The Nation Newspaper

Tag: fail

  • Not too big to fail

    Not too big to fail

    The failure of businesses start in a small way. The little things that are ignored over time eventually come to haunt and hurt the business empire fatally. I have seen such happen in my little time on earth. I have also seen a business completely written off arise and shine. These things are inexplicable but they do happen.

    So, it is for businesses to know how to manage their succeses in a way to secure their future as ongoing concerns. The best of plans may not be adequate, at times as unforeseen forces may combine to smother any well-laid plans. But plan, a business must. Reason: if you fail to plan, you have planned to fail.

    No business or individual plans to fail. Everybody desires success. As we all know, success does not come cheap. It comes with a lot of industry, enterprise, diligence, hard work and most importantly, divine grace. Little wonder, the Christian faithful will tell you: “seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and every other thing shall be added unto you”.

    You cannot challenge the word of God. Those who did had a bitter story to tell. It is not always though that businesses crumble because of their owners lack of faith. Other factors may be infighting, mismanagement, lack of trust and feud over equity stakeholding. In its hey day, The Daily Times of Nigeria (DTN) Plc was a household name. It was a generic name for newspapers in this land. It circulated far and wide, reaching the inner recesses of Nigeria as early as 5 a.m., with vendors hooting their horns to attract buyers.

    It was already comatose before it was sold in 2004. Its privatisation sounded its death knell. It still publishes in fits and starts today, but the truth is the old Daily Times is gone. If it were to be in its vibrant days, the Daily Times would have been preparing to celebrate its centenary (100 years) in 2026. It first hit the newsstand on June 1, 1926, though it was incorporated in 1925. Wikipedia succinctly captures the fate of the paper:

    Daily Times Nigeria (DTN)

    “The Daily Times was a Nigerian newspaper with headquarters in Lagos. At its peak in the 1970s, it was one of the most successful locally-owned businesses in Africa”. Yes, the paper’s fame grew beyond the shores of Nigeria. Yet, the paper and its many subsidiaries which sustained the publication for over 70 years are gone. In contrast, a private newspaper which was given up for death following the founder’s demise has virtually taken the place of Daily Times in the industry.

    Read Also: Military requires 200 million ammunition yearly, says Matawalle

    Today, what is happening within the oldest financial institution in the country calls for concerns. We have seen equally big banks like it either failed or acquired by small banks. First Bank may be in a class of its own, but it must take things easy so that boardroom politics does not lead to the singing of its nunc dimittis. In 2008, we saw how the financial meltdown dealt with the world. America was in panic. So also was Wall Street, as detailed in the book: “Too big to fail”. So, Wall Street and Washington rallied to save themselves and the globe from disaster.

    For years, a shareholding feud has tugged at the heart of First Bank. Who holds the largest shares is at the root of the rift. This is a matter that can be resolved amicably. In this regard, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should stay above the fray in order to settle the dispute before it tears the bank apart, bringing down hundreds of years of toil and billions of investments.

    It is not in anybody’s interest that the 130-year-old bank should die because of the dire consequences. The fates of many are tied to the bank, which has over 1.3 million shareholders; depositors (big and small), investors (large, medium and small), workers of various categories and numerous borrowers with outstanding loans to repay. If the bank dies, it will take down many with it.

    There should be a way out of the rift, without causing the bank’s fall. The interests of its many publics should be paramount in how the court and CBN eventually resolve this raging dispute in order to save this behemoth from itself. It is crystal clear that no venture is too big to fail. But nobody, not even the feuding money men, will wish that for the bank.

  • Because we fail as patriots

    Nigeria fails as a nation because we fail as patriots. We do not muster a superior culture of nationhood. Instead, we curate the worst that we dared espouse, labelling it the ‘Nigerian factor,’ and embellishing it as our flamboyant code of conduct.

    We have murderous knaves controlling our ruling and opposition parties; promising youth enslaved by dangerous tokens, and a sly, desperate electorate confined by greed, poverty of tact and the purse.

    Nigeria won’t progress, until we overcome the incumbent ruling class. We shan’t progress until we overcome ourselves. Yet, we covet an incestuous relationship with self – the dark, chthonian parts of our innate nature.

    We mould our clans where tribal foolery fraternises with vile. Senior citizenry molests our young in a never-ending cycle of sleaze and moral paedophilia. But the young are hardly the prey we think they are. Every second, they morph from starry-eyed victims to eager participants and masterminds of our dehumanising ritual of violence, mental, biological aberration.

    Ours is a classic tale of Darwinian waste and mayhem, the squalor and rot of Nigerianness – a distortion of African civilisation. Nevertheless, we block the real import and consequences of this hideous cycle on our psyches and our future as a nation, that we might retain our integrity as brutes and eternal wildlings, perhaps.

