Category: Opinion

By Linus Obogo

 

 

In May 29, 2015, he burst forth with a messianic zest, full of gusto and bravura of a leader who knew the way, ready to go the way in order to show the way.

Assuming office literally as an undertaker then, with the state in near economic comatose, Ayade set sail with fidelity in God, courage in his heart, belief in his mission and with an assured victory in his soul to confront the odds stacked against him as then fledgling governor.

For a state that was on a razor edge between renewal and collapse, between life and despair, Ayade would, rather than inter it, begin the process of oxygenating and resuscitating the anaemic state with a view to ultimately getting it out of the ‘intensive care unit’ (ICU).

With an unfaltering determination, the governor knew that to dream lofty dreams, dare mighty things, win glorious triumphs, he must not ensconce himself in complacency and self-pity but be creative and adopt strategies to address the challenges that confronted the state.

It was for this reason that his ascension into the governance architecture of the state was welcomed by many with such messianic hallelujah. Instructively, six years down the line, Ayade has neither veered off the tracks nor cut short the expectations of many who hold him in such redemptive awe.

As a solution architect, the governor sees every challenge, every stricture and obstacle in his way as an opportunity to adroitly prove his resourcefulness and ingenuity in tackling the many socioeconomic miasmas he inherited.

A leader with I-can-do spirit, just when you doubt Ayade’s capacity, he springs forth and astounds you, leaving you captive and speechless.

Like the Biblical Joseph, Ayade saw a vision and dreamed dreams. He dreamed of a state that was decoupled from the begging bowl of the federation account. And like Nostradamus, he had long seen our tomorrow while we slumbered and snored.  He envisioned our tomorrow with a determination to create a prosperity agenda.

The fight to claw back the state from its economic doldrums seemed daunting. But for the governor, it was not about the dog in the fight but rather the fight in the dog. And before long, he would show his brains and brawn aplenty in the days and years to come.

With a near zero allocations from the federal purse and a lean internally generated revenue, many in his position would have baulked or thrown in the towel and screamed in helplessness, but the governor has continued to keep his eyes on the ball while he focuses on his lofty dreams to hew a pathway to the state’s economic Eldorado in a bid to put the future in our hands and wealth in our pockets.

With a headstrong approach and a passion to achieve, Governor Ayade would set out punching above his weight and beyond the carrying capacity of the state with a view to recalibrating what was then a tottering economy.

From a bold and daring move, characterized by a leap of faith and audacity of hope, would sprout images of triumphs and successes wrapped in exhilarating chapters of an engrossing industrialization story.

A leader on a mission to transform, Ayade wended his charted way from the well-worn and pervasive transactional leadership style already native to his peers in the country to that of a transformational one. For him, service to others is the rent he must pay and which he has been paying.

Typically embodying the mantra: ‘people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care’, the teacher-turned senator-cum governor and Knight of Saint John (KSJ) International, would soon astound with a panoply of multibillion naira projects across the state, which sources of funding were somewhat of a mystery to Cross Riverians, but not so to Ayade, the self-styled inventor of “Intellectual Money” and proponent of “Other People’s Money (OPM).

The monthly federal allocation to Cross River hovers between N1.8billion to N2billion, this is even before deductions for the indebtedness the state is exposed to and with a lid on borrowing tightly sealed.

Ranging from the Calabar Garment Factory, the Rice Seedling and seeds multiplication Centre, Calabar Pharmaceutical Company (Calapharm), the 56 megawatts power plant, noodles manufacturing factory, chicken processing plant with capacity to process 600,000 birds per day,  the feeds mill factory, already completed and located in Calabar, Southern Senatorial Zone, the 30, 000 metric tons of Cocoa processing factory, in Ikom, a toothpick factory in Ekori, Yakurr, the automated and vitaminzed rice mill in Ogoja, among others, Ayade has left no one in doubt about the clarity and acuity of his vision.

On road infrastructure, the state has been a beehive of construction activities with construction projects on-going at across the state.

With more than half of the 147 kilometre-road already asphalted at the Mfom-Yala-Ogoja-Bekwarra-Obudu ranch road; the dualization of the 20 kilometres Tinapa/Odukpani federal highway; the East/West Boki road as well as the 275 kilometre super highway from Bakassi to Katsina-Ala, there cannot be any greater commitment to infrastructural development than the governor has demonstrated in the nearly six years of his administration.

