The Nation Newspaper

Tag: future

  • Diamond Bank unveils Diamond Future

    Diamond Bank unveils Diamond Future

    Diamond Bank has opened a window of money management opportunity that enables parents and guardians plan and save for the future of their children through a simplified and high interest yielding target savings plan.

    The financial product, known as Diamond Future does not only enable parents to save but also to teach their children to develop healthy savings habit  and build prudent expenditure profile and diverse investment portfolios.

    According to the Bank, Diamond Future was created and launched into the market in 2014 but now refreshed to help parents meet set savings targets for their children and easily accomplish their future financial goals and needs with excitement.

    Information about the financial product on the bank’s website revealed that the product is a savings account designed for children between ages 0-17, and offers a well guided and structured plan with the opportunity of earning high interest rates. The plan is known as Diamond Future Target Savings Plan.

    Its chief spokesperson, Chioma Afe, stated that a major reason for creating the product was to instill in children the value and dignity of starting early to chart healthy financial course in life, and also deepen financial inclusion by integrating the children into the banking community.

    “We want young people to know that Diamond Bank is not just for adults, Diamond Bank is your Bank too. We have worked hard to be the bank that understands the financial needs of parents and their children and to provide the right products and support to help them save to achieve their dreams,” the bank stated.

    The new offerings in the refreshed savings plan, provides customers with an opportunity to be rewarded with an additional interest accrual on agreed monthly savings. The reward increases as the number of years the customer has set in the savings plan increase.

  • Yoruba’s precarious future in Nigeria

    To say that the Yorùbá have a precarious future in the national entity called Nigeria is not to say anything that uniquely applies to the Yorùbá alone. Almost all the major ethnic groups have one reason or the other to exercise legitimate fears about their future existence in Nigeria. What is however unique about the assertion is that each nationality would have to find its own unique means, usually internal to its cultural dynamism, to deal with the problem of nation-building and the national project in Nigeria. What is called the Nigerian national project is the attempt by any plural state to deal with the multitude of centrifugal forces that often threaten to overwhelm the objective of nation building. In Nigeria, these forces come in the form of religious fundamentalism and ethnic divisiveness which consistently defeat the centripetal objective of building a civic nationalism that will, all things being equal, give birth to a truly Nigerian nation. In other words, the nation building effort in Nigeria has only a chance to work if the Nigerian government has all the supports and loyalties it requires.

    There is however a dimension of political economy to all ethnic maneuvering and agitations within the Nigerian national space. Relationship in the Nigerian space is defined around the allocation of scarce national resources, especially the oil revenue. Within Nigeria’s lopsided political system, Nigeria’s oil resources provide one singular reason for the jostling for the status of the president amongst the various politically heavy ethnic nations. The implication of this is that the status quo of a unitary “federalism” provides enough justification not to reform the system. But it is exactly the reform of the Nigeria “federal” system that the Yorùbá have dedicated themselves to for far too long. One aspect of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s national legacy is built around an ardent advocacy for restructuring Nigeria’s constitutional status to reflect a truly federal framework. Federalism operates on the understanding of the parity of autonomy between the federal and the state or regional governments. It was as if Awolowo knew the enormous structural and political impediments that are arrayed against the Yorùbá’s creative deployment of their heritage and capacities within a unitary national space.

    Outside of a truly federal system, everything else is a dangerous political game founded on ethnic relevance. Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian writer, understands the essence of this game: “Real politics…has little to do with ideas, values, and imagination…and everything to do with manoeuvres, intrigues, plots, paranoia, betrayals, a great deal of calculation, no little cynicism, and every kind of con game.” Unfortunately, even Awolowo was equally caught within the snare of this real politics which he understood very clearly, and which most of his books and ideas were meant to anticipate and undermine. That underlying dynamics of Nigeria’s politics pitted him against his erstwhile associate, Chief Ladoke Akintola. Both are Yorùbá, and that tragic drama between them constitutes one of the high points of Nigerian political history. It is as if Nigeria itself is so rigged to make a terrible example of the Yorùbá nation. Those considered to be in good standing for the Yorùbá leadership seems already compromised by real politics. We are all witnesses to the politics of annulment that turned MKO Abiola’s political victory into tragedy that is still all too fresh. Chief Ernest Shonekan propped, ever so briefly, a lacklustre government, and then Chief Olusegun Obasanjo surfaced. Even Obasanjo’s energetic presence was compromised by the powerful rumour of a northern political endorsement which undermines whatsoever lasting restructure Nigeria could have achieved.