    Western science and cultural aesthetics predictably, become apparatus in our frantic attempt to revise the Nigerian horror into imaginatively palatable form. Notwithstanding our frantic lunge for substance and acclaim on frontiers, where the world’s more advanced civilisations project their race and illusions of oneness, Nigeria remains hideous in name and status.

    While we make exaggerated gestures in the fields of space science, information technology, industry, sports, and so on, Nigerian children die at birth and thousands of mothers die in painful labour. The youth are unemployed. Public officers loot public coffers with impunity and disregard for Rule of Law. Law enforcement officers turn violent affliction on the citizenry and society, that they ought to protect; and the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government mesh in a fetid whirl of strife and plunder. Anarchy rules our hinterlands and metropolitan Nigeria.

    While this piece too, resounds as hackneyed howl and lamentation, a regurgitation of the towering monstrosity we have become, it need be restated that our ultimate nemesis is the Nigerian youth.

    The youth epitomise the nub of discord and deathly rally ripping the tide of our march to progress. Why do promising youth evolve like brutes and loathsome trolls? How did our once incandescent spokes of dawn erupt in moonshine?

    Many have attributed the afflictions of the Nigerian youth to lousy leadership, a nonstop dominance of the predatory ruling class and tiring recalcitrance of the younger generation to engage in communal and national politics beneficially. Many more would readily diagnose the maladies of the nation’s youth to structural banes and the perverse culture of citizenship by which they are weaned and ushered into adulthood.

    In the wake of plausible and often farfetched analyses, too many ‘patriots’ conveniently excuse themselves from the nexus of blame and severally propound the sad realisation that Nigerians are innately incapable of self-determination and self-governance. Many still recommend the American example, the British palliative, the Chinese abracadabra and Malaysian ingenuity among others, as solutions to the nation’s ills. How?

    These arguments have overtime, attained a language of their own and thus evolved as a dialect of dissent and exaggerated self-abnegation. The nation’s academic elite, political and economic ruling classes frequently marshal clashing precepts as solutions and justifiable putdown of the ruling class and the lower working class as their politics dictates.

    A more damning view identifies the electorate’s persistent claims to victimhood and sense of entitlement as whiny and symptomatic of a dense and irresponsible citizenry. Between the conflict of hyperboles and emotional vituperation, Nigeria suffers the affliction of intellectual miscreants and promising youth-turned-foetal-adults.

    As youths, the coordinated tragedies afflicting our consciousness daily, append the only real structure to our lives as impoverished Nigerians. The disturbing reality of fast slipping youth, the recurrent rites of bigotry and ethical quandary of coping with the strict moral code of adulthood and ideal society, obscures our understanding of life’s ultimate purpose and meaning. It spurs millions of misguided Nigerian youth to engage in mad, desperate pursuit of fast and fleeting riches, even as ripples of their actions keep hundreds of millions more in the doldrums and binds of despair.

    Consequently, the radical dissent that sprouts from oppression is pitiless and unbending. It splits our world into ‘insensitive ruling class’ and ‘clueless lower class,’ ‘elite’ and ‘downtrodden,’ ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ It fosters even more fragmented discord that continually pits Nigerian Christians against Muslims, Hausa against Igbo, Igbo against Yoruba, and Yoruba against Ijaw. It promotes spurious segmentation of our society into moral and amoral, good against evil, and apostates versus believers. Within this poisonous clime, the Nigerian child is born. If he survives the birth hour, he is violently thrust into adolescence and misshapen adulthood.

    From Boko Haram and Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) terrorism, internet fraud, cyber-terrorism, financial/bankers’ terrorism and political terrorism emblematic of the ruling class, recent developments in the country present a sad prologue to a heinous and wider conflict between the nation’s wealthy ruling class and the impoverished majority of the breadlines and disappearing middle-class.

    A bloody and protracted war thus ensues: this war, caused by diminishing resources, chronic unemployment, substandard health facilities, rising food prices, big business and government conspiracies against the Nigerian state, manifest at alarming proportions daily and by the second.

    Thus, our society drifts rudderless on a seething sea of sleaze. Now that our world as we have made it begins to collapse, we withdraw from the possibility of rebirth, and choose to exploit ‘infinite possibilities’ in our fragility and doomsday predictions.

    En route 2019, the youth, predictably, becomes ruling class muscles in the theatre of ruin and discord. Yet, no child of the ruling class is co-opted in the ritual of bloodshed and death. They are tucked, safely abroad.

    Picture the murderous herdsmen, NDA, Boko Haram, MASSOB, IPOB, OPC, and so on with sons, daughters and wives of Nigerian ruling class. Let our governors, legislators, and the presidency hand machetes and guns to their sons, daughters and wives.

    It’s about time we shunned the politics of spurious militancy, bloodshed and devastation, to embrace growth and immense possibilities of progressive endeavour, like a political platform founded by the youth, for all and posterity.