Also on-going is the construction of 5.7kilometres of international cargo and passenger airport in Obudu Local Government Area of the state. On completion, the airport is expected to haul a large export of Irish potatoes and ornamental flowers which are currently being cultivated. This is also in addition to ramping up footfalls into the famous Obudu Ranch Resort.

While not neglecting other sectors, Ayade has placed premium on the health of the citizenry by ensuring that a specialist hospital is established in each of the three senatorial zones. The governor has breathed life into the education sector with the construction of the first of its kind, the West African Teachers Continuing Training College in Biase Council Area of the state. This is aimed at improving the quality of teachers in the state.

Also nearing completion is the British/Canadian International School.

In Ayade, to whom less is given, so much more has been offered and this can only be owed principally to his financial wizardry as a propelling force in the realization of these economically uplifting projects.

For almost six years, it has been a new age, a new dawn; a time to ride without let, where every step has morphed into a stride and where every stride has been a conquest over the tides. In truth, Ayade has no doubt defied the odds.

As a strong voice for state and country, there is so much that has been learned from his fortitude and strength of conviction and so much more that could still, indeed be learnt by same hypocritical society he has laboured upon to improve.

Call him a gadfly and you wouldn’t be wrong after all. Ayade has come across as that rare breed which God has fastened upon an unwashed clime to point the way.

For instance, when the entire world was quaking and quivering during the outbreak of the global pandemic, with countries and states locking down and imposing restrictions, Governor Ayade laughed off the knee-jerk measure, describing it as infantile and uncommonsensical. He, instead, locked out his state, Cross River and allowed economic activities to flourish.

When other states were counting their dead, occasioned by COVID-19, Ayade was instead feasting with his subjects who had been kept alive by a simple but well thought out scientific solution such as wearing a mask.

Like a prophet without honour in his own country, he was jeered and sneered at and chided by many of his colleagues in the academy of science for “misleading” his countrymen. Even the  all-powerful and all-knowing global health institution, WHO,  which initially pooh-poohed his advocacy for the wearing of nose masks did a 360-degree and humbly acknowledged and embraced Ayade’s inscrutable policy on mask wearing as the first prophylactic step pivotal to halting the spread of the global pandemic.

At 53, just a little above half a century of his life, there is so much to learn from Ayade’s narrative. A driving force behind the state’s prosperity agenda, he has continued to hold strong to his beliefs, refusing to give up on his dreams and vision for Cross River State.

• Obogo is Deputy Chief Press Secretary/Speech Writer to Governor Ayade

 

 

By Victor Izekor

It all started in Hausari area of Maiduguri where with increased pressure from security operatives and merciless attacks by Boko Haram, the youths mobilized themselves and decided to thenceforth apprehend any insurgent who crossed the area en route the Monday Market or Babban Layi for robberies or the usual bombing or shooting runs.

Baba Lawan Jafar, who later became the pioneer chairman of Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) in Borno State, was the first youth to chase a gunman with a stick successfully capturing him and handing him over to soldiers. Afterwards, his friend, one Modu Milo, impressed by the heroic act of his friend, decided to join in the hunt. The new group was seen as heroes by some and pejoratively perceived as “alarm blowers” by others, thus many distanced themselves to avoid the wrath of Boko Haram.

Weeks later, dozens of youths joined them and the population continued to swell.

The youths, who later metamorphosed into Volunteer Youths Group (VYG) resolved to dare the lion in its den as insurgency was taking so many toll on the social, economic and political life of the people and things were going haywire and unbearable.

According to the chairman of the Volunteer Youths Group, Abubakar Malum, despite apparent danger inherent in their action, there was no going back as the die was now cast for the reign of terror to go.

“We were moved to take the decision because the youths in Maiduguri are facing extinction. Parents, sisters and brothers have died either in the hands of the insurgents or angry soldiers – enough is enough. It is now fight to finish and the offenders must be bought to book.

The coming of the VYG was indeed a watershed. Its entry broke the myth that the Boko Haram insurgents were not assailable as the youths demystified the terrorists. They later changed the name of the Volunteer Youths Group to Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) and proved themselves capable of giving Boko Haram a good fight.

Cashing on the public acceptance of the Vanguard Group and its impacts in the fight against the insurgency, the Kashim Shettima’s administration moved with the speed of a meteor to streamline the functions of the body while giving incentives to its members. The government initiated through the military, some basic training for the boys, designating the group Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) as Vigilante Group while assisting the security agencies. While in training members were each paid N10,000 and after the training, were given a monthly stipend of N20,000.

