Kayode Robert Idowu

‘If President Trump is a phobic warrior, Nigerians who abuse their visa terms provide him ready ammunition’

 

NEWS emerged last week that the United States government of President Donald Trump has penciled Nigerians among nationals of seven countries marked for visa restriction under a policy scheduled to be unveiled.

According to reports attributing the Wall Street Journal, Nigeria is in unflattering league with Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Sudan, Eritrea and Tanzania being considered for the policy. Not that there would be a blanket ban on affected nationals entering the US, but they would be restricted on business and visitor visas known as the B1/B2 visas.

This decision, the reports said, resulted from many Nigerians visiting the US but who have refused to leave despite the expiration of their visa.

The Wall Street Journal was quoted saying: “The Trump administration plans to add seven countries to a group of nations subject to travel restrictions. They include Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, along with others in Africa and Asia, according to administration officials who have seen the list…The new restrictions would apply to travellers and immigrants from Belarus, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania. These countries wouldn’t necessarily face blanket bans on travel to the US, but could have restrictions placed on specific types of visas such as business or visitor visas, administration officials said.”

When contacted for comments last week, the Nigerian presidency said it would not react until Washington formally rolls out the policy, with its dimensions and implications ascertained.

The number of Nigerians visiting the United States in recent history has been ballooning – rising from 55,581 in 2009 to 143,783 in 2018 according to records of the US embassy in Nigeria cited by the ICIR newsletter. The newsletter also reported that US visa issuance to Nigerians has been the highest in Africa at 179,145 in 2016, compared with Algerians at 16,107, Egyptians (68,639), Ghanaians (12,446), Kenyans (27,079), Moroccans (19,897) and South Africans (61,273). Out of a total of 493,989 visas granted citizens of these seven African countries in 2018, Nigerians got the lion’s share at 143,783 issuances.

As it were, Nigerians’ enthusiasm for going to the United States has brooked no inhibition. In August, last year, the US embassy announced a new tariff for some categories of non-immigrant visas issued to Nigerians, which it said derived from a reciprocity fee necessitated by higher costs of Nigerian visas to US citizens. But whereas the reciprocity fee jolted the Nigerian government out of 18-month dallying into swiftly dipping the cost of Nigerian visas to Americans, the US embassy held on to its reciprocity fee.

Such enthusiasm had much earlier on resulted in this country being excluded from the yearly US Diversity Visa Lottery programme designed by Washington to attract citizens of nations with low rates of immigration to the United States. The US embassy has it on its website that Nigerians are no longer eligible for the programme, implying that the nationals of this country are overrepresented already in the American population.

Meanwhile, President Trump is never known to be enamoured with the presence of immigrants in his country – especially those from nations for which he has in the past betrayed xenophobic hubris. Sometime in January 2018, the American leader was reported by The Washington Post labelling African nations and the southern American states of Haiti and El Salvador “shithole countries” during a parley on immigration at the White House with a bipartisan group of senators. Although he offered tame denials, saying the language he used at the meeting “was tough, but this (‘shithole’) was not the language used,” the remark fitted so well with his character that many preferred to believe he did use those words.

A few months earlier, The New York Times had scooped a closet meeting on immigration where the American leader reportedly remonstrated 40,000 visas issued Nigerians because once they have seen the U.S., they would never “go back to their huts” in Africa. At that meeting he also reportedly deplored the 15,000 immigrants from Haiti in 2017, grumbling that they “all have AIDS.” The White House vigorously denied those claims, but credibility deficit weighed heavily on its side. That was more so with many ‘Trumpscript’ narratives before the American leader took office – like when he allegedly said African-Americans were lazy and good at nothing other than gallivanting and making love; and the mythical rally in Wichita, Kansas where he purportedly vowed to get rid of Nigerians to make America great again if he won the presidency. He allegedly said at that rally: “Why can’t they stay in their own country? Why? I’ll tell you why: because they are corrupt. Their governments are so corrupt they rob the people blind and bring it all here to spend. And their people run away and come down here and take our jobs!”

But if President Trump is a phobic warrior, Nigerians who abuse their visa terms provide him ready ammunition. It isn’t just that this country generates the highest traffic from Africa to his homeland – an offensive enough factor for a xenophobe, many of our compatriots discard the set timelines in their visas and hunker down in the United States beyond the expiration of their entry conditions. Recall that this latest policy, as it was reported, owed to the fact that many Nigerians visiting the US have refused to leave despite the expiration of their visas.

If Washington does make good with the new policy as reported, I do not see any appropriate response from the Nigerian presidency other than to dissuade Nigerians from abusing their visa conditions. More importantly though, it is a frontal challenge to Nigerian leaders to make this country attractive enough as to disincentivise its citizens from thronging Trump’s disneyland only to refuse going back to “their huts” in Africa.

The high traffic of Nigerian travellers arguably indexes mass escape from developmental challenges facing the country, and the onus invariably falls on those in power to work at turning this tide. (Well, even the leaders are suspected of their own little ‘escapes.’ Recently when President Muhammadu Buhari visited the United Kingdom, he left Abuja on Friday for a meeting that was not to commence until the following Monday!) It could be counter-argued that the trend rather evidenced material affluence that enables more Nigerians than other Africans to travel abroad, only that this does not answer the question why they refuse to return and would rather become detested illegals in Trumpland.

But while we work at our developmental challenges, travelling Nigerians must learn to safeguard the country’s image by honoring their visa conditions. After all, as they say, you dress as you want to be addressed.

Nigerianised Oxford dictionary

While Mr. Trump is demonising Nigeria and Nigerians, the iconic Oxford English Dictionary last week announced an update of its content with 29 “new additions (that) are either borrowings from Nigerian languages or unique Nigerian coinages.”

According to the dictionary’s World English Editor Danica Salazar, the coinages had become adapted into formal English lexicon over the past half-century. The new entries include ‘agric’ (adj. & n.), ‘barbing salon’ (n.), ‘buka’ (n.) ‘bukateria’ (n.), ‘chop’ (v.), ‘chop-chop’ (n.) ‘danfo’ (n.), ‘to eat money, in eat,(v.) ‘ember months’ (n.) and ‘flag-off’ (n.). Others include ‘to flag off, in flag’ (v.), ‘gist’ (n.), ‘gist’ (v.), ‘gubernatorial’ (adj.), ‘Kannywood’ (n.), ‘K-leg’ (n.), ‘mama put’ (n.), ‘next tomorrow’ (n. & adv’) ‘non-indigene’ (adj. & n.) and ‘okada’ (n.). The rest are ‘to put to bed, in put’ (v.), ‘qualitative’( adj.), ‘to rub minds (together), in rub’ (v.), ‘sef’ (adv.), ‘send-forth’ (n.), ‘severally’ (adv.), ‘tokunbo’ (adj.), ‘zone’ (v.) and ‘zoning’ (n.).

Even as I write this piece, my computer is frantic with red flagging the stated words. And I just laugh, because Nigeria yet has much to input to the world’s evolution.

 

• Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

By Wahab Ogunjobi 

 

Since the advent of electronic commerce (otherwise referred to as e-commerce) in Nigeria in 2012, one can safely say that there has been a steady growth trajectory in that sector overtime.

For a sector largely driven by innovation within the financial system and more importantly, the information and communication technology (ICT), Nigeria’s voyage into that space has been rather momentous.

It is, however, instructive to know that the advent of e-commerce did not just happen out of the blues. With the benefit of hindsight, the precursors of e-commerce in the West including the Amazon, Alibaba, and a host of others, wanted to do away with the traditional platforms for commerce made up of the brick and mortar, which in their own thinking was no longer serving them well, and therefore they felt compelled to lead a rather uncharted territory which, in their own estimation, could still deliver even greater value.

While acknowledging the fact that e-commerce has come a long way as far as its operational activities are concerned in more advanced economies where ICT infrastructure is not taken for granted, the same cannot be said of Nigeria, where it faced several teething problems.

Many players came into this space but sadly, not many of them are still around today. However, the recent upturn in e-commerce enterprises across Africa is believed to be revolutionizing in not just the retail market but also business in general. As of July 2019, Nigeria had a population of 198 million people, of which 112 million were Internet users, placing the penetration rate at 56%, according to the Jumia Mobile Report.

According to McKinsey, the Nigerian e-commerce sector was estimated to be worth US$13 billion in 2018 and is projected to reach $75 billion in revenues per annum by 2025.
Interestingly, some of the rave-making online shopping stores in Nigeria in terms of service, excellence, coverage, and popularity include the following: Jumia, Konga, and Payporte.

A recent independent study and field survey by the Africa Internet Group through listed Senegal, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, and Ghana as the top seven African countries gaining momentum in e-commerce.

Africa Internet Group is a shareholder in online retailer Jumia and nine other e-ventures but Jumia, however, remains its best-known venture. Since its inception in Lagos in 2012, Jumia now operates in 11 African countries selling everything from diapers to iPhones and microwaves. In 2016, the venture-funded company reached a billion-dollar valuation and reported revenues of $149.6 million in 2018. In April 2019, Jumia listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at a valuation of $1.1 billion and recorded a surge in sales arising from its NYSE debut.

Konga was set up in 2012 as a competitor to Jumia, selling a wide range of products from home appliances to groceries. It merged with Yudala in May 2018 but continued to operate under the Konga brand name.
It has been recorded by an online researcher, e-marketer, that while online retail in the US and China is growing at 12% and 20% respectively, it is less than 1% in Africa.

The slow growth of e-commerce in Africa is due to the many challenges facing the continent. Notable among the challenges are the issues of funding and logistics. Also identified is the issue of the continent’s non-existent legal framework to regulate e-commerce.

In Nigeria, some of the logistics challenges include poor road networks and traffic gridlock which are predominant in most commercial cities in Nigeria. This is also the reason why it takes between five and seven days for some major players to deliver goods to customers. The lack of basic infrastructure, power supply, and expensive broadband internet greatly inhibit the rapid growth of e-commerce. Nigeria’s erstwhile notoriety for online fraud has further hindered growth. However, Jumia introduced its own payment platform JumiaPay a few years to counter this challenge and reassure consumers on its platform of the safety and security of their financial details.
Thankfully, the sector which was hitherto unregulated, with room for impunity now has extant laws to guide its operations.

In 2015, the federal government signed the cybercrime bill into law to prohibit and prevent fraud in electronic commerce. The purpose of the Cybercrimes Act of 2015 extends beyond prohibiting, preventing and criminalising online fraud, but also prescribes punishments and sets the institutional framework for enforcement. The goal is to protect e-business transactions, company copyrights, domain names and other electronic signatures in relation to electronic transactions in Nigeria.

Irrespective of the problems identified above, there are tremendous opportunities for e-commerce growth and investment in Nigeria. The ease with which the evolving middle class in Nigeria has access to internet-ready devices – affordable smartphones, tablets, phablets, and computers – is complementary to the growth of e-commerce.

There is enough room for investors (local and foreign) to tap into the buoyant e-commerce space in the country.

For instance, Jumia and Facebook partnered last year to train a handful of people on how e-commerce works and how they can start selling online. The creation of digital jobs and services platforms in the country would augur well both for Nigerian youths and investors. And it is commendable to see that Jumia is already committed to this cause. In the retail and consumer products sector, while many wealthy Nigerians still travel abroad for their shopping, the key market target is the evolving middle class in Nigeria. There is a rapid transition of the low-income class level to the middle-class level, and with the growing population of the country, the market is large and opportunities abound for investors in Nigeria’s e-commerce space.

• Ogunjobi writes from Lagos

Komolafe on Saturday

 

IT bears repeating that Nigeria’s continued existence will be at risk if the rich and the wealthy are not receptive to the clear warning of anger and poverty-induced disillusionments in the land.