     

    • To be continued…

     

     

  • 13 firms fail NSE’s listing requirement

    Thirteen listed companies have relapsed and are trading below the minimum volume of shares required for retail shareholdings and public trading on their shares.

    A regulatory report by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) at the weekend indicated that 13 companies have free float deficiencies, a major infraction that may adversely affect liquidity and efficient price discovery.

    The companies included Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, Capital Hotel Plc, Great Nigerian Insurance Plc, Chellarams Plc, The Tourist Company of Nigeria Plc, AG Leventis Plc, Interlinked Technology Plc, Infinity Trust Mortgage Plc, Transcorp Hotels Plc, Caverton Offshore Support Group Plc, Ekocorp Plc, E-Tranzact International Plc and Champion Breweries.

    Free float, otherwise known as public float, refers to the number of shares of a quoted company held by ordinary shareholders other than those directly or indirectly held by its parent, subsidiary or associate companies or any subsidiaries or associates of its parent company; its directors who are holding office as directors of the entity and their close family members and any single individual or institutional shareholder holding a statutorily significant stake, which is five per cent and above in Nigeria.

    Thus, free float’s shares do not include shares held directly or indirectly by any officer, director, controlling shareholder or other concentrated, affiliated or family holdings.

    Stock markets maintain minimum public float to prevent undue concentration of securities in the hands of the core investors and related interests, a situation that can make the stock to be susceptible to price manipulation. Besides, it provides the general investing public with opportunity to reasonably partake in the wealth creation by private enterprises.

    Companies listed on the Exchange are required to maintain a minimum free float for the set standards under which they are listed in order to ensure that there is an orderly and liquid market in their securities. The free float requirement for companies on the main board is 20 per cent of market capitalisation while companies on the premium board are required to have free float of 20 per cent or above N40 billion on the date the Exchange receives the company’s application to list. Companies on the third tier board, otherwise known as Alternative Securities Market (ASEM) are required to have 15 per cent free float.

    The report indicated that the NSE had given the companies deadlines to restructure their issued share capital in a way to dilute the existing concentrated shareholdings of the core investors and allow more investments from the general investing public. However, all the companies have failed to meet the deadline with the exception of Infinity Trust Mortgage Bank, which has a deadline of May 31, 2018.

    According to the report, Union Bank of Nigeria has a free float of 14.94 per cent; Capital Hotel, 2.62 per cent; Great Nigerian Insurance, 16.0 per cent; Chellarams, 15.0 per cent; AG Leventis, 11.64 per cent; Interlinked Technology, 14.50 per cent; Infinity Trust Mortgage, 3.50 per cent; Transcorp Hotels, 6.0 per cent; Ekocorp, 11.84 per cent; Champion Breweries, 17.30 per cent; Caverton Offshore Support Group, 17.40 per cent; The Tourist Company of Nigeria Plc, 3.58 per cent and E-Tranzact International Plc, which has a free float of 10.06 per cent.

    Failure by the companies to restructure their share capital at the expiration of the deadline or secure extension of the deadline may lead to delisting of their shares from the NSE. Free float deadline is usually in deference to application by the management of a company for some period to comply with the free float. However, the company is required to provide quarterly disclosure report to the NSE on the efforts being made to fully comply by the deadline.

    By the expiration of the deadline, a company is mandatorily required to have completed partial divestments or dilution of the ‘non-public’ shareholdings to free  the required percentage of equity stake for public holding, unless the management of the NSE grants fresh waivers and extensions for the companies. In the extreme instance, a company with deficient public float may opt to delist its shares.

     

     

  • 150 federal deputy directors fail promotion exams

    150 federal deputy directors fail promotion exams

    No fewer than 150 federal civil service deputy directors, who sat for promotion examinations, failed the test, it was learnt yesterday.

    Head of Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita broke the news at a quarterly meeting with organised labour, conducted by her office in Abuja, on Wednesday.

    Mrs. Oyo-Ita also announced that a court injunction on the promotion of the 2014 batch of directors in the administration cadre of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies has finally been lifted.

    She said the lifting of the injunction would enable the civil service administrative positions, which were filled by officers in acting capacity, to be filled by substantive directors.

    “I am particularly delighted to inform you that the issue of promotion for the 2014 batch of directors in the Administration Cadre has been finally resolved.

    “The lifting of the court injunction on this issue also led to the conduct of examinations for 2015 – 2017 batch of directors in the same cadre.

    “Over 290 Deputy Directors sat for the examination out of which only about 140 were successful. I am certain that going forward, the civil service will ventilate itself and officers will be rewarded for hard work.

    “With this, we now have a solution to the issue of dearth of Directors of Administration in MDAs. Departments, which were hitherto manned by officers in acting capacity, would now be manned by substantive directors,” she said.

    Mrs. Oyo-Ita also addressed the issues of service delivery and a conducive working environment for staff.