The youth revolution against the onslaught of the insurgency in Maiduguri was a watershed. It is observed that since the revolt of the youths against the injustice of Boko Haram the members of the sect had since abandoned the towns and cities into the bush and had made the bush their habitat from where they come out launch attacks and escape back to the same. CJTF has come to stay as one of the effective ways to check crime and rebellion. It has become partner in the war against the insurgency.

I am compelled to go all the length to show the immense contribution of Borno youths in the war against insurgency and relate the same to the contribution of the elite and politicians in the on-going terror war especially in this part of country. This has become imperative following the recent change of the service chiefs and the great expectation of magic to happen. Such magic might be an illusion if other stakeholders in the project of eliminating the insurgency and other security challenges refuse to be part of the project.

In particular, as far as the insurgency is concerned, its epicentre is Borno State and the state has experienced deaths, sorrow and blood in unprecedented magnitude and the lion’s share still undergoing the torture and man-in-humanity to man. It’s the most traumatized and bearer of the burden, consequently Borno must be seen in the leadership position in the elimination of this scourge. The youths of Borno have played their part and are still doing so. Some have paid supremely in this wise.

The inevitable questions that provoke, prick and prod the minds of many are how far have the elders, elite and politicians in this part of the country responded to the elimination war of terror more so with the belief erroneously or otherwise, that the concerned group has not lived up to expectation? Can the war against terrorism or insurgency succeed without the contribution or support of this group especially, when the allegation of sabotage, true or false, is hanging on their necks of its members?

It would be recalled that the military had on some occasions indicted the civil populace especially, the elite and politicians in the part of the country of collaboration with the insurgents and terrorists to frustrate the war on insurgency. One-time Chief of Army Staff Lt. General Kenneth Minimah during his pulling out of the army parade in Abuja said it was regrettable that instead of cooperating with the military to fight the insurgency, some notable Nigerians were introducing politics and religion into the whole show.

Besides, there have been statements by the Nigerian Army of deliberate moves by some individuals and political groups to ensure the failure of war on terror for selfish reasons. One of such press statements issued in September 2015, in Abuja by the Acting Director of Army Public Relation, Colonel Sani Kukasheka reads in parts: “The Nigerian Army wishes to inform the public and send a very strong and serious final warning to some prominent individuals and political groups who hailed from Borno State in particular and Northeast generally, that there is information of plans by some highly placed individuals and political groups to undermine and scuttle the fight against terrorism and insurgency in this country.

“It has come to our knowledge that they were employing every means to see that our operation does not succeed in order for them to continue to enjoy certain benefits. It has been revealed that they are employing the services of marabous and other unethical means in order to frustrate our efforts and the operations in addition to campaign of calumny.

“People should place the interest of the nation above any personal gain or ambition. The continued loss of lives and properties in this country through terrorists’ activities does no one any good”.

Also, the erstwhile Army Chief of Staff, Lt General Tukur Buratai stated that terrorism banditry, insurgency, kidnapping and other security challenges bedeviling the nation would end when the citizens wanted them to end. Buratai who spoke in Abuja to State House reporters after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari on the security situation in the country pointed out that Nigerians could end the spate of insecurity in the country by exposing the criminals living among them. Buratai stated that Nigerians were not helping matters by only complaining about insecurity and laying the blame at the door steps of the security agencies.

Similarly, while speaking at the Shehu of Borno palace in Maiduguri recently while on condolence visit to the state government and people of Borno following the mass killing of passengers and destruction of property at Auno village by the insurgents, President Buhari wondered how the terrorists could travel all the way from the Lake Chad region of the state to Maiduguri and environs to commit havoc without the possible knowledge of the people.

Even Kashim Shettima as the Governor of Borno State indicted some Borno prominent citizens of paying lip service to ending the insurgency. While indicting some of deliberately inciting disaffection against his administration through intrigues, he never spared others who shut their eyes against the reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement programme of his administration. At a point he threatened he would exposure the saboteurs.

The youths of Borno have contributed their quota to the elimination of the ongoing terror war. The elders, politicians and elite must not only support on make their own contribution one way or the other, but must be seen to do so.

• Izekor is a journalist and public affairs analyst.

By Charles Onunaiju

The World Trade Organization (WTO) rule-maker for the global trading system which started life on January 1, 1995, has just had its glass ceiling shattered, with the first woman climbing to the apex of its structure. To add to the significance of the first, the woman in question, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former two-time finance minister and foreign minister is the first of  African descent to be appointed to oversee the rules of the world trading system. Though she has recently acquired American citizenship, having studied, worked, and lived in the United States of America for nearly past four decades, she is strongly rooted in Africa where she was born 66 years ago and had her early education.

The world trade organization is a critical fabric of the international system since the emergence of the post-World War II international order. Its predecessor was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which since 1948 when it was founded provided the rules for the world trade system. Though GATT mainly dealt with trade in goods, the mandate of the WTO and its agreements now, cover more comprehensively, services and trade in inventions, creations and designs, (intellectual property).

The origin of the world trading system was against the backdrop of the horrors of the two world wars and the terrific economic depression and the establishment of GATT was to institute a legal mechanism for tariff negotiation and to provide rules that would discourage countries from erecting barriers through non-tariff means.

The various negotiations including the legendary Uruguay and the Doha Rounds, which culminated in the formation of the world trade organization, were critical roadmap in establishing the infrastructure of contemporary global trading architecture.

It is the making of this complex web of trading rules, especially at a time when trade has emerged as the life-blood of the international system that Okonjo-Iweala would be stepping into the leadership of the world trading body of more than 150 countries.

Okonjo-Iweala who had a 25-year career at the World Bank in Washington D.C as a development economist is no stranger to multilateralism.

Rising to the number two position in the bank as managing director, she had the responsibility to oversee the World Bank $81 billion operational portfolio in Africa, South Asia, Europe and central Asia.

Okonjo-Iweala, who was first appointed as Nigeria’s minister of finance in the late 1990s, over-saw negotiations with the Paris Club that culminated in the wiping out of $30 billion of Nigeria debt, after paying a whopping $12 billion at once to the creditors.

She had argued that paying the debt would free the country of the burden of interest payments which according to her would free funds for addressing the country’s huge infrastructure deficit. Critics of the huge payment which she engineered with the huge dollar payment, insist that after the debt repayment and cancellation, there was nothing of substance that happened in the improvement of the country’s infrastructure to justify massive capital flight, the only one of its kind from a developing country in all history of international credit.

However, she made enormous efforts to improve Nigeria’s macroeconomic management, which included among others, the implementation of an oil price based fiscal system, where revenues accruing above reference benchmark oil price were saved in a special account, called “the Excess Crude Account,” which helped to reduce macroeconomic volatility. She also instituted a key transparency governance measure, whereby each of the local or state monthly financial allocation from the federal government of Nigeria were published in the newspapers. In 2011, under another president, Goodluck Jonathan, she was reappointed as minister of finance with the expanded portfolio of the coordinating minister for the economy which is well acknowledged to have brought considerable stability in the macro-economic management and even oversaw the rebasing of the country’s economy, which saw it as the largest economy in Africa, though, poverty and staggering unemployment, leading to violent crimes and insurgency remain open wound for which Nigeria is still struggling to contend with, even up to now

Nonetheless, she comes to the apex of the world’s trade ruling making body with lot of experiences and broad international exposure that will serve her well in navigating through the negotiating crucibles that would stabilize the international trading system. In the era of multilateralism with isolated pockets of threats to it, she would have to marshal all compelling reasons on why free and fair trade is in the best interest of all.

With the China-U.S trade impasse, mostly stoked by Washington, she must weigh in, to enhance impartial mechanism for trade-dispute resolution that does not pander to hegemonic power designs.

As trade in goods has evolved to complex web of trading beyond goods only to intellectual property, the WTO under the director-generalship of Okonjo-Iweala must up its game to point in the direction of a fair and equitable trading system that leaves no member state behind.

Though, bilateral trading agreements remains as the key component of the contemporary international system, the WTO would remain the guarantor and rule maker and the last port of call in dispute-resolution over international trade matters and therefore, has enormous responsibility to provide the enabling roadmap in sustaining one of human’s key activities that easily replace the thought of war, that has twice plunged humanity into the agonizing depth of bestiality.

An accomplished African woman, long dedicated to international public service, reflecting the reality saw much earlier by the revered Chinese leader Mao Zedong who asserted that “women hold up half the sky,” beyond the razzmatazz of contemporary feminism, Okonjo-Iweala is enjoined to use her new office to advance the objective trajectory of the human prospects which clearly converge around the construction of a community of shared future for all humanity. Trade is one of the oldest human activities and must now be given to a prime place in the restoration of the common humanity of all mankind. This is the clarion call for Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for which she must give considerable thought beyond the allure of office.