First, Aisha Buhari’s warning that most of Nigeria’s leaders, ”as a result of a long time of injustice done to” the mass of the people, ”cannot go to” their ”villages and sleep with”their ”two eyes closed” is an indication that governance in Nigeria has failed; nothing is working! Her passionate plea to  her husband; and those working with him to ”fear God, and … know that, one day, we will all return to God and account for our deeds here on earth” paints a clear picture of how the application or implementation of policy recommendations and remedies of the Buhari-led government have so far fared! Of course, that’s the wife of the sitting president of Nigeria, questioning the relevance, effectiveness or efficiency of Public Administration through government policy directives and their implementations. This is the question on the minds of the common man and woman on the street!

If reports from across Nigeria are also anything to go by, then, one can safely say that the man in the saddle as governor of Oyo State is a very likable person! No sooner had he mounted the saddle of governance than he started doing what truly portrayed him as not only being in charge but also as one helmsman who understands why he was elected to govern the over-6 million-strong population. And, within a few months in office, Seyi Makinde has demonstrated that strategic governance does not reside in building an empire or throwing money around but in building a team and being pragmatic in allocating resources to where they are needed most, in the most appropriate manner! He has proved that responsible leadership is not about the administration of an enclave. Rather, it is about the efficient management of the institution of the state; not even a public institution, because public institutions are located within the institution of the state.

Makinde won the election, not because the then ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state didn’t have laudable ideas but because its handlers were so full of themselves that they didn’t know how to sell those ideas to the electorate. GSM, as he is fondly called by his admirers, has therefore shown that it could happen anywhere! Go to Oyo now: the state is working and the people are happy! Makinde loves his people and his people appreciate him in return! While drawing inspirations from successful countries like Japan, which attained greatness through focus ”on intellectual development”, the governor attributed the scourge of poverty in Nigeria to leadership failure. He insisted that “how we organize ourselves and how we utilize our God-given ”natural resources” is the only thing that can ”take us out of poverty.”

The foregoing painted, in graphic relief, the unfolding-yet-foreboding cataclysmic nature of Nigeria’s fragile democracy. Even, the aristocratic Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, for the first time, saw poverty in its garnished form when he bluntly called for a paradigmatic shift in our applied economic theories, and an overhaul of our public administration system.

The perception of many Nigerians today is that, once the president reels out favourable policy statements, promises and intentions of government (that may never be delivered), government goes to sleep and everybody is on his or her own. Whether or not God be for us all, henceforth, is entirely a different story! For instance, the president promised on assumption of office to recover all Chibok and other Nigerians from Boko Haram’s captivity but, unfortunately, the story, as we speak, has gone from bad to worse. Years on, the Leah Sharibus of Nigeria have been languishing in the terrorists’ den for being who they are. The Emir of Potiskum, Umaru Bubaram Bauya, recently escaped death by the whiskers; and that was after no fewer than four members of his entourage had been brutally murdered by the marauders. More Nigerians are being beheaded. Then, and, as always, provocative, medicine-after-death, ‘all whip, no hay’ Press Statements from the Presidency that is obviously far removed from the people would follow!

So, where do we go from here, because it appears as if effective governance has taken flight? As things stand, politicians are just muddling through! Our policies are neither working nor pragmatic. So, nobody is sure of anything! Like laboratory rats, useful only for experiments, failure to source a creative distance from where we currently pitch our tent, in addition to poor welfare that is painfully customized to suit poverty in our country, has stolen the common man’s heart. So also, the crestfallen status of the Rule of Law and its negative essence has become more palpable in Nigeria’s socio-political firmament. Is it any wonder then why ”we have abundance of” natural resources that are still being wasted”?

Staying with the philosophy of nationhood, that Buhari’s erstwhile persuasive ‘body language’ has failed Nigerians says a lot about the conspicuous challenges of the Nigerian state as a chronically ill society with patronage, patrimony and preference. Available indices are also unhelpful! For instance, Nigeria’s economy is projected to ”have a suppressed economic performance at around 2% by 2020″, due, primarily, to government’s failure ”to fix structural constraints.” And, unless bold steps are taken to address, especially, the ”pace of growth and job creation”, the number of Nigerians stuck in poverty is also most likely to account ”for a quarter of all people living in extreme poverty worldwide.” Evidence before the world has shown that Nigeria’s security architecture has collapsed. It is even being alleged in some quarters that we are using anti-corruption to incentivize corruption. Is it any surprise why there is no war in Nigeria but there is also no peace; why motion is in excess supply while movement is in wanton scarcity?

Again, what happened and where did we go wrong? Why are our leaders engaging in ‘Marlian’ rigmaroles in ways that do not offer us a valuable anchor to believe that they understand even the basic socioeconomic issues that have unfortunately become existential threats to our unity? What are the roles of Nigeria’s Ahitophels and political janjaweeds, whose counsels are never destined to yield to persuasion or dialogue, in all of these? Above all, when last did we feel safe in Nigeria, irrespective of the differences in governments and administrations over the years?

May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!

 

• Komolafe writes in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria (ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)

 

Owoseni Adio

 

THERE has been a welter of criticisms from certain quarters over the recently enacted 2020 Finance Bill which President Muhammadu Buhari signed last Monday.

Of course, the impression being created out there is that the policy would further impoverish Nigerians rather than ameliorate their already poor finances to boot. But this is clearly a poor sense of judgment because those who drafted the Finance Bill were unequivocal in articulating the objective principle behind the Bill; which is, to say the least, to improve the economy.

The Financial Act is an amendment to seven extant fiscal laws, which are: the Petroleum Profit Tax Act, the Customs and Excise Tariff Act, the Company Income Tax Act, the Personal Income Tax Act, the Value Added Tax, the Stamp Duties Act and the Capital Gains Tax.

President Buhari said the Act has five strategic objectives, in terms of achieving incremental, but necessary, changes to the fiscal laws.

These objectives are: Promoting fiscal equity by mitigating instances of regressive taxation; Reforming domestic tax laws to align with global best practices; Introducing tax incentives for investments in infrastructure and capital markets; Supporting Micro, Small and Medium-sized businesses in line with our Ease of Doing Business Reforms; and Raising Revenue for Government.

The new law is expected to make more revenue available to finance key government projects in health, education and critical infrastructure.

One of the features of the new law is that those who want to open or maintain accounts with banks will provide their Tax Identification Number (TIN).

The strategic objectives in the Finance Bill recognises the crucial relationship between fiscal policy, the regulatory environment and the strong capital market we all seek to effect in Nigeria.

The Act is actually a pro-poor initiative by this administration to tax the rich for the benefit of the masses. What this Act has done in essence is to exempt items close to the poor from payment of VAT while aggressively piling it up on luxury goods and items consumed by rich and elite.

Amongst other things, the newly signed bill expands the VAT-exempt items to include honey, bread, cereals, cooking oils, culinary herbs, fish, flour, starch, fruits, meat, poultry, milk, nuts, pulses, roots, salt, vegetables, water, sanitary pads, tampons, tertiary, secondary, primary and nursery tuition.

Interestingly, the Finance bill has exempted small businesses with a turnover of less than N25m from Companies Income Tax and Value Added tax (VAT). It also reduced company Income Tax rate from 30% to 20% for medium-sized companies with a turnover between N25m and N100m. It also shows the government is empowering tax incentives through the Act, for example, a bonus of 2% of tax payable (medium-sized companies) and 1% for large companies for early payment of Companies income tax.

Expectedly, companies with an annual turnover of less than N25m exempted from paying tax represent more than 25 million registered companies in Nigeria. This exemption will lead to more funds available for these companies to reinvest, grow, expand and create more jobs. These are creative ways of enabling businesses, and by extension creating jobs. Finance bill is not about taxing Nigerians.