    “The issue of a conducive working environment for staff that has been raised by organised labour is very dear to my heart.

    “To achieve this, I have set up a committee on office allocation and expansion with a focus on maintenance, rehabilitation and expansion of office allocations to MDAs,” Mrs. Oyo-Ita said.

  • ‘Federal agencies fail to remit N1.695tr’

    ‘Federal agencies fail to remit N1.695tr’

    • NNPC in N3.115tr deficit

    The Senate ad-hoc committee probing misuse and under remittance of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) has uncovered over N1.695 trillion unremitted by Federal Government agencies.

    The committee is also investigating other fraudulent activities in collection, accounting, remittance and expenditure of IGR.

    The nine-member committee headed by Senator Olamilekan Solomon Adeola, in its interim report submitted to the Senate on October 19, 2017 said  26 agencies generated a total of N21, 909,831,657,897 between January 2012 and December last year but lamented that  a total of N1.695,585,887,406 was not remitted to Federal Government account by the agencies within the period.

    It said that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) operated a deficit account of N3,115,495,257,000,000 within the period under review.

    A total of 93 agencies came under the search light of the committee.

    All the federal universities, federal colleges of education, federal cooperative and agricultural colleges, federal science and technical colleges, federal government colleges and others were also scrutinised.

    For instance, the committee observed that the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) generated N15,541,690,052,000,000 within the period and recorded a deficit of N-3,115,495,257,000,000.

    The implication of the figure for the NNPC is that it operated at a loss within the period under review.

    The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) recorded N56,817,976,306.00 as generated revenue  within the period while its total under remittance stood at N5,567,831,176.00.

    The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) generate N56,319,706,498.83 but posted N2,907,940,808.00 under remittance.

    The Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) generated N479,115,404,000.00 and recorded under remittance of N70,485,698,800.00; the Sugar Development Corporation of Nigeria generated N16,258,122,423.14 and recorded under remittance of N5,595,130,103.10; Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) generated N30,229,951,000.00 but its under remittance was not stated.

    The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) generated N335,855,575, 759.53 within the period under review and recorded under remittance of N83, 963,893,939.88.

    It also said 25 per cent revenue of the NCS was not reported.

    The committee said  the Nigeria Electricity Commission generated N25,422,019,784.70 and had under remittance of N20,319,552,361.75.

    Nigeria Nuclear Regulatory Authority generated N4,663,198,042.93 and had under remittance of -827,489,066,.14

    The committee explained that 25 per cent revenue paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund while the remaining expenses were over bloated.

    The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) generated N227, 301, 592,242.00 and under remitted  N19,242,300,027.30

    Thee Nigeria Shipper Council made N25,405,401,068.82 but failed to remit N69, 322,017,22

    The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) generated N445,544,388,514.54 and under remitted N33,833,232,873.33.

    The Nigeria Teachers Institute generated N13,163,057,006.78 and failed to remit N984,013,375,39 while the Federal Radio Commission of Nigeria generated N6,954,353,171.59 and recorded under remittance of N1,211,179,042.40.

    The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPRA) generated N11,560,619,050.20, remitted N1,965,574,296.76 and failed to remit N1,778,116,748.16.

    The committee said PPPRA partially paid 25 per cent of its revenue while it over bloated the remaining expenses.

    The Committee said the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) generated N301,160,118,548.47 and under remitted  N184,489.203,618.25.

    It said  the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)  generate nil revenue(2012-2014), made a total expenditure of N680,918,000, remitted nothing while its under remittance was put at N6,144,,734,400.00.

    The committee said the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) generated N217,104,325,000.00 and under remiited N47,373,814,269.18.

    The committee also said the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA)ge nerated N789,029,440,000.00 and under remitted N86,636,886,800.00

    It said the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) generated N49,157,057,019.00 and under remitted N636,095,144.18

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was said to have generated N3,098,157,000,000.00  but under remitted N13,716,755,284.00.

    The Nigeria Bulk Electricity Company generated N1,320,039,182.02 and recorded under remittance of N644,045,677.73.

    The report is slated for consideration this week.

  • Prepared to fail

    Prepared to fail

    Nigeria’s poor showing at the 2017 World Athletics Championships

    With a predictable regularity that has become extremely worrying, Nigeria has returned from a major global athletics meet without a medal of any kind.

    The country’s 12-person squad to the 16th edition of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) 2017 World Athletics Championships in London came a joint 49th, along with Israel and Serbia, having garnered one fifth-place finish and one eighth-place finish.

    In contrast, fellow-Africans Kenya placed second on the overall medals table with five gold, two silver and four bronze medals. Ethiopia came 7th with two gold and three silver. South Africa came 10th with three gold, one silver and two bronze.

    This undeniably poor showing stands in stark contrast to Nigeria’s performance in previous editions of the championships, where the country has won a total of eight medals, consisting of four silver and four bronze.