    The Yorùbá have ventured boldly into the boiling cauldron of the national real politics, and on each occasion, have been burnt. It seems therefore a very wise move that rather than continuing with a rigged system, a conference of all nationalities becomes the next best thing to rescue a true federal system from being swallowed within the depth of realpolitik. The agitation for the Sovereign National Conference (SNC) has been as vociferous as the Yorùbá have made it. From the MKO Abiola’s June 12 saga through the Abacha dictatorship, there was a gradual convergence of progressives, from NADECO to the Afenifere. At the centre of that progressive politics is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, another Yorùbá. But now, within the very sure unfolding of Nigeria’s realpolitik, the present political travails of Tinubu contrasts with his heroic personality some few months ago before the election of President Buhari.

    What does the profile of Asiwaju Tinubu imply for a Yorùbá project of self-determination in Nigeria? There is no doubt that Asiwaju Tinubu is phenomenal. You may not like his politics but, give it to him, to design and implement the strategy that unseated a sit-in government as witnessed in 2015 is simply ingenious and unparalleled. The heroism of the pro-democracy days coupled with recent political struggles to put in place a progressive party coalition that brought in the Buhari administration, together gives him a significant and formidable presence in Nigerian politics. In fact, Tinubu’s political charisma envelopes the South-west robustly in a manner that holds promises for the Yorùbá agenda. However, the very name “Tinubu” throws up different and often contradictory political vibes. I am not sure even his supposed influence in the Southwest is overwhelming, just like Awo’s never did – a testament to the republican credentials of the Yoruba.

    A credible future for the Yorùbá cannot, as a matter of course, be built around a single individual or even a single issue for that matter. The essence of the Yorùbá political advocacy has been tied around the significance of the sovereign national conference. But that issue faces two serious snags. The first is the growing perception that the SNC is a camouflage for a hidden Yorùbá secession project. The second is the determination of the federal government to preserve Nigeria as is. Nigeria’s has become a “no-go area closed to national discourse. This is one of the things that make the national question intractable in Nigeria. We want to achieve national integration yet we are unwilling to enter into an open discourse about it. We seal up the very issue that could serve as the opportunity for a robust national conversation. At the heart of the national question in Nigeria is whether or not the union is a viable one; whether we all want to stay together, and if so how. But if, according to the government, Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable, then the Yorùbá cannot continue barking up the futile tree. Thus, after two doomed national conferences, it seems it is now time for the Yorùbá to change the game plan, except if there is a chance opportunity to deploy force with too many inherent risks it portent.

    The Yorùbá status in Nigeria is a political issue but its resolution must necessarily go beyond politics. We are all familiar with the political travails of Awolowo, Akintola, Abola and the unfolding troubles of Tinubu. A more significant effort would draw on a pan-Yorùbá spirit to reach far and wide into every aspect of Yorùbá professional endeavour to develop a credible matrix around which the Yorùbá future can be tabled and discoursed. Of course, the matrix would feature such Yorùbá heavyweights like Tinubu and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as well as all other Yorùbá elders and leaders of thought. And OBJ really might wish to take this as one of his last patriotic duties given the immense social capital that his newfound non-partisan stance has yielded. It will also feature the full spectrum of the Yorùbá elite across Nigeria. Empowering the Yorùbá people in the South-west ought to be a sufficiently pan-Yorùbá platform around which the Obas, Southwest governors, Yorùbá thought leaders, Yorùbá social and economic elites would do well to coalesce.

    At the end of the day, when posterity is evaluating today’s events, what would matter for the Yorùbá would not be how each Yorùbá leader has survived and achieved political fame. Rather, what would matter is how each generation of Yorùbá leaders deployed their endowments to the furtherance of an agenda that unashamedly led to the empowering of the Yorùbá agenda in Nigeria.

     

    • Dr Olaopa, is Executive Vice-Chairman, Ibadan School of Government.