• Onunaiju is director, Centre for China Studies, Abuja Nigeria. 

By Tayo Ogunbiyi

 

 

In the words of Harvey Firestone, foremost American Businessman, “Capital isn’t so important in business. Experience isn’t so important. You can get both these things. What is important is the idea. If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn’t any limit to what you can do with your business and your life.”

Similarly, Nigerian success coach and motivational speaker, Sam Adeyemi, once affirmed, and rightly so, that ideas rule the world. The quality of ideas available in a given society determines the quality of life and opportunities available in such society.

Many people seem not to understand that the quality of our lives as human beings is substantially a reflection of the quality of ideas we generate. Many still seem not to comprehend that the ideas which we conceive, like kola in Igbo culture, is life itself. It is the kind of ideas that we give to our space that it gives back to us.

In Lagos State, the Lagos Economic Summit, popularly referred to as Ehingbeti, is one of the several innovative ideas that the government initiated to promote sustainable growth and development. It is a platform through which the state engages the organised private sector and the international community to generate policies that will enhance the state’s socio-economic development.

Since the first edition was held in 2000, the summit has developed into a constructive and engaging forum for the stimulation of socio-economic growth not only in Lagos, but the country as a whole. As a result of the need for realistic assessment of implementable goals against set benchmarks, the summit, which started as an annual event turned biennial in 2008.

The first three editions were deliberately planned to be diagnostic in nature. This is to ensure that the challenges are properly identified and articulated so that short, medium and long term solutions could be found for them. However, by the 4th Summit in 2008, a blueprint had been developed for implementation. The government has since implemented over 150 resolutions reached at past editions of the summit.

For instance, a review of the implementation of the resolutions and recommendation of the 2012 Summit with the theme, ‘’From BRICS to BRINCS: Lagos Holds the Key” revealed that a lot of successes have been recorded with achievable targets in full focus. The core areas of the Summit in 2012 were Power, Agriculture, Transportation and Housing, which gave rise to the acronym PATH.

In 2014, the Summit with the theme: ‘Powering the Lagos Economy: Real Opportunities, Endless Possibilities’, focused mainly on the crucial issue of constant and sustainable electricity supply in the state. The essence of the 2014 summit’s focus on power was for the private sector to draw the attention of the government to places where its activities would enable the private sector achieve its potential in terms of delivering of service, provision of opportunities and growth of the economy.

Massive investments and initiatives have since been undertaken by the government in those sectors in conjunction with the private sector and other development partners. This is a clear evidence of the resolve on the part of government to ensure that the summit is not just another talk shop. Through the summit, the delivery of landmark projects such as Independent Power Plants (IPPs), Lekki-Epe Expressway, Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge, Pen Cinema Bridge, Agric Isawo Road, International Airport Road, opening of Regional Road and rehabilitation of Ibeju Lekki-Epe road network, among others have been made possible. It is not, therefore, surprising, that Lagos, in the last 21 years, has become a model for governance in the country.

To sustain and surpass the current pace of development, the 2021 Ehingbeti Summit with the theme: ‘“Greater Lagos: Setting the Tone for the Next Decade”, was recently held on both virtual and physical platforms.  Over 11,000 people in 10 countries participated in the event, with an average record of 5,500 participants globally attending sessions daily.

There were 146 speakers and panelists who facilitated six plenaries and 20 deep discussion sessions held during the event, which focused on six thematic areas, including making Lagos investment destination, strengthening governance and institutions, Fourth Industrial Revolution opportunities, funding growth and ensuring inclusive human capital development and sustainability, resilience and impacts.

In his opening remarks, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu pledged that the learning and recommendations emanating from the summit would be developed into a policy framework to forge a new action plan and implementation that would bring the envisioned future of Lagos to reality.

The governor said Lagos took lessons from the disruption of economic activities created by the spread of COVID-19, stressing that the experience would make the state deepens its scenario planning capabilities to bolster its resilience against such an emergency.

At the end of the summit, Deputy Governor, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, outlined 11 key highlights that encompass the resolutions to be implemented by the government before the next summit.

With the absence of the economic summit in the past five years, there seemed to be a decline in the rate of public-private collaboration in the state. With the successful holding of this year’s edition, the government has been able to reconnect with the private sector. The quest to strengthen the existing relationship between government and the private sector is one of the major goals of the summit. This is quite understandable because greater private sector participation in governance is a prerequisite for a functional state.

According to Governor Sanwo-Olu, Lagos State has set off an ambitious plan for its development over the next decade. By 2030, the state, which has the 5th largest economy in Africa, will have a running city-wide network of colour-coded Metro Lines that will move over 34.5 million people monthly and cut travel time in the metropolis drastically.

Similarly, water transportation infrastructure being put in place will make waterway transport systems a central element of life in the metropolis. It is also expected that the Fourth Mainland Bridge will come to define the cityscape of the 2020s in the same way the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge defined it a decade earlier. By 2030, Lagos will be a Smart City, fully covered by a network of several thousands of kilometers of fibre optic infrastructure that will carry broadband internet into homes, offices and schools. The foundation for this is already being laid by the current administration.

If effectively implemented, the various recommendations of the 2021 Ehingbeti Summit would, no doubt, help accelerate the socio-economic development and growth of Lagos. Given the centrality of Lagos to the economic prosperity of Nigeria, it is essential that the state government and its developmental partners continue to support new initiatives, ideas and visions that could enhance socio-economic growth in the state and, indeed, the country at large.

• Ogunbiyi is Deputy Director, Public Affairs, Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.

By Dominic Omuedi

Heartwarming, it was for me, to read reports of the press conference addressed on Tuesday by Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, on the country’s Digital Switchover (DSO) process, which seemed to have been interred under the rubble of poor conception, mismanagement and corruption. The cheer brought by the government’s announced intention to reboot the process, positive as appears, has shown nothing beyond the fact that the DSO process is not completely forgotten. No more. No less.

At the press conference, Mohammed unveiled a 13-member Ministerial Task Force to take charge of the DSO process which, for years, has proceeded in staccato fashion and left the country trailing many others, including in Africa.

Members of the task force, to be chaired by Mohammed, include Armstrong Idachaba, Joe Mutah of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture (Secretary), Dr Armstrong Idachaba, acting Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC); Olusegun Yakubu of Pinnacle Communications and Toyin Zubair, promoter of the defunct HiTV and now of Inview.

At the press conference, Mohammed announced that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved outstanding payments to key DSO stakeholders, a development he said will remove all the hindrances to the entire process in the past three years. The funding source for the DSO, broadcast industry experts reckon, is from the N34billion paid by MTN for broadcast frequency.

“With the payment approval by FEC, and with 31 states to cover, we have our work cut out for us. We have no more excuses for not rapidly rolling out the DSO across the country, hence my decision to set up a 13-member Ministerial Task Force, which I will personally chair, to take charge of the rollout,” the minister said excitedly.

He added that the government took a decision last year, on account of the financial difficulties induced by Covid-19, that the DSO process will be private sector-driven, effectively cancelling the plan to provide subsidies for Set-Top-Boxes (STBs) or signal carriage.

What followed, typical of pronouncements on the DSO, was a raft of big-sounding and dreamy projections. The DSO, said the minister, will deliver over one million jobs in the next three years, with 50,000 of such coming via local production of 24 million STBs and Smart TVs.

“Not even 20 Set-Top-Box manufacturers can comfortably produce the initial requirements to feed the market.  Furthermore, our position in West Africa, coupled with our size, makes us the definite source of these products for the   whole sub-region,” he said.

Television production, he said, will create 200,000 jobs, as digitization will lead to “180 state channels, 30 regional channels and at least 10 national channels”. Digitization, he added, will boost local content propagation and draw many more Nigerians into the business. This, he said will create 400,000 jobs in film production and nudge Nollywood towards subscription Video-On-Demand on STBs and online, thereby providing cheaper distribution means, helping producers to make more money.

The envisaged boom in production, added the minister, will create an additional 200,000 jobs via increase in foreign demand for fully indigenous content and fetch the country in excess of $100 million.

“I have no doubt in my mind that a successful DSO is not just a job spinner, creating over one million jobs in three years, but also a money spinner,” said the minister.

Anyone familiar with the country’s DSO journey will not just doubt the minister’s projections, but dismiss them as drunkenly optimistic, especially given how squalidly it has been managed.

Undoubtedly, poor funding has inhibited the process. But more than that, squalid leadership and ill-conceived strategy are greater inhibitors. For instance, despite the pilot project, with the last roll-out three years ago in Osogbo, Osun State, there is no sustainable Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) coverage even in Plateau, Enugu, Osun, Kwara, and Kaduna states as well as the Federal Capital Territory, which were pilot states. Free Tv signals limited to state capitals.

This implies inhabitants outside state capitals are excluded and shows that the broadcast signal carriers selected for the DSO have inadequate technical and financial capacity for effective DTT coverage, the first step in the DSO.

The minister’s near-orgasmic projections on STBs, which convert analogue signals to digital, ignore the fact that the country, for strange reasons, chose a process that builds conditional access (CA) on top of the STBs instead of a standard affordable STB process. This means that the STBs process adopted for Nigeria’s for DSO will be out of the financial reach of most Nigerians. The standard STBs for DSO are supposed to receive free-to-air signal and affordable.  Those with conditional access built onto them are similar to pay television STBs and are much pricier. Inview, the company providing the TV system/ conditional access, has already been paid N1billion for running the TV system only in Abuja and Jos.

The company and others involved in the process are understood to have filed invoices for additional sums.

The cancellation of subsidy for STBs, forced on the government by the inclement economic climate, is certain to ensure that the prices of the boxes will stretch users to breaking point. Prior to the devaluation of the naira, for instance, the recommended price STB ranged between N20,000 and N30,000. The boxes used in the roll-out at pilot locations were all imported, with the Federal Government giving the alleged STB manufacturers guarantees to fund the importation to the tune of N5billion.

The inordinately ambitious projection that Nigeria will, within three years, be heaving with locally manufactured STBs is something akin to a boxer’s boast-full of sound and fury.

According to experts, there are only three companies claiming to have STB assembly lines in the country and not a single one is manufacturing. How the few companies, even operating at full capacity, can assemble 24 million STBs over five years has something that has eluded experts, who reckon that it will take a minimum of five years to meet the demand of 24million users- if all the companies function at full capacity. Importantly, not one of those claiming to have assembly/manufacturing capacities are in operation, meaning that they are engaged in no economic activities and employ nobody, thereby bilking the country through government contracts.

But they are not alone and are actually encouraged by the disposition of government officials, who view funding for the DSO process as “serve yourself,” the local parlance for buffet.

In a 21 March 2019 report published by The Guardian, experts interviewed identified corruption as the main obstacle to the country’s transition from analogue to digital broadcasting. A Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) is on suspension from office and facing prosecution by the Independent and Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) over allegedly fraudulent release of N2.5billion to a private company. The matter, which is before the Federal High Court, Abuja, relates to the 2016 release of N10 billion to the Ministry of Information and Culture for the DSO.

The ICPC is accusing the suspended D-G of using his position to confer a corrupt advantage on his associates in two private companies.

The suspended D-G is alleged to have asked the Information Minister to approve payment of N2.5 billion to Pinnacle Communications Limited, a private signal distribution operator, as “seed grant” for the DSO for which it was ineligible. Mohammed, who was listed as a witness in the trial, claimed he approved the payment based on expert advice given by the suspended D-G.  The DSO guidelines, provided by a Federal Government Whitepaper, directed that the process be exclusively managed by companies affiliated to the Federal Government. Based on the guidelines, two companies were nominated for the purpose. One of these was ITS, an affiliate to the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), which has no infrastructure of its own and is relying on the one owned by another private operator. It got also go N1.7billion as seed grant.

The assumption that our wonky DSO system will boost local content production because it will serve as distribution platform is also one without basis, as International Telecommunications Union (ITU) DSO policy is simply transiting free-to-air analogue signals to digital signal. Thus, Nigeria’s system, with its in-built conditional access system, will rob Nigerians of the constitutionally-guaranteed right to receive information in view of the fact that most free-to-air broadcaster are government-owned. In effect, 90 million Nigerians already living in poverty will be required to buy STBs, movies online and unlimited internet service to access such.

The claim that Nollywood output will benefit from better distribution is also a ruse. Nigerians are already using smart devices through which they access Nigerian creative content online.

Many have also blamed ministerial interference for the corrugated DSO process, arguing that worldwide, the DSO process is driven by the regulator and the industry.

What I have observed since 2015 is a lot of ministerial interference which, in addition to other factors, will leave the country panting to achieve DTT coverage by the time the rest of the world would have moved on a more modern platform, the OTT

 

• Omuedi, a retired broadcast engineer, writes from Ughelli