    The reasons for the poor outing are depressingly familiar, and revolve around shoddy preparations, caused by delays in the release of training grants to athletes, the lack of good competitions, inadequate coaching and inefficient travel arrangements.

    Unlike competitors from many other countries, the Nigerian contingent had to rely almost entirely on willpower and determination to make up for manifest deficiencies in preparation. As atrocious showings in the London and Rio Olympics demonstrated, those qualities were simply not enough. No amount of determination can compensate for long-term planning; all the willpower in the world is not a viable substitute for first-rate coaching and top-level competition.

    As usual, the country’s sports authorities have begun to make the expected noises about better preparation for the next global athletics tourney. However, this has been done so many times that it is clearly as dishonest as it is laughable. Serious sporting nations do not talk about improving; they quietly go about making the vital investments in improving their athletes that will ensure that their performances on the track and field do the talking for them.

    It is time Nigeria did the same. If real change is to come to the country’s athletics, there will have to be a radical alteration in the way new talent is spotted and nurtured. For one thing, government involvement must become less dominant. Over-dependence on government funding is one of the principal causes of the delays and inefficiencies which adversely affect athletes’ ability to deliver their best. Encouraging the private sponsorship of athletics has the triple advantage of strengthening accountability, sharpening focus on viable disciplines, and creating a reliable pipeline of talent from the grassroots.

    The management of athletics in the country is so poor that most of Nigeria’s best performers are often either citizens who have relocated to other nations or foreign-born athletes who are eligible to compete for Nigeria. This compares unfavourably with countries like Jamaica, whose world-beating athletes are famously home-grown. The difference is that this small Caribbean island nation has over time built up an efficient sporting ecosystem incorporating all the vital elements of athlete development, from talent-spotting to preparation for global competitions.

    Ironically, Nigeria availed itself of precisely the same strategies in the past. It had an enviable school sports calendar where new talents were discovered. It had regular regional and national competitions, most especially the National Sports Festival, where emerging athletes could hone their skills on a national scale. It had a thriving tertiary sports system where study and sport went hand-in-hand, as well as reliable connections to American collegiate sports, where the very best athletes could get world-class training and competition.

    This is the golden era Nigeria must return to if it hopes to attain the pre-eminent position it once had in Africa and in the world. It requires that the various athletics federations be competent and honest. It implies that federal and state governments must stop interfering in the activities of such federations, and give them the freedom to enter into mutually-beneficial partnerships with willing sponsors. It means that athletics must no longer be treated as a poor relation of football.

    As Nigeria hopes for better outings in future competitions, the sports authorities would do well to remember that sporting success is a process rather than an event.

  • ‘Why Buhari can’t fail Nigerians’

    The Chief Missioner of Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of Nigeria (ADSN) Sheikh AbdurRahman Ahmad yesterday urged President Muhammadu Buhari to re-double his efforts in delivering his electoral promises to Nigerians.

    President Buhari, Sheikh Ahmad said, cannot afford to fail Nigerians going by the good will he enjoys from Nigerians.

    “It’s very rare in Nigeria at a time when Nigerians are facing unprecedented hardships and sufferings; they still have faith in the ability of the President to better their lots. The President must take this very seriously. He cannot afford to disappoint Nigerians. He cannot afford not to deliver his promises and this is a challenge, a personal challenge to the President to even do much more and for him to know again that the majority of Nigerians are solidly behind him and they are looking up to him for the better,” he said, adding “prayer is efficacious; President Muhammadu Buhari enjoyed the broad support of Nigerians and their prayers and Allah has accepted the prayers of Nigerians and even non-Nigerians who wish Nigeria well.

    “The lesson I want Nigerians to learn from this whole scene is not just about prayers. It’s about being positive. It’s about not wishing death for anyone even those who have boasted that they are going to commit suicide if the Presidents returns have retired their words. Those who have been campaigning for the worst case scenario should learn that we are human beings, anyone could fall sick at any time – old or young. We must give ourselves the benefit that we deserve. The PHD (Pull Him Down) syndrome is not a good thing. It has never worked for any society. It is not going to work for Nigeria.”

    The renowned scholar praised the First Lady, Mrs Aisha Buhari for holding forth while her husband was away.

    He said: “I’m especially happy for the first lady, a woman of substance who has hold forth for her husband at the domestic front while he was away. The woman has done a lot that may not be known to the public just to ensure that her husband returns in good health. This is also a very unique and golden opportunity for Nigerians to come together to salvage this country by cooperating with the President. We must not allow any distraction because the task ahead of us is herculean and we need to clear the mess.

