The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Foreigners

  • Sudanese police order all foreigners to leave Khartoum

    Sudanese police order all foreigners to leave Khartoum

    Sudanese security authorities have ordered all foreigners to leave the capital Khartoum and the surrounding region.

    They have two weeks to do so, according to a statement from the section of the police dealing with foreigners.

    Foreigners should leave for their own safety amid the fighting still raging between government troops and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, the police said.

    According to media reports, hostility towards foreigners, especially those from other African countries, has been on the rise following reports of foreign mercenaries in the RSF ranks.

    Read Also: Ali Ndume, the rant of an expert in grandstanding, by Daniel Bwala 

    Just a few days ago, more than 150 foreigners who did not have valid residence papers were detained.

    A bloody power struggle has been raging in Sudan for more than a year between de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo.

    According to the UN, the conflict has caused almost 10 million people to flee their homes and risks a famine in the country.

    International aid organisation staff and diplomats still in the country left Khartoum after the outbreak of fighting and are now working from Port Sudan where the situation is comparatively stable.

  • North Korea reopens borders to foreigners after three years

    North Korea reopens borders to foreigners after three years

    North Korea will allow foreign nationals to enter the country from Monday, Chinese state media reported, after over three years of Covid-induced isolation.

    North Korea has been largely closed off from the outside world since early 2020, when it shut its borders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with even its own nationals prevented from entering.

    But it is this month showing signs of re-opening, with leader Kim Jong Un travelling to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin and sending athletes to compete in the Asian Games in China’s eastern city of Hangzhou.

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    Citing a reporter, Beijing’s state broadcaster CCTV said Monday that North Korea had announced it would allow foreigners to enter its territory.

    They will be subject to a two-day quarantine upon arrival, the report added.

    It did not give further information about the source of the announcement.

    North Korean state media did not carry any news of a border reopening.

    One Chinese operator of tours to North Korea, Dandong Strait National Tours, told followers on social media site WeChat: “At the moment tours haven’t resumed. Wait patiently.”

  • Foreigners keep eye on diplomatic policy, GDP performance

    An online survey by China Daily and 25 global media outlets found that China’s foreign policy was the top concern among global internet users.

    The survey serves as a barometer of how people worldwide view the two sessions. It asked them to choose the China-related topics they are interested in ahead of the roughly two-week-long event.

    The National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislature, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the top political advisory body, convene every March for meetings in Beijing.

    This year’s annual session of the CPPCC National Committee opened on Sunday. The annual NPC session opens on Tuesday.

    The 25 participating overseas media organizations, including London’s Daily Telegraph and Spain’s Agencia EFE, published the questionnaire online to collect responses from their readers.

    Pie chart: Top China-related topics cited by global internet users

    In the survey, 18.9 percent of the respondents said foreign policy and foreign affairs were the most-anticipated topic, followed by China’s GDP growth (13.6 percent), environmental protection (13.3 percent) and the job market (12 percent). A total of 5,206 people had submitted answers as of Saturday.

    Apart from the online questionnaire, global media organizations also submitted written statements, which indicated that ordinary people and the media industry have some topics of interest in common.

    Trinh Thanh Thuy, editor-in-chief of Vietnam News, said China’s foreign policy — the top choice of respondents globally — is also “of great interest” for the English-language daily.

    Henok Seyoum from the Ethiopian Press Agency said, “China is vigorously projecting soft power and presenting a peaceful image abroad by promoting cultural, educational, sports, tourism and other exchanges.”

    The global media community is also closely watching China’s GDP growth and job market.

    Mongolia’s Montsame News Agency acknowledged China’s importance in trade as China is responsible for most of the total foreign investment and export volume of Mongolia.

    Denys Lvanesko, director of the Ukrainian News Agency, wrote that information on China’s job market is in demand. Ukraine’s well-educated specialists, facing limited job prospects at home in the shadow of an economic crisis, are looking for opportunities abroad, including in China, Lvanesko said.

    Environmental protection is another big interest for foreign media. The Athens-Macedonian News Agency in Greece said that “the size of China’s economy means that its decisions will have a global impact in terms of carbon emissions and other pollutants”. China is also expected to “act as a world leader in global initiatives for change”, it said.

    A collaborative video project invited foreign reporters to ask questions. China Daily reporters in Beijing will convey those questions to lawmakers, political advisers and experts in a video interview series, which will be available for viewing on the China Daily website and app.

  • NIS seizes 436 voter cards, 192 National ID slips from foreigners

    NO fewer than 436 voter cards and 192 National Identity slips were seized from foreigners in the second and third quarters of the year, the Katsina State Command of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), said yesterday.

    Controller of Immigration in the state Joshua Ajisafe who stated this in Katsina, said 729 irregular migrants were repatriated by the command in the period under review.

    Ajisafe spoke at the inauguration of the NIS operational border patrol base at Mazanya, a border community in Jibiya Local Government Area of the state.

    He said the command also intercepted 10 suspected human traffickers and rescued 162 victims of human trafficking in the period under review.

    Katsina hosts an estimated 203 km borderline with Niger Republic, according to the controller, making it a major illegal trans-border migration route in the country.

    According to him, this explains why it is the most populous state command of the NIS in terms of manpower, with 1,035 officers and men stationed there.

    He said: “The command was able to curtail the influx of irregular immigrants with the help of border corps officers deployed to man some of the illegal routes.

    “The establishment of the two hinterland checkpoints at Charanchi and Kankara highways in the state also helped in this regard.”

    He said within the period, the command denied 1,203 foreigners admission into the country for lack of travel documents, while 411 Nigerians were refused departure for not having valid travel documents.

    The controller disclosed that the command recorded the arrival of 176,724 valid travel document holders and departure of 49,780 others in the period.

    Ajisafe attributed the modest achievements largely to support from the NIS headquarters and effective synergy with sister security agencies in the state.

  • ‘Foreigners shocked by Nigerians raising millions for ransom’

    Founder, Crime Victims Foundation of Nigeria (CRIVIFON), Mrs Gloria Egbuji, was the only Nigerian among the 198 participants at the 16th International Symposium of the World Society of Victimology, which held at the City University of Hong Kong, between June 10 and 14. Its theme was “Victims and Victimisation: Moving Towards an International Victimology”. Egbuji shares her experience with ADEBISI ONANUGA.

    You recently came back from Hong Kong. Wwhy were you there?

    The Hong Kong trip was a world conference on victims of crimes across the globe. Usually, it comes up once in four years and at such conference, a lot of new researches, issues at international levels concerning crimes and victims are discussed. A lot of people have done researches. It is also a convergence of professors, practitioners in the criminal justice system, who meet to look at problems of crime and victimisation in the world and proffer solutions to them. It is usually an interesting summit because almost like about 198 people from different parts of the world were there and people, who knew crimes like cyber crimes, crimes against the elderly, kidnapping for ransom, trafficking, even refugees, migrants.

    New issues weighed up as to whether you can call a refugee or migrant people, who are running away from their country,  a victim or perpetrator of crime. So, it was a convergence of ideas and a lot of solutions proffered.

    What was the theme of the conference?

    The theme was: “Victims and Victimisation: Moving Towards an International Victimology”. It is an international view of victims, victimisation and criminal activities.

    How many people attended from Nigeria?

    Just me, but there were other people from Africa. From West Africa, were two, from East Africa: Kenya, Zimbabawe and Uganda. I saw people from some other African countries.

    So, what were the takeaways from the conference?

    There were a lot of takeaways. For instance, I presented a paper there on “Kidnapping for Ransom” and during my session people were asking me why and they came up with solutions on how we can deal with kidnapping for ransom. For example, they were shocked that in our country, people can muster $1 million cash, N80 million for ransom. They were thinking that in our country, we have a lot inequalities and that the financial policies of cash transactions also give room for that. And the issue of not being able to catch up with technology was another reason because they found it difficult to believe that they can kidnap someone for one week, with callings with phones, they were not trapped. So, they suggested that we should improve on our technology, tracking systems, improve on our cash economy and reduce cash system because if a kidnapper knows that they are not going to have cash, they would not kidnap people.

    They don’t kidnap in the United States and some western world for instance, they said they never paid money for ransom. And because we have easy way to get cash, that is why it is thriving. I am sure no kidnapper has time for you to go and start using credit card and all that stuff. So, those are some of the new things coming up.

    What about your core area, crime victims?

    Yes, they also came up with issues about victims of crime. They said the criminal justice system across the world focuses more on justice. They are not focusing  on victim justice because they feel that once a crime is committed against the victim, that it is a crime against the state. And once the state deals with the punishment, they don’t care about what happens to the victims of crime. So, they are now thinking that states cannot continue to spend money to arrest the perpetrator, prosecute the perpetrator, send him to prison while nothing happens to the victims. So, they are now saying that there should be a shift within the criminal justice system so that victims of crime can have what they called “Restorative Justice”. What we have in many countries now is retributive justice, which is punitive.

    They are thinking that those who become victims of crime, the state can go a step further to ensure that at least, a kind of compensation and psychological treatment are given to them because when you become a victim, you are so traumatised, you are going through a lot of things, things that can bring you back to normal situation when the crime has not happened, which is not done. So, they are now talking about victim’s justice. Restorative Justice was highly proffered, and the issue of canvassing for victim’s right, compensation for victims was also proffered.

    What other areas of criminal justice administration were considered at the world summit?

    They are coming up with how to reduce congestion in the prisons by making those convicted of minor offences go on community service instead of just piling people in prison. Like in Ikoyi Prison, you find that somebody is there because of his or her inability to meet options of fine of N5,000. I have handled a case involving option of fine of N10,000 and they have been detained for one month.

    So, in cases like that, you subject them to community services to, for instance, clean the High Courts, sweep the hospitals or the roads. They are punished this way because the offences are minor. They also looked at delay in justice delivery, which is more peculiar to us in Nigeria. Delay in justice delivery is not peculiar to most other countries because you can become a perpetrator and they delay you, keeping you in prison for three years for an offence that you were to serve for two years. So, all those issues concerning criminal justice administration were discussed.

    Any new area of crime?

    Yes. They also looked at upcoming crimes, crimes that were not there before like cyber crime, which is now a crime across the world. They still have not been able to nip the issue of cyber crime. Some areas are still left for more researches to be carried out. Cyber crime is an area that is worrisome. But the takeaway for us is that we should look at restorative justice, which our fore fathers practiced before.

    They used it to deal with criminal offenders and it yielded more results and it made for balanced justice for both the victim and the perpetrator. If somebody is stealing in a family, in the traditional setting for instance, the family is shamed and they are not going to allow it. In those kind of situation, they wanted to look at what works and what doesn’t so that there can be a shift and change of narratives in some of the things we are doing.

    On prison decongestion, what do you think of probation and parole system in our criminal justice administration?

    Emphasis was also laid on that at that summit, but in Nigeria now, if we talk about probation, we begin to ask about the facilities that we have to even reform prisoners that will not make them to go out and commit crimes again. Probation is very good, but again, we noted at that summit that in a country where inequality is high, you cannot stop crime.

    In Nigeria, we have a lot of inequalities. Some people are very rich and many people are very poor and when things get to a level, people have to survive and so you see a lot of survival crime. That is why people are creating all sorts of ways to survive because they want to survive. So, probation can be a very good thing if it works. But now, there are so many things within the prison system, which we don’t know, which we ought to do but we are not doing.

    At the Ikoyi Prison, whose capacity is supposed to be about 800, as at last month, they had over 1,400 inmates and out of them only about 400 are convicted inmates. So, when we talk about probation now, we have to deal first with awaiting trials, which is our major problem causing congestion in the prison. You can’t talk about these things without talking about the entire justice system. Decongestion of prisons starts from what the courts send to them. Most of the cases the courts are not dealing with would remain there waiting for Ministry of Justice’s advice. So, when you look at what is happening at the Ministry of Justice and at the judiciary, it affects the prisons. The prison is just a dumping ground. But there is no doubt that probation is a very good way to deal with prison congestion.

    How do you intend to ensure that all these takeaways get to the government and the public, especially as the government was not represented?

    I would have loved to have a conference to sell the ideas of what we got from the summit. I know we have to involve the mass media, but I know the media is not cheap. To get it out now is to continue to talk about it and maybe sometimes, like when we were talking about gunshot wound victims that hospitals should treat them, we waited for a very famous person from the media to be shot. Bayo Ohu, an Editor of The Guardian was shot and killed in his house at Okota, Lagos.

    He went to the hospital for treatment, but they refused to treat him. So, Bayo Ohu died and it became headlines. We used that opportunity to continue to raise our voice and we were there campaigning for victims of gunshot to be treated without police report and then report later. The President signed that bill into law last year which is good. People can now go to hospital and be treated without Police report.

    My intention is to make presentations to the Federal Ministry of Justice, but I would first of all continue to talk to the public through the media to see whether they can help me spread the news until it gets to the policy makers. They are things that they are not thinking about.

    The government is not concerned about victim justice just because they don’t understand it. Like you now, if you lose your phone and report it to the police, you don’t get your phone back. The people who stole it must have terrorised you, the police will just go and prosecute the case, they don’t care whether you got your phone  back, they don’t even care what happened to you, whether you went through trauma, nobody cares. They don’t even inform you about what is going on in your case. So, they need victims for success in criminal justice.

  • ‘Criminal politicians bring foreigners to build colonies, not ranches’

    Shortly before his demise, the former President of the Middle Belt Forum, the late Dr. Bala Takaya, spoke on a live Television Continental programme, ‘The platform,’ anchored by the Chairman of Editorial Board, The Nation, Sam Omatseye, on the security situation in the country. Excerpts:

    I want to start by asking you your sense of the recent incidents of killings, herdsmen, Fulani herdsmen as some people would prefer to call it and the locals around the middle belt. What is your sense of what is going on right now?

    Well, Sam, it’s a very sad situation that is happening in the middle belt region. Something we never expected is happening. We understand by the pronouncements of government officials, particularly the security agencies that some foreigners are crossing our borders with sophisticated weapons and it is they that are coming to despoil our people, to kill our people in their sleep, to chase our people out of their farms, to destroy their farm crops and feed the harvested ones to their animals. And they are behaving with impunity, something we never expected. Things of this nature are happening over and over – in Adamawa, in Nasarawa, in Taraba, in Kaduna, Southern Kaduna, recurringly – shed blood as if there is anything that they have done that is criminal. These people are not beyond us. Like has been demonstrated in Numan and other places. They are not beyond us but the government is always not interested in us defending ourselves. There is a clear example that we can defend ourselves successfully when Boko Haram invaded northern Adamawa and Borno areas. The local hunters with their dane guns and double barrel guns together with the help of the youths were able to roll back the Boko Haram and liberated the cities that they took over. And it was after our people were able to do that that the military who ran away came back and then recognised the fact that the vigilantes are good. But what did we hear? Later on, they began to say the vigilantes should be disarmed. Disarmed to do what? So that our people would now remain empty-handed and easy prey? And now after the present administration demonstrated some possibility that it could roll back Boko Haram each time there is an incident of this nature, sometimes MACBAN would come and own responsibility and begin to accuse the local community and even suggest that the killing is deserved like the 70 people that were mowed down in Benue, MACBAN said they deserved it because this is their response to the anti-grazing law. And how can a people go and kill human beings because they are protesting against a law when there are clear methods of settling disputes of this nature. Why can’t they take the government to court if they think that what the government is doing is wrong? And why even promise that more killings are coming unless that law is rescinded? Can anything like this happen in a civilised country? And therefore, there are people behind this. And security agencies are not asking questions. I believe they also read the MACBAN stories. Why shouldn’t they go and call MACBAN to come and explain?

    Do you think that the MACBAN men or officers should be prosecuted for what they said? Do you think they have become complicit?

    Of course if you have a security breakdown of this nature involving lives concerned, nobody should be spared. Everybody that has some remote connection should be properly interrogated to be absolved or be inculpated.

    The issue that it is foreign bororos that are doing these things is a point that you have been stressing. I want you to clarify if there is actually a distinction between the foreigners that are coming and the locals? Is it that the foreigners do the damage and the locals just look the other way or there is some kind of complicity?

    I may not rule out the possibility of complicity in certain areas because this is a complicated relationship altogether among them. But the local Fulani, we have lived with them for hundreds of years very peacefully. Normally, the local Fulanis would move, identify a community land where they can graze and they would go to the chief of the community and request for permission to graze their cattle around that community when the land is not under cultivation, and or to graze on the offal of the cultivated crops. And when the land is needed during the rainy season, they move apart. And we have co-operated in that manner such that they depend on us for the crops that we produce, they supply cattle products like milk and butter and also the cattle droppings which is considered useful as manure for the crops. By arrangement they would raise their cattle on our land during the fallow period so that the manure can fertilise those lands and when we need the land, they would move away. They also send their children to the schools that we go. And some of their children today are civil servants, some of them are professors in even veterinary medicine (in) faculties in universities, some of them are medical doctors and some of them are even local government officials.

    Now, you’ve said something very interesting. The question now is, who are these people in the north who are doing it? I heard a story that in those days, the Fulanis who were herdsmen tended to move from place to place and they saw it as their lifestyle and they passed it to their children and then to their children’ children and it became so over generations. But what happened in the intervening years has been the encroachment of capitalism where some people had a lot of money, had to get a lot of cattle and therefore employ fewer herdsmen. So, this has put a lot of the families and the herdsmen out of jobs and they have become of no use to themselves and the society and they’ve become angry. And that has created part of the problems that these so-called cattle capitalists have become the source of this problem. How would you assess that argument?

    The analysis may not be too correct though there may be some facts behind it. The truth is the influx of the Fulani is not as a result of any local businessman or bourgeoisie acquiring more cows and putting the local ones out of business. No. if anything, the local acquisitions opened opportunities for the families of the local Fulani to take care of the cows that are bought by the local bourgeoisie. Instead, what is happening is that there is a lot of influx from across the border because desertification meant that they lost their cattle out there because you cannot graze cows on sand. You need grass, you need water. And the drought which they helped in creating by chopping down trees and damaging the surface of earth has made it difficult for their cattle to multiply. On the other hand, our local Fulani politicians who don’t have the numbers when it comes to the electoral contest want to populate their own kind by bringing them from Mali to come and settle them in Nigeria without following due processes. There is an ECOWAS protocol of movement of persons. They do not follow that. There is a natural method of how people can migrate into other countries and naturalise. They don’t want to follow that. Instead, they want to bring them in concentrated forms and house them or settle them in some kind of colonies. And when you talk about colonies, colony by nature is a settlement of persons that are loyal to somewhere else but not to the local community. And which will therefore spread their influence and take control of the local place that they have settled. This is my understanding of it from political science point of view. And I believe this is the analysis that fits into the situation that we are facing today. It’s a matter of politics. But that government looks the other way worries me.

    So, you’re saying earnest that it is absence of water that has caused this problem because of the desert encroachment and the death of their cattle. Because many of their cattle are now dead, they’ve become homeless, they become jobless so they have no cattle anymore. So, they are now looking for what to do with their lives and their idleness have been taken advantage of by the northern politicians

    Do we owe them responsibility in Mali or in Chad or in Niger? This is their country. Nigeria is Nigeria for Nigerians. The Fulani that have chosen to settle in Nigeria are Nigerians and we have taken good care of them. And they are doing very well. Why should the politicians among them now begin to think of populating their numbers by bringing such persons from those countries in order to settle them? I mean, Israel is a country in the desert. It’s one of the countries with the largest herds of cattle in the world. It produces beef and exports to Europe beyond what it can use at home. And they are desert areas. They are not more desert than Niger. They are not more desert than Mali. They are not more desert than Chad. Why can’t Chadians, Malians and Nigeriens find a way of raising their cattle the way the Israelis do? Why can’t they tap the groundwater?  Why can’t they formulate the cattle fields the way that they are doing in advanced countries? Why is Australia not crossing into Nigeria to come and graze their cows on our grass? Australia is a desert area just like Chad. Why are they not running away from Australia?

    What you’re saying in earnest sir, is that the argument being advanced by those in the north, including the recent argument by the minister of defence that the building of infrastructure, the building of roads and the occlusion of the routes that the herdsmen usually took in the past was the cause of the problem is actually a red-herring. You’re saying that that is not the real problem. The real problem is that these people who come from outside the country have no jobs and they have been taken advantage of by the politicians to populate the area. So the problem is not that they are looking for grazing routes. The problem is that they are criminals and jobless people who politicians are taking advantage of.

    That’s my take exactly.

    How popular is that your take among the elites in the middle belt, in Adamawa, in Plateau, in Benue. Is it a position they hold?

    That’s the explanation that we can only have for what is happening. And that is why we are being cleansed out of our own land so that our land can be freed up for these people. That is my own take on it. And I believe that the politicians that are doing that also seem too have so much influence over government that government cannot use its security structures and powers to control the influx of these people and look the other when our people are being killed. That is my position.

    So, does that not contradict the necessity for the anti-grazing law because it is not an issue of grazing or not grazing because those who want to graze and who are prevented from grazing are actually not the problem. Because the problem are people who are not even grazing at all but idle men with Ak-47 who are hiding in the bushes

    Precisely, but it doesn’t negate the anti-grazing law. The anti-grazing law is a law that modernises cattle breeding. Anti-grazing law would enable the local Fulani who asks for permission to get some swathes of land to settle on by our communities, to own and certificate these lands in forms of ranches so that during the dry season they don’t have to move far away, during the rainy season they don’t have to move faraway. They would stay in one place and we would have quality beef. And we will have quality cattle products. And in the process, the cattle economy would be more productive for Nigeria. And when our local Fulani are properly settled, they would be adding value to Nigeria, not killing their host the way that the foreigners are doing now.

    So that means the crises has nothing to with grazing. That’s what I want you to clarify. It means that the crises of killings in the middle belt, in Benue, in Plateau, in Adamawa, in Taraba, the killings have nothing to do with grazing. It has to do with criminals running rampant in the bushes around the north. So, why are we talking about ranching? Why are we talking about colonies when the problem has nothing to do with that?

    Ranching and colonies are two different issues. Ranching came about as a solution to the open grazing which they are hiding behind. And they are hiding behind the fact that because the local Fulani also move a little bit apart from the communities they are settled whenever the land is required for cropping. And therefore, the people that have created this situation for us are hiding behind this fact that the Fulani that are coming are coming in transhumance to pass through grazing routes and they need some lands of their own to settle in pure type, not with our communities this time. But the cattle Fulani that are ours settled by us have been part and parcel of our communities. In local government elections, in national elections, they participate. But what the miscreants that are trying to import criminals to come and settle them in pure type in various states want is some kind of colonies which is different from ranches. They want to create colonies. It is not the cattle that matters but a settlement for the people that they are bringing over. And they would now use federal government resource of Nigeria resources to build infrastructures for them, to build roads for them, to build facilities for them. These things that have never been provided for our local people, they want to do that for the criminals that are coming from outside without proper documentation. So, why should Nigeria do that kind of thing to itself? So, the issue of colony is different from ranching. And if the Nigeriens or Malians or whatever that come, if they come legally and they still want to do cattle business, they can behave like our local cattle Fulani and acquire animals and settle by our communities and they can put them under ranch, not necessarily in concentrated form to colonise 5, 000 hectares or something like that in each state. That is larger than most local government areas. And that is acquisition or expropriation of people’s lands without explanation. And cattle economy is a business, cattle rearing is business, why should other peoples’ land be taken away for somebody else’s business? Why should federal government money be used to develop piece of land for the business of somebody else? And to the disadvantage of former local owners? These are some of the questions that are being asked.

    Now, the question is, when the president met with some elders of Benue State and he said, let them accommodate their countrymen, he couldn’t have been referring to foreigners. So was the president not aware that this is a problem fomented by foreigners or did he believe that the people who were Tiv or who were locals were the ones doing the damage?

    My understanding is that the president was not even well educated about what was going on and he was not even aware probably that…

    He owns cattle.

    He owns cattle but they are in a ranch

    But, he is in the business

    Why should other Fulani like him not ranch their own? Is it because they are not president? Is it because they are not elite? And he is not aware at that time that he met with the elders, he was not aware that the people causing trouble for Nigeria were the invaders, the infiltrators, the criminals from across the border. The Sultan of Sokoto drew the attention of security and the government in  a very subtle manner to show them that those who are doing the killings, serial killings and mass killings in the middle belt are foreigners that have crossed the border, not the local Fulani that are settled with us.

     

  • Foreigners threat worries cashew growers

    THE National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN) has raised the alarm over the encroachment of foreigners into cashew farms across the country.

    Its President, Mr. Tola Fasheru, said the encroachment had been causing distractions for local farmers, and the consequence of this is low quality of products, reduced value at the international market and most importantly lower purchasing power for the Nigerian farmers.

    According to him, the encroachment into cashew farms by foreigners is inimical to the value chain system and cuts off our locals from participating in the trade.

    He frowned at the practice of foreigners bombarding the farm gates to buy cashew and said this should stop.

    According to him, cashew nuts have become a global industry, yet small-scale farmers are battling to get a fair return for their work because of foreigners.

     

    He reiterated that the association to do its best in ensuring that cash crops return as the major foreign exchange earner for Nigeria now that the country is moving away from a monolithic economy.

     

    To this end, he told the nation that his association is working with the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the Agro ranchers to ensure expatriates to move directly  to the bushes to buy directly from the farmers thereby taking away the much needed jobs from the  people.

    Nigeria produces about 150,000 metric tons of cashew annually and is rated fourth largest producer of cashew nuts in Africa and seventh in the world. In 2016, NCAN claimed it made $270million in earnings.

  • ‘Foreigners must not take digital switch over from Nigerians’

    ‘Foreigners must not take digital switch over from Nigerians’

    Mr. Toyin Subair floated the defunct HITV. Now Executive Chairman, Digital Play Nigeria Limited, a firm that is set to revolutionise television, Subair, in this interview with LUCAS AJANAKU, speaks on Play TV, saying that foreigners must not be allowed to hijack Digital Switch Over (DSO) and that DSO funding can be achieved through innovative solutions.

    What is your assessment of the television and broadcast environment?

    This time in Nigeria, television is critical. Nigeria has to take back the leadership role in television in Africa. Many years ago, we started the battle to ensure that those who wanted their  part of the world or Africa to become the hub of broadcasting for Nigeria; or  Africa will not succeed because they are only to become subservient when it comes to broadcasting.

    So, there will be continuous battle to recognise that, but you know at times people are just happy with what they have; they don’t think about tomorrow. They don’t think about our culture. People don’t fight for Nigeria. That is a big error and a problem in this system and when you have someone like me, how does it apply to our television?

    We started television first in Africa.What has happened since then?

    We have a situation where there are two pay TV companies in the country – one is Chinese, the other South African. The two DTT pay platforms in Nigeria one is Chinese, one is South Africa. No Nigeria DTT is anywhere. Look at production, we have the talents in Africa when it comes to film, music and in television, but then, what do you find? We are not able to monetise it because we have not put the infrastructure and the platforms in place for people to enjoy it, for talent and creativity to thrive and grow. So, the people who have infrastructure are coming to take over our creativity and our talent and to control it, so that they direct how it is done because infrastructure is key. The problem is that, we think creativity is everything; it is what the world wants. But it needs infrastructure to thrive; it needs a particular kind of environment to thrive. So, they know that we have a position. South Africa has infrastructure and, then, they come and took our creativity and they didn’t want to own it.They’ve tried to duplicate our creativity. They cannot find it. They don’t have it.

    Nollywood has thrived without doing anything, Afro Beat has thrived without doing anything. This is our blessing. Now, we need to fight the infrastructural battle. We need to own the platforms. We need to get the right kind of funding. We need to ensure that our stories are told the way we want them to be told and that they are not bastardised by the one controlling it. Somebody else is deciding what goes on and what doesn’t, when it should go and how it shouldn’t go out. You don’t want that, you don’t want people to take our creativity out of the country. In the world of content ownership, the infrastructure part of it provides so many jobs. It provides so much money. If you let the people put our infrastructure for everything, our creativity needs to be deployed outside Nigeria. The amount of jobs that we will lose, the foreign exchange and the power is much.

    We have the greatest tool of such power that the world has seen since either America or India and we are not able to influence people with it because we are letting other people dictate how it is seen, enjoyed, consumed, and what to act and what not to act, if they keep on controlling it. So, there’s a place where we need to take and the biggest opportunity for us to do that has been the Digital Switch Over (DSO) because in DSO, what that means is that everyone has to have an appliance, whether it’s smart TV or a decoder to consume television or any other value-added services. So, this is our infrastructure. This is Nigeria’s opportunity to take control.  We have 24 million plus TV households. If we own an infrastructure that is delivering television to 24 TV households and it belongs to us; we are using it to make sure that our own content is deployed. It is monetised, paid for appropri ately and  where I create any content, I will go there, sell it and present it to the people. This is what DSO is about. It is about every home consuming television and every creative person having access to every home.

    Thrice government has set time for DSO, but failed to meet the target. What are the issues?

    The first thing is that we need to own it. There is a battle for ownership. It can’t go to the foreigner again. From what I see, and that is what people will not say, the battle is about who should own DSO? Other people want to come and own it. When we were sitting down here just doing analogue, some people saw the opportunity that everybody has to own this chance too – let’s go and take that country. So, the real truth is that there is a battle that is going on behind and it is because some people want to take it over and own it and some local people are fighting back and saying, no we will own it. And then you have the people that the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti said: dem go find one man of low mentality, dem go give him small money, put him there and then use him to control his people. So, you people looking for some of these men of low mentality that they will use to control and own our television and 24 million TV households, the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa. So, this is the biggest issue, but it’s the one that you do not see. They dress it up in all kinds of things, but at the back, there is a huge monster trying to consume our eye balls and control our creativity. So, this is the real battle. We need to fund this because it’s not like other parts of the world, that you can get the money easily to do things. Money here is too expensive, especially for the creative industry. We have to look for how to do that and I can see this government doing so much work in trying to reduce the cost of financing for the creative sector. At least, I’ve seen a few steps taken by the Minister of Information, the CBN governor and the Minister of Finance. They have been doing a lot to try and get this into play, but then with regards to DSO itself, a lack of understanding of what DSO itself means technically is that at times people don’t see where the money is.

    So, they say there is no money, how can you say there is no money? The very essence of DSO is that you free up spectrum that people can use to go and sell data and make data cheaper via LT 4G 5G. So, 16 TV analogue channels find something that if they move to digital, they will only need a fraction of it and then you can take the rest and sell it. So,with regards to the funding of DSO, we are sitting on it ourselves with no transaction being done properly to free it. So, it’s like a chicken and egg situation. You are sitting on the money, but you need to monetise it; you just need a few smart people in one room, create a model where it is used as security to fund the rest of DSO and then once it is funded and you remove the people, you use the asset and you sell it off to monetise the investment. Now, what I just said looks simple; we make it difficult for ourselves.

    The frequency you talked about is what the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) calls digital dividend. Some broadcast stations are on those frequencies. They need to vacate the frequencies before they can be freed.

    What model do you recommend?

    There are many ways you can model it. Everywhere in the world, this is what has been done so, it’s either the telcos pay to move them out, and to move them out that means you deploy some measure of infrastructure both in terms of mast for DSO equipment or then receiving the equipment for those who can’t afford it because you cannot switch off and then put 60 per cent of the country in darkness when it comes to television. ITU doesn’t allow that. It requires that the same amount of people have access to it as you did before when you were in analog. You have to play this thing very well, but you just need intelligent financial application to put to it, which is simple. You have a house in a backyard, there’s a tenant inside it. If you sell the house, you’ll be able to pay for 10 houses somewhere else. You tell the tenant leave and the tenant is saying that I won’t vacate; okay tenant, let me do a deal with you. When you vacate, pay me for this thing. The 10 houses I’m going to build, I will give you one of them, let’s sign the contract because this people are ready to build, but you are the one disturbing them. The tenant says okay fine. I will vacate once you give me that asset; don’t worry about; it tells the people it is done. I will vacate on this day. They sign a document, the people then go and the tenant is as good as left.

    They go, build the infrastructure and when they’re finished, the tenant moves there and then they collect the property. This is not rocket science; Nigeria is not the first to do it. In some countries, they have the money outside the transaction, we don’t because Nigeria doesn’t have that $400million, $300million to deploy in this first and then you get the frequencies and start selling. No, it’s the same transaction, but it can be done,  but they need to understand that this is the way to fund the rest of it. Nigeria will benefit in many ways from DSO, because it allows every home to become internet ready, connected, to become a destination for information; that they’ve never heard before. To do, transactions you’ll  need the decoder, bring internet into the home, bring it to a digital age.  If I put it in a very blunt way, data is not an end, it is a means to an end. The telcos have looked at data as if data is everything and that’s why they are not making money from it. Without video at the end of data, you cannot make money from it. You’ll struggle, all the financial applications; those things that they do cannot consume between three and four per cent of the available space that they have, but when you start using video. Then you consume, you have  to price video, you have to make it available. You remember when we had the initial phone networks. They said it was Nigeria stock because you’ll just carry the phone call 090, you’ll just be talking. This is where you need to get them to, you need to get them to video on data. Once people are doing video on data, you make money.

    WhatsApp is making life impossible for the network because it is becoming more efficient every day. You need less data everyday when you are using WhatsApp because they want you to keep on using WhatsApp, so they come up with all kinds of compression technology, even Facebook is one of them.  So, the mobile phone companies are receiving their own and they don’t understand what they need to do and in a country that has Nollywood, that has Afro Beat, that has the kind of music videos that we have, that has comedy, jokes,  Fuji, content that will push data can never be a problem. Some things happen here that when you see, you wonder, ‘what is happening here? It’s like my people say somebody has a head, he has no arm. Somebody has heart, he has no head. It’s something that is signal there. The money to do it is within the system, it’s in people’s hand, it’s in corporation’s hand. The power is in the hands of government. We don’t even need non-Nigeria entity to be involved in this. There’s nothing they bring to us. We have everything; so it’s to deploy those resources and I think that we will get there. As time goes on, people will realise that there is no free lunch. When you look at the DSO, the way it’s been framed, we have two signal distributors, one of them is Pinnacle, a 100 per cent local company that has been equipping and broadcasting for over 30 years.

    So you’ve got Pinnacle signal distributor, they are well funded, they can do whatever they need to do and then you find that what has happened in Nigeria is that all the free to air channels are not going to need their transmitters anymore; they have to go to the signal distributor in order to benefit from DSO and so like what you said is happening in Kaduna, Abuja, Jos, Ilorin, Enugu so they are giving their channels to this people and this people will re-transmit for them so they don’t need all that work anymore, they pack the work with the signal distributor on behalf of Nigeria. The big problem is now that the foreign paid TV firms in Nigeria who are also on spectrum that is required and are also transmitting not only on satellite but using Nigeria’s spectrum, they want to stay separate and keep on doing what they are doing, you take transmission from the free to air company, you’ll have to take it from the pay TV company, you take if from the local Nigerian company, you have to take it from the foreign company.

  • Fed Govt to replace foreigners with locals

    The Industrial Training Fund (ITF) Director-General/Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Joseph Ari,  has expressed worry over the number of foreigners in some sectors.

    He said the situation not only posed danger, but threatened the attainment of key government policies.

    Speaking at the kick-off of the National Industrial Skills Development Programme in Awka, Anambra State, Ari said the Federal Government had commenced the replacement of foreigners with Nigerians, who had acquired skills for such jobs.

    He said the programme was aimed at instilling skills in Nigerians, particularly the youth, to stimulate economic recovery and growth.

    “It is worrisome that despite the number of Nigerians without work, several surveys, including those conducted by the ITF, have revealed that vacancies exist in some sectors of the economy that are currently being filled by persons other than Nigerians because of the lack of requisite technical skills of our people.

    “It was with a view of arresting this problem, which represents not only a clear and present danger, but also threatens the attainment of key government policies that the ITF conceived the idea of NISDP,” he said.

  • Why most Nigerian companies are controlled by foreigners —Ex-Odu’a Investment chair Akintade

    Chief Isaac Akintade is the immediate past Chairman of Odu’a Investment Company. The owner of a chain of businesses before he was appointed the chair of Odu’a Group spoke with GBENGA ADERANTI about his tenure as the chairman of Odu’a Investment Company, the challenges he faced managing the conglomerate, the business climate in Nigeria and why the nation’s economy will continue to be dominated by foreigners.

    What was the state of Odu’a Investment Company when you came in as the chairman?

    Well, Odu’a Group was vibrant. Workers were very enthusiastic. Odu’a was making good profit when I became the chairman.

    So what did you do to improve what you met on ground?

    As the chairman, I was supervising the general board meeting. Whatever happened during my tenure was not directly my own making; it was the making of the board in general. There were so many innovations. But first, let me tell you I was a director there for four years before I became the chairman.

    When I was the director, Dr. Adebayo Jimoh was the GMD (group managing director). We had very collaborative moments. All the directors and the chairman worked together, and there were so many projects we initiated and completed. Part of the projects was the Shoprite Mall and other malls that were initiated and completed.

    You know Cocoa House got burnt. The place was renovated through Adebayo Jimoh with our direct collaborations.

    If you look at most of the companies in Nigeria, you will see that they are being controlled by foreigners. Why is this so?

    Number one is that you cannot run a company without capital. Most of these foreigners will come to Nigeria with small foreign exchange and convert this to the Nigerian currency and establish themselves. With capital, you can go places. Although there are so many so-called experts in the country, but are they really professionals in their fields? Nigerians don’t have capital and banks are not willing to give loans. Even if they give loans, most Nigerians will not use the loans efficiently. That is why most companies are being controlled by foreigners.

    It is generally believed that the business climate in Nigeria is very hostile. From your experience as a chairman of a conglomerate, would you agree to this?

    Well, it depends on what you are doing and how professional you are. Why they say the business climate is hostile is because you have to provide your electricity, you have to provide your water, you have to provide everything on your own before you can run a company. All these things cost money and they are part of your cost of production. It will be difficult for you to make profit.

    Of course, the Nigerian factor is still there. The Nigerian factor is that most Nigerians are not sincere. Abroad, when a European is working for you, he is working for you conscientiously. But most Nigerians, when they work for you, they won’t work for you conscientiously. That is the Nigerian factor.

    How did you feel managing an organisation like Odu’a?

    It was easy. Very very easy. I was a businessman before I joined Odu’a. I own Famak Nigeria Limited, and oil company. We have a construction firm and a chemical company. We represent Lafarge in Ondo area. So I have been managing businesses, it was very easy. And my job was to supervise directors, pass information to the GMD for him to carry out.

    Do you have any regret serving the organisation?

    I have no regret serving the conglomerate. I feel so proud to have served there. I have no regret. The current chairman is a friend and younger brother, so where would my regret come from? No regret at all. If I’m called to serve 100 times, I wouldn’t mind.

    On my exit, I would say, when our party lost election in Ondo State, I definitely knew immediately that the new government would appoint another person to replace me. I had even packed most of my things from the office. I was there to serve. No regret at all.

    But let me say this also that there was no proper procedure in my leaving Odu’a. My appointment was tenure-based and I was supposed to leave on the 3rd of December 2017. But the GMD just called me and said I should not come to the board meeting. As an elderly person, I obliged, waiting for what would happen next.

    My leaving Odu’a was not proper. Even if the governor had sent another person to replace me, he would have written me a letter, because I served the Odua states. My letter of appointment says only the stakeholders, not only my governor, can relieve me of that position.