and breaking new grounds.

Akinlolu “Jekins” Jikiemi is a passionate event consultant & manager, dedicated talent manager and a businessman extraordinaire.

The UK-based events manager has the success of over hundred highly-successful and widely-acclaimed UK tours and shows to his credit.

Fondly called Jekins by friends, acquaintances and fans, he has consistently proved that passion, hard work and resilience are some of the most important characteristics of any thriving businessman.

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Born in the early 80s, Akinlolu is the first son in a family of 5. His passion and interest in entertainment have been with him from his tender years.

Akinlolu obtained his BSc in Medical Microbiology from one of the first private universities in Nigeria, West Africa (Babcock University) before relocating to the United Kingdom.

Akinlolu’s passion for entertainment, specifically the management aspect, spurred him to set into the entertainment industry. There is no denying that he has established himself as a strong force to reckon with in the UK-Africa entertainment industry.

He has promoted tons of impressive club events across the United Kingdom. He has had the cause to work with some of the biggest promoters in London; the likes of Omoba Champs, BadGuyToba, Adevogue, BillyQUEB, KayoEnt, MikeL, Alaba Badabing, Dean Smooth , Deji Smooth, DJ Excel , Blacknights , Amour A Star, Omowhyte , 1st ChoiceKC, DJ Ladi and DJ OsaJatt.

Akinlolu has been the brain behind the successful planning, promoting and management of Julius Agwu’s Crack Ya Ribs (UK) for over 9 years and counting. He has also worked in the UK with the likes of SeyiLaw, Senator comedian, Chris Mapane ( South Africa ), Lafin Gas, AliBaba , Helen Paul, Okey Bakassi, Dan D Humorous, Funnybone, Osama, Princess comedian, Maleke Comedian, Sammy Okposo, Tim Godfrey, Onos Ariyo, IgoDye, IGosave, MrPatrick, Comedian Acapella,McLively, Akpororo, McAbbey, Gordons D’Belusconi, Pencil comedian, Sinach , Tope Alabi, Korede Bello, Reminisce and Humblesmith.

He is held in high esteem by fellow promoters, colleagues and clients for his dedication and his dogged approach to work.