    “We need to get our bearings right. We need to be focused. We need to avoid divisiveness in all its ramifications. There are only two tribes. There are only two religions and there are only two classes in this country, it is not a multiplicity of religion. It is a class of the looters and the oppressors and that of the poor and the marginalised and the down trodden and off course, we must know that poverty is the recurring decimal everywhere. In the south-south, in the south-east, in the north all over the country it’s the same. The same way it affects a Yoruba man is the way it affects the Efik, Fulani man and Uhrobo man. We must join hands to collectively fight poverty. That is the only enemy that we should fight. We must not get divided further and we must not be turned one against another because that will not bring any good result. We must continue to pray for his good health and Allah’s guidance for the President and his team and we must use this opportunity to congratulate him on his coming out of his debilitating health. We pray Allah continue to give him strength and wisdom.”

  • Why SMEs fail in Niger Delta

    The rate of small business failures in the NIGER DELTA is alarming, and if solutions are not proffered and the situation brought to the fore of national discourse, that good path of creating jobs and stimulating the Nigerian economy will begin to look dim. Donald Trump won the American election with one promise, “I will bring back jobs that left America and more jobs,” that is what affects the average man on the street, gainful employment.   In most economies, the government accounts for less than 10% of all gainfully, consistently employed people in their climes, while big business accounts for another 21%, the remaining 69% are employed by small and medium enterprises, ranging from the small shop owners to the hi-tech family businesses.

    The few non-oil sector businesses in the Niger Delta are running away, from tyre manufacturing, rubber factories in Sapele, timber sawmills in Benin, Sapele, Warri, Port-Harcourt and so on. Food processing industries in Yenagoa are leaving in droves. The lack of small thriving businesses relying on the pittance oil companies spend after remitting the bulk of their proceeds abroad with spurious excuses and doing most of their procurement in their home countries and exporting the jobs back home, while local economies are left insolvent,.

    The amnesty programme is doing a great job in agriculture by precisely tailoring agricultural production to meet industrial needs, and the government of the day is showing willingness to upturn the apple-cart of corruption by turning the mindset of the people towards productive employment instead of waiting for a share of the proverbial national cake.

    Modern business is about 5Ms: men, money, machines, management and materials. Two parameters stand out in determining the failure or success of “ANY” business venture, these are men and management, because the two concern human beings that need a conducive environment to function. No matter the height of technology at the disposal of the propagators of a business venture, humans must be at the helm of affairs

    Every revenue collection agency in the Niger Delta is run by thugs and there are so many of them representing virtually every tier and agent of government, numerous local governments. State and countless agencies all swooping like vultures on small businesses, from shop owners to transporters or any other business premises where income is generated.

    There are very few successful business owners in the Niger Delta, unlike those of eastern extraction who have a long history of sustainable trading, oil companies have not sustained employment of the youths and broken the trading link chain in most families where young ones prefer non-existent oil –field related skills to lifelong trading and entrepreneurial abilities. There are no home grown businesses to learn from.

    Proper training (not education) specialised, objective, professional training to enhance capacity to tap into the honey comb of small business management is completely none -existent.

    Banks don’t touch start-ups, the desk officers are more interested in sourcing funds to meet their target amounts than listening to a young dreamer (entrepreneur). These are the real problems; inconsistency, disinterest and lack of support for young businesses.

    Instead of shopping for foreign investors who will come to “rape” our economy  and “rip” our people off, because their major motivation will be repatriation of proceeds back home  at all cost, as we saw in the handling of Ajaokuta  and Aladja steel where even pellets on ground were exported to their home country, we can work with our Nigerian value addition consultants, employing foreign specialists to train Nigerians in the rudiments of entrepreneurial management, business mix management (5M.s), export, foreign market penetration techniques, specialised packaging, business development strategies to improve our capacity to attract foreign currency through legitimate trade while creating employment for our people.

    Who negotiates for Nigeria in the international community, is it an academic that is straightjacket one subject expert that is empty even in ordinary table manners, or a politician who is good at arranging youths to carry placards to keep them relevant in the centre to continue sharing the money or the civil servants whose job is ‘Yes Sir’ to Mr Big minister? That is why our steel plants don’t work and we can’t get a modular petroleum refinery.

     

    • By Anthony Idiovwa

    Warri, Delta State.

  • When mothers fail to protect their daughters!

    When mothers fail to protect their daughters!

    Biologically, mothers have been given the super privilege to bear children and usher in the next generation. Because they nurture the developing child in their own bodies, they almost always feel a compelling drive to protect the new, entirely dependent life they’ve given birth to. These many hours of care each day make mothers most often the person closest to their children and the person with greatest influence. Experiences with mom powerfully shape a child’s perspective, attitudes, and sense of self. Now what happens when in a world as hostile as this, a mother cannot be relied upon for emotional, physical and mental support?

     

    Dear Aunty Temilolu,

    Kudos to you. Your write-ups have changed so many things in my life most especially my mindset but now I am facing a problem. A month ago, I was raped by my mum’s closest friend’s son. He has threatened me in so many ways not to tell. I am scared. I am just 16 and in S.S.3. I’m even scared of telling my mum and causing a family feud. I am depressed and confused with life. Please help me.

    Anonymous

     

    Dear Mum,

    I am 20 and was recently raped by my brother’s friend. I have always wanted to remain a virgin till my wedding night. Now that I’ve been forcefully deflowered, I’m so incredibly hurt and ashamed. Can I still be a virgin again? Please help, I don’t know who else to confide in but you.

     

    Dear Aunty Temilolu,

     

    I am a 17-year-old girl. A few months ago, I was raped by a guy who walks freely on the street while my heart breaks anytime I see him. The guy who raped me lives down our street and we exchanged pleasantries whenever we see. He invited me for a birthday party in his house and I obliged him. When I got there, he told me he wanted to show me something in his room. Believe me, in my stupidity or do I say naivety, I followed him not suspecting any foul play since his friends were in the living room. He left me on the bedroom and told me he wanted to get me something, I later discovered he went back to the living room to send his friends away. When he returned to the bedroom, he pushed me on the bed. I tried to escape but he held me tight and even when I screamed no one came to my help. Then, after forcing his way inside me, he began apologising, saying he didn’t know I was still a virgin. I cried a lot knowing that my pride was gone and I was scared of getting pregnant. He assured me that he would accept the pregnancy. Eventually, I took in and he bought a small drug and gave it to me to drink. After drinking it, I bled for a week before he finally told me that it was an abortion drug he gave me. I don’t know if God would forgive me for unconsciously killing an innocent soul and if my future partner would ever forgive me. I’m so ashamed to tell anyone this, not even my mum because she could call me a whore which I am not.

     

    Dear Nigerians,

    I thought mothers always knew when something went wrong with a child? I grew up hearing “orisa bi iya kosi” (there’s no god like a mother) which honours the bond between a mother and a child and that special support which guides us through life. I also hear “iya l’alabaro omo” meaning a mother is a child’s confidant. So, what’s the problem here? A non-chalant attitude, lack of real presence in a child’s life due to work and social activities or just lack of empathy?

     

    My darling sisters,

    In the first instance, I just wish you had some pieces of evidence so we can nail these guys. As for the 16-year-old who was raped by her mum’s closest friend’s son, she must tell her mum without delay! Those threats are empty. You cannot die in trauma. You are too young for this.

    On the other hand, you are encouraged to remain chaste not to please man but to follow God’s principles and live a good, unpolluted life. Stop moaning or groaning about what any man has done to you. God sees your heart, He knows your thoughts, He knew even before you were raped and deflowered. Little do you know that if you stay glued to Him and remain chaste, there’s a super-duper compensation waiting for you around the corner. He has the final say. He has the power to restore you, to make you greater than you would have been in your former state. This is the time for you to cry out to Him and make heavy demands for a beautiful life that would make you forget your pain. Stop bowing your spirit low, stop hanging your head low….

    “This is but a light thing in the eyes of the lord…” 2 Kings 3:18

    To be continued.

  • Arik: Too costly to be allowed to fail

    It was Jawaharlal Nehru who once said: “Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles.”

    Year 2016 marked the 10th anniversary of Arik Airline. The airline rose from the ashes of the defunct national carrier, Nigeria Airways and efforts to create another one in partnership with Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic.

    When Joseph Arumemi-Ikhide saw this vacuum, he thought he could fill it. According to information on Arik’s website, he bought a Hawker jet aircraft. “Colleagues and contacts in the gas and oil industry started using the Hawker jet to fly themselves around Nigeria,” continues the report. “So, another jet was acquired and, before long, a corporate jet business was launched. The next step was to find the right people and the right aircraft to build an airline that would set new standards and change the face of aviation in Africa. Arik Air was born — an airline with whom “Nigeria and the rest of Africa would be proud to fly.”

    The company’s growth was rapid. By the end of 2012, Arik Air had successfully flown over 10 million passengers in less than six years of operation across a network of 41 domestic and international routes. It was operating an average of 120 flights daily from its two hubs at Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, Nigeria. At the peak of its growth, Arik was the darling of many Nigerians. It commanded 55% of the airline load in the country.

    However, it is said that success breeds complacency and complacency often leads to failure.  Soon, the airline’s management took the wrong turn, somehow. And the centre could not hold any longer. Delays in flight departure and outright cancellation soon became the hallmark of the airline. One after the other, all the core values of the airline were gradually compromised; safety and reliability; honesty and integrity; and respect for the dignity of our customers, fellow colleagues and our communities became hollowed and mere rhetoric.

    Last Thursday, the Federal government of Nigeria, through the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), announced a takeover of Arik Air to prevent it going bust.  Akin to the euphemism “too big to fail” that gained currency from the act of government bailout of US and European banks in the years following the subprime loans bust of 2008, Nigeria’s biggest national carrier, Arik Air, is being forced into receivership because it will be too costly to allow it to fail with a whopping N300 billion debt overhang.

    Like other similar interventions by AMCON, especially in the banking sector, this one too is aimed to “instill sanity” in the country’s aviation sector and to prevent a major catastrophe. Before now, AMCON intervened to save Aero Contractors, another airline on the verge of total collapse, with greater relief to the aviation industry. Similar interventions by AMCON in the banking industry have helped brought stability in the financial sector of the country. Since its establishment in 2010 AMCON has acquired about 13,774 Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) worth N3.6 trillion from 22 commercial banks, in the process saving our banking system, while its provision of financial accommodation of N2.2billion protected about N4.7trillion of depositors’ funds and interbank takings as well as saved approximately 14,000 jobs.

    AMCON has, through these interventions in the past, helped a lot of businesses bounce back and hit the path of recovery. In one of his numerous interactions with the media, the Managing Director of AMCON, Ahmed Kuru, underscored the raison d’être of his organization’s interventions thus:  “We don’t want any business to suffer because of their debts. We are not out to kill businesses but to encourage them to grow by following the global best practices in debt reconciliations and settlements. Our desire is to recover the money for the nation through painless processes.”

    Reports have it that the beleaguered airline was indebted to the tune of over N300bn, with AMCON alone owed N135bn; while its obligations to aviation fuel suppliers, insurance firms, aircraft maintenance organizations, the Federal Government and the various aviation agencies, as well as food vendors, made up the balance. This was a clearly precarious situation that pointed to the fast deterioration of the Arik Air services on both its domestic and international routes.

    A BBC reporter in Nigeria, Martin Patience, captured his experience with Arik services in the following words: “To fly Arik often means never getting off the ground. I was at Enugu airport when I was told my flight was cancelled. The man beside me at the check-in desk just shook his head – all his flights had been cancelled for the past two days.

    “Customer service at Arik Air is at times non-existent. When the airline cancels a flight, most of the time its ground staff flee rather than deal with the fallout from irate passengers.”

    “As the company’s troubles mounted at the end of last year, 70% of its international flights were delayed.”

    “The firm’s staff bears the brunt for an airline that even by Nigerian standards is a byword for utter dysfunction. Last month the company was forced to issue a plea for passengers not to attack its employees.”

    This writer, too, has had his own share of this experience. Indeed, hardly will you find a frequent flyer of domestic flights in Nigeria without a bitter and hard-to-forget experience of flying on Arik.

    Nothing explains this recurrent unfortunate experience by Arik customers better than lack of strict adherence to the tenets of corporate governance by its management.  Its poor services became a far cry from the airline’s sublime objective “to operate above and beyond the highest standards of safety and security and to offer a superior level of customer service and to deliver on all promises made to our guests.”

    Early this year the patience of Arik passengers was pushed to its limit. A video that went viral on the Internet on January 5 depicted the customer liaison manager of Arik being assaulted by a group of aggrieved passengers whose flight to Johannesburg was cancelled three times. The management of the airline was quick to blame frequent flight cancellation on aviation fuel shortages in the country. Although that could be true to some extent, there are other failings from the management of the airlines that became noticeable, such as the strikes embarked by its staff or the shutting down of the airline offices throughout the country by a couple of unions that brought untold hardship on its passengers last December.

    Many other serious failings of the management of Arik were reeled out by AMCON in the wake of the takeover of the airline by the corporation. They include, among others, poor corporate governance, demotivated pilots, poor safety measures, which is unacceptable in aviation business and the airline’s inability to meet its financial obligations.

    Arik management may attempt to contest the takeover, as the Deputy Managing Director, Captain Ado Sunusi, is reported to have said, but in the reckoning of stakeholders, the Arik takeover by AMCON is a welcome intervention. As clearly stated, AMCON intervened to afford Arik the opportunity to go back to regular and undisrupted operations, avoid job losses, protect investors and stakeholders’ funds as well as ensure safety and stability in the already challenged aviation sector.

    What can be a better option for Arik than this? In all honesty, can the management of Arik afford its blooming debt burden?  What has become evident is that the Buhari administration has seen positive results in these takeovers by AMCON and has been inclined to encourage it to the delights of Nigerians. Surely, AMCON is in good hands of its Managing Director and his team enjoying his experience and expertise as a thorough-bred banker and risk management guru. I have two pieces of advices to all stakeholders.

    The first is for all stakeholders in this unfolding event to manage their expectations of AMCON’s takeover—we should not expect magical turnaround of Arik in a month or two. The rot in Arik that have seen it plummeting from commanding of 30 aircrafts in its heydays to just nine today cannot be purified in few months’ time.

    The second is for all to put their sentiments aside and cooperate with the new managers and the receivers in their efforts to see to it that Arik navigates out of the current turbulent weather to a steady cruising level that will eventually land it into safer rebirth.

     

    • Hassan contributed this piece from Abuja.