  • The future of learning

    In 2013, Professor Adebiyi Daramola, Vice-Chancellor Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) challenged lecturers to move away from “faculty-centred and lecture based paradigm” to practical learning and teaching. “This,” according him, “is in line with the global trend where faculty members become learning environment designers and students are taught critical thinking skills.”

    He told his colleagues to support students by adding to their intellectual growth and by instilling in them the awareness of important social issues and supporting their ability to become more productive members of society and life-long learners working toward a common good. He also challenged them to fully embrace the use of ICT in order to equip students and co-learners to meet the challenges of the 21st century. He said this, I believe, because we still have lectures who have not embraced the role technology is playing in the field of learning.

    The issue of critical thinking is even more fundamental now than when the challenge was thrown. The Prof did not say anything new especially for those who have been studying the system for years, but his boldness is commendable. I have written in this column that employers are expressing increasing dissatisfaction with the degree to which our graduates can access, evaluate, and communicate information and use information technology (IT) tools effectively. They’re also concerned that most cannot think critically; solve problems; work well in teams and with people from different cultural backgrounds.

    This is why a change of instructional paradigms – from passive to active learning strategies, such as project-based learning, problem-based learning, or inquiry-based learning — is clearly needed in Nigeria today. However, changing instructional paradigms is fraught with problems no doubt, especially for a country like Nigeria where the ratio of lecturers to students is simply unimaginable. To put it plainly; most of our lecturers are overburdened and the infrastructure over stretched. Again, some still cling jealously to the traditional lecture-based instructional paradigm.

    Elsewhere in the world, times have changed for tertiary education. From the de-emphasis on thinking about delivering instruction and the concurrent emphasis placed on producing learning, to using technology to expand distance education, to the recognition of the importance of sense of community strides are being made. Today, serious nations are well along the road of creating that new “schoolhouse” not constructed exclusively of “bricks and mortar.”

    In this new schoolhouse, the role of professors is to serve their students by ensuring student learning is of paramount importance. They support their students by attending to their intellectual growth and self-autonomy, and by instilling in them an awareness of important social issues, thus supporting their ability to become more productive members of society as lifelong learners working toward the common good.

    This need for classroom change to allow students to acquire more significant kinds of cognitive learning – particularly critical thinking skills – is the driving force for the success of western and Asian societies. Recollect that in the past Indian certificates were frowned upon worldwide, including in Nigeria. Our certificates were held in higher esteem then. India later went to the drawing board and today their universities produced some of the best graduates in Medicine, ICT and other disciplines.

    If we envision a university education as education in the conduct and strategy of inquiry, then the university becomes society’s unique place where students learn how to think, learn, produce, and evaluate knowledge, providing the basis for lifelong, independent learning. Important implications of this shift from our normal read and pass examination system, are the need for a recommitment to creating an ideal learning environment for students and employing new pedagogies and technologies, where appropriate.

    In implementing this change, one reality seems clear; the world has changed tremendously and is now less safe than it was years ago as civilizations clash. Universities have a critical role to play here as they deepen their knowledge of cultural studies with new paradigms to explain the growing cases of conflicts and terrorism. Western universities have for long imbibed this paradigm by equipping their graduates with tools for the real world. We face our own challenge with Boko Haram, kidnapping, farmer/herdsmen clash etc. In all these, our tertiary institutions have critical roles to play.

    Pushing for a paradigm shift may take time because of our already known unique peculiarities. In many cases, lecturers teach as they were taught and resist change, sometimes using academic freedom as an academic crutch. Since faculty promotion and tenure, at present, are largely based on research and publication, some may feel that taking time away from research or writing time to change curricula may be challenging. Hence the use of the traditional lectures method as the instructional strategy of choice.

    New ways are necessary because learning is central in the process of entrepreneurial development; learning styles therefore play an important role in learning entrepreneurship at university. It is noteworthy that some universities in the country have taken steps to establish – or have already established – entrepreneurial development centres with the aim of bridging the lacuna between what employers want and what the system is churning out. As an advocate for a paradigm shift there is the need to stress that learning must be culturally relevant to our society so that we do not lose our identity by creating a new problems while trying to solve others.