According to the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajia Zainab Ahmed, the date for the annual budgets to be presented before the National Assembly in the future will be accompanied by a Finance Bill, as such it will provide the country with additional opportunities to incrementally improve the fiscal policy and regulatory/legal environment in order to further strengthen our domestic capital market, and ultimately ensure sustained and inclusive growth and development.

Besides, the law will make the 2020 budget “executable,” as well as make doing business easier for the micro, small and medium enterprises by reducing their tax burden, and to make the national expenditure rely less on oil and gas revenues.

To recapitulate the words of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Babajide Omoworare, the Act combines the amendment of seven extant fiscal laws into one.

“What we have done with one bill is to amend seven other bills that deal with the revenue stream of the budget. This is the first time we are doing it in this democracy, but it used to be the standard, even under the military, once the budget is done, there is a Finance Bill that explained how the funds would be made to support the budget and to talk about amendments within the ambit of these seven revenue generating acts that I’ve mentioned.”

The essence of increasing some taxes and tariffs, to a large extent, is to encourage production ultimately as well as diversification of the economy, thus moving away from oil and gas and ensuring that manufacturing remains stable. Can Nigeria afford a situation where things should be allowed to get so bad and beyond redemption? Shouldn’t we support a system tailored towards turning the economic tide for good? This is the ideal and idea behind the new law, which every well-meaning Nigerian should support.

• Adio, a public affairs analyst, writes from Lagos

 

By Godwin Nwabunka

 

These women sell everything from vegetables and cosmetics to clothes and meals like ewa agoyin and akara. They get up at the crack of dawn and spend their days negotiating with customers and suppliers; managing what staff they have – all the while trying to draw in customers, in order to make enough money to support their families. I know this because over a one year period, we at Grooming Centre embarked on a project with the MasterCard Centre for Inclusive Growth, aimed at properly tracking and analysing these women’s sales logs, amongst other things. What we found was both remarkable and revealing: the impact of contributions of the bottom of the pyramid to Nigeria’s economy is often underestimated.

Of Nigeria’s 200 million citizens, 88 million — or 44.2% — are at the bottom of the pyramid. These individuals are the drivers of the nation’s informal sector, and ultimately, its unleavened potential. They are your small and micro- entrepreneurs: your market traders, cleaners, your hairdressers, mechanics, motorcycle riders, and so on.  Currently, the informal sector makes up about 60% of Nigeria’s economy, with a growth rate of 8.5% in the last two years.

Women are more likely to be part of the informal economy; and of this informal sector, women face disproportionately greater financial access barriers, which prevent their full participation in the economy. The potential at the bottom of the pyramid in Nigeria is evident, and yet, the gender gap in access to financial services persists across all types of financial services.  For example, women are less likely than men to have formal bank accounts and even less likely to have borrowed. Globally, women-owned small businesses face a credit gap of $1.7 trillion, limiting their ability to grow. This reality is replicated a little closer to home, in Kenya, where women are only able to access 7% of total available formal credit.

According to the World Bank, Africa has the highest growth rate of female-run businesses in the world, and across emerging markets, female owned small and medium-sized enterprises represent nearly 40% of all SMEs (some nearly 10 million women- owned firms) — a figure that nearly doubles with the inclusion of female micro-entrepreneurs. Remarkably, however, in these markets, women-owned micro/small businesses have unmet financial needs of US$260 – US$320 billion a year.  To drive the point home, the available global evidence indicates that Nigeria’s GDP could grow by 23% —or $229 billion— by 2025 if women participated in the economy to the same extent as men (through opening bank accounts, accessing loans, etc.).

As we think about developing solutions to the barriers faced by women in accessing credit, it is useful to remind ourselves about why this particular agenda is of urgent and utmost importance. Beyond moral arguments about social justice, basic human dignity and giving the most marginalised members of our society greater chances at life, there are significant economic benefits that we all reap when women are included.

Women often invest a higher proportion of their income back into their families and communities than men. Evidence from around the world shows us that when women’s access to credit and other financial services is improved, they expand their businesses, directly increasing the productivity of their communities. They also invest more in their children’s education and health — two key intergenerational levers of development outcomes.  A study conducted in Bumala Village in Kenya showed that access to savings accounts for female market vendors allowed them to keep higher levels of inventory and therefore have higher incomes. Another randomised field experiment among 1,148 poor women in 40 villages across rural Mongolia showed that group loans had a positive impact on female entrepreneurship in particular.  Amongst women who participated in the experiment, there was an overall increase of 9% in the incidence of women operating a business, compared to the control group.

In addition to institutional barriers which both women and men at the bottom of the pyramid face, women — perhaps rural women in particular, face additional socio-cultural barriers. Beyond the language barriers and cultural notions about women’s roles at home, in many parts of Nigeria, women cannot own or otherwise cede ownership of landed property and chattel to the male figures in their families. As such, credit facilities which rely on the existence of some form of physical collateral necessarily exclude these otherwise industrious but under-capitalised women.  A better indicator of credit-worthiness would be a track record of enterprise or savings history based on formal or informal methods. These will necessarily entail intensive engagement with these women and their communities — but if we are to be intentional about building a femeconomy, including these diligent women at the bottom of the pyramid, and ensuring our collective economic growth as a result — these are the sacrifices we must be prepared to make.

One other limiting factor is the lack of awareness of credit products/services available. Innovation in the last few years has certainly translated to an increase in the number and types of products available to low income individuals in Nigeria. However, often, these products are not marketed in ways that our already marginalised women can understand or trust. Financial institutions have also adopted models that often do not translate to uptake in consumption by small and micro-entrepreneurs — given the highly informal nature of these businesses. In addition, the paucity of gender-disaggregated demand-side data means that financial institutions often do not understand the nature and form of the credit needs of Nigeria’s underserved small and microentrepreneurs. First, understanding these nuances is critical. Our financial institutions must then design and scale products, sales and servicing models to appropriately cater to these women.

None of this is to say that all women at the bottom of the pyramid are dynamic, ambitious and industrious individuals who will shine given the credit needed to improve their economic outcomes. In reality, in addition to being economically marginalised; these women are often also socially and educationally marginalised. It is important for financial institutions to determine where skills or financial literacy training and social preparation are necessary inputs which will extend the impact of any credit facilities made available, and for public actors and private players who are able, to encourage the consistent and continuous transfer of human capital.

• Godwin Nwabunka writes from Lagos

Abiodun Okunola

 

THE onerous task of building an efficient and functional society requires the right mix of vision and pragmatism, focus, accountability and resourcefulness on the part of the leadership and the ability to put in place the right institutions. Today, a good number of nations are success stories because they have been able to achieve a perfect blend of all outlined strategic factors.  Whilst some societies have become posters for good system and governance, many countries especially in the Global south are still grappling with the challenges of building working societies. Most African countries including Nigeria continue to rank very low on all indexes of development in the world. There is a surfeit of people who put themselves forward for leadership offices but there still exists a yawning gap of vision, focus, efficiency, accountability, good governance and direction. It will be blue murder to conclude that Nigeria’s leadership crisis stems from the dearth of people whose thought processes are aligned with national development and good governance. Instead, the problem has been getting or identifying the right to lead us.

The fact that we live in a very dysfunctional society which squanders flamboyant praises on mediocrity is well understood. But I am most grateful to have had the rare opportunity if being mentored by some of Nigeria’s best, rarest and informed intellectuals such as Professor Wole Soyinka and Professor Olaopa. I have long come to the understanding that humanity benefits immensely from the gifting and skills of many people, especially intellectuals and this is provable from history. Iron sharpens iron. Albert Einstein was mentored by Alfred Kleiner, a Professor of experimental physics at Zurich and Einstein went on to influence science. Olaopa was mentored by Nigeria’s best public policy experts and intellectuals like Simeon Adebo, Ojetunji Aboyade, Akin Mabogunje, and others. One of the fundamental issues with most societies, especially like what we find in Nigeria is the wide disconnect between intellectualism, which are produced in the ivory towers, and the society.

Thus, public intellectualism, which can be described as social application and relevance of intellectualism, is the way in which the ivory tower can bring itself into relevance in every way. Foremost scholar and public intellectual, Edward Said said “it is important that the uncommon gift in the very few must be amplified to benefit the larger many. No society respects what does not yield benefit even when it is exotic. Society will only turn its lens towards intellectualism when it can get more than the worth of the association”. Said’s position rests very well with what has become the life mission of Professor Tunji Olaopa, an intellectual who has been able to successfully blend intellectualism with social impetus and relevance. Olaopa, as a graduate of Political Science and Theory joined the Nigeria Civil Service, rose to the pinnacle of his career and after twenty seven years of meritorious service, constructive engagements, selfless responsibilities and remarkable accountability; he retired as a Permanent Secretary. Yet, he is far from being tired as he has redoubled his engagement with the Nigeria nation through diverse engagements.

Olaopa’s engagement with intellectualism casts him in a different frame, away from the norm, as he applied himself diligently and irrevocably to the task of reforming the glory of the civil service from its gory state. One time leader of defunct Yugoslavia, Joseph Tito said “public expectations can be controlled, public reception can be managed, but public opinion is left to the impressions that are created, perceived and managed all from inside to outside”. As a rabid proponent of the town-gown connection, Olaopa believes that knowledge produced in the ivory tower becomes like effluent, in the consideration of the society, if they are not properly situated and made to address social questions and needs in the heart of members of the society.

In most societies, ancient and contemporary, the town has had a long standing pattern of dissonance with the ‘exclusive’ world of intellectuals, seeing them as “nose in the ear’ chauvinists. Olaopa’s involvement, as a practitioner, took a new shape with his retirement from the civil service, as the insights and experience have helped him in his campaign and mission for public service reforms. He has become more prolific with his pen. His writings are focused on celebrating the ideals of an ideal civil service, locating policies as key to development and consistent application of intellectualism to the overall development of public institutions and the society. Not a politician, yet he has words for those in politics; not a development practitioner but he draws from global best practices to write and speak effectively on public policy and institutional reforms. I find Olaopa between the lines of Soyinka’s poem Mandela’s Earth And Other Poems, and for me, the sounds from your pen frightens me – your ink crystallise into building blocks for a society that understands how to weave them into effective policies. Olaopa is not just an intellectual but one of the very few intellectuals who have successfully created a perfect blend of the innovations of the ivory towers with the social necessities of the town. It is not unusual to see Olaopa’s thought and ideas straddling knowledge spaces and disciplines. His ideas are reconcilable with and relevant to stereotyped and peculiar societal needs.

Professor Olaopa has shown that great minds need to do more than just theorizing to captivate the public as they once did, because the university has become too insular and academic thinking is too narrow. The intellectual who will find relevance must be public oriented. I can also say academics no longer possess the privilege of complacency, of choosing to remain cloistered within the walls of the academy, of engaging only with the members of their disciplines. They must assume greater roles as agents of change and effects, and perform services that promote the public good. That is what Olaopa does very well, as he has, by his strides and remarkable engagements in civil service reforms.

No matter what their discipline is, academics must assume integral roles in contributing to the public good. As Professor Linda Adler-Kassner argues that by engaging with the public, intellectuals can shape public perceptions of their work and worth. “If we do not tell the stories of our disciplines, journalists are more than happy to fill that void, and the results can be less than satisfying. Academics need to do more than simply offer a few workshops or write a certain number of articles”, she pointed out.

However, it is important that the intellectual must be able to cover the space between the laboratories, research towers and the society. The intellectual must be able to bridge the divide between the gown and the town; a long standing problem in our clime. That is where the public intellectual becomes relevant today.