    One of the clearly distinguishing characteristics of human beings is our remarkable capacity to learn. It may seem a bold statement to make, but I would venture to say that everyone learns. While each individual possesses the ability to learn, it is recognised that we learn in different ways and develop different learning behaviours and patterns. It seems that from an early age learners begin to develop individual methods and strategies by which they learn best. These characteristic learning behaviours and patterns are often referred to as learning styles; these styles changes as research are carried out to ascertain the best that suits a society.

    While other societies are able to change and adapt positively to a rapidly changing world where the acquisition and application of knowledge is the driving force, Nigeria is not easily susceptible to change. Here, we believe in doing the same old things that has consistently led nowhere. Why are we scared of change? Why can’t we face our fears and allow rational thinking take us out of the woods? Why will our tertiary institutions continue to churn out “graduates” we all know cannot fit into the workings of a technologically driven world? I can go on with questions throughout this piece today and the answers may remain elusive.

    But something deep down tells me we know the right things to do but from an inexplicable “Nigerian” standpoint we often lack the “political will” to carry out fundamental and critical reforms that we urgently need. Close watchers of our tertiary education system have for years been pointing out that the present system of churning out “unemployable” graduates (apologies to Prof Charles Soludo) will only compound the crisis of unemployment in the country, but we often turn a blind eye and pretend we are making “progress” clinging to the old system.

    Let’s face it; some of our leaders still struggle with channeling funds toward education. To them, I leave with this quote from Benjamin Franklin: “If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interests.”

  • Ekiti @ 20: Past, present and future

    Ekiti was carved out of the old Ondo State on October 1, 1996 under the military regime of the late Gen Sani Abacha. Whichever perception one shares about the state of affairs, celebrating Ekiti at 20 is not immaterial. Taking cognizance of the protracted and fierce battle the leaders of Ekiti had to wage to effect the state creation, one would be adequately convinced that it sufficed for the citizens to roll out drum to celebrate the victory. I know other provinces like Ibadan, Ijebu and the Apas of Benue, who scrambled for the same opportunity and lost would perceive Ekiti as ungrateful and undeserving of the favour should the state fail to celebrate the feat with pomp and pageantry.

    The creation of Ekiti State was a lofty achievement – the greatest laurel ever won since the existence of the ethnic group several decades back. Not even the Kiriji War that was fought and won by our forebears matched this feat. But creating a state for an ethnic group for political balancing is not as relevant and pivotal as how that state tends to fare after its creation. When the former President Olusegun Obasanjo was being pummeled for influencing former President Goodluck Jonathan to assume presidency, he defended his action by saying: “You can help a person to secure a job, but you can’t help him to perform the responsibilities of the job”.

    In actual fact, the Federal Government had done the greatest favour, through concerted and unflagging instrumentality of some patriotic Ekiti elites by creating the state, but time to ruminate on whether the state has fared well in terms of development is apposite at this crucial age. Age 20 is a watershed in the life of any human being. At that age, the compass directing one’s life must be heading towards a positive side, failing which the person will get derailed or veered off the path of greatness.

    A critical dissection of the trajectory of development of the state under every succeeding administration gave a gory and pathetic indication. The military administrations of Col. Mohammed Usman and Commodore Atanda Yusuf sacrificed better and showed more commitment to the development of the state than the situation we are witnessing under the present PDP government in Ekiti. To an average Nigerian person, the military is regarded as an aberration and represents something sinister that lacks values and decency. Without sounding immodest, military regimes stand better than the present situation.

    Just like the chairman, Committee for the creation of Ekiti State, Chief Deji Fasuan once said: “Ekiti has not really fulfilled the dream of its founding fathers. Ekiti has not been governed well and we cannot say we have got to the Promised Land”. This statement connotes that Ekiti has failed to tap into its abundant human and material resources to develop the state.

    Intellectualism is the hallmark of any government and any state that is lacking in this is bound to hit the rock. It is an indisputable fact that the state has the highest turnout of professors in the country and galaxy of stars spread across various professional careers. But can we boldly say that we have tapped optimally into this gargantuan intellectual capacity?

    In terms of natural resources, the lush vegetation in the southern and northern zones of the state, the cocoa and timber plantation and other solid mineral deposits like Gypsum and Calcite in Ijero, Clay in Ire Ekiti and the ridge of mountains in Efon-Ikogosi axis and in Ado Ekiti capital city, were not really explored to energize the engine of development. They were practically abandoned, thereby giving Ekiti the sobriquet: “Land of Untapped Abundance”. This is not a wise concept and it is condemnable.

    As we speak, Ekiti has one of the most fragile economies among the 36 states of the federation. It has a narrow and monolithic economy heavily anchored on civil service architecture with little productivity to drive the system. This was responsible for why the state could not compete favourably with other states in terms of development.

    While defending the need for the creation of the state out of the old Ondo State before Arthur Mbanefo panel in Akure in 1995, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), said the state could derive its earnings from the abundant aforementioned human and natural resources. He also reassured the committee about the fact that the state has a good prognosis to survive and thrive economically, predicating this on the abundant human resources available to it.

    Sad enough, all these have failed to reflect positively on our economy. Today, the state can no longer pay salaries of workers and meet other obligations to its citizens, because it rests heavily on the lean resources coming from the federation account, which has not been forthcoming.

    When the democratic dispensation kicked off in 1999, the state soared on the country’s economic ladder, in terms of quests and drives for prosperity. Otunba Niyi Adebayo of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) made the move to return the state to the path of glory as set by its founding fathers. His administration started the economic dream by building the multi-billion naira Abuja house in Asokoro, to propel the state’s economy. It also invested in Odua Group of Companies and bought shares in many banks to invigorate the economy and make the state run independently of the federal government.

    Aside from this, he promptly engaged the services of Ekiti professionals in various critical sectors making Ekiti to live up to its name: ‘Fountain of Knowledge’. Those who didn’t see this unseen and silent investments condemned his style and laid ambush for him during his reelection bid, which he lost to Governor Ayodele Fayose.

    Ex-governors  Segun Oni and Kayode Fayemi, also built on the legacies by reviving the state’s moribund industries, like Ire Burnt Brick, Ikogosi Warm Spring,  Orin Farm Settlements, to mention but a few,  to assume highly commercial status.

    Fayose’s emergence marked the beginning of what could be best branded as fortunes reversal in Ekiti.  It was during his time that the state started relying solely on allocations from the federation of account to boost the economy. It was his time that the state intellectual capacity was being debased to the extent that charlatans, rascals and mediocres are in government, holding pivotal positions in trusts for the people. The intellectual giants have been relegated to the extent that they are now maintaining siddon look, which is dangerous to Ekiti, as an enclave.

    Though it would be tantamount to exaggeration for someone to conclude that the state fared optimally well under the trio of Oni, Adebayo and Fayemi, comparative analysis with the present situation point to the fact that those administrations were, in fact, Eldorado.

    Like Chief Babalola (SAN) adduced before Mbanefo panel that the state’s economic prowess would be derived from its abundant intellectual capacity. That has been the dream. But the scenario has been that both the human and material resources are underutilized, and time to live by that dream is now, or else, failure awaits us and that could be disastrous.

    The appropriate questions the teeming Ekiti populace must ask themselves is that: Why is Ekiti of yesterday better than now? For Ekiti of yesterday, we were the most educated in the country, the most sought after by employers of labour and the most organized set of human beings. But in Ekiti of today, the knowledge is gradually fading, criminality is taking the centre-stage.

    • Faparusi, a former member of the House of Representatives is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress.
  • Future more uncertain than the troubled past

    Future more uncertain than the troubled past

    WERE Nigeria to be a man, he would have fewer years ahead of him than behind him. At 56, Nigeria has lived a very animated and turbulent life. Even by the world’s average life expectancy (68.5 years), not to talk of Nigeria’s embarrassingly smaller average (47.7 years), this big African country of about 180 million people should be frustrated and growing desperate with its advancing years. It is the largest concentration of black people in the world, but it has refused to appreciate the urgency of the plight of black people everywhere, and seems uninterested in giving them leadership in a world that is increasingly crueller to the race. It has great potentials in all fields of human endeavour, including the arts, music, sports, science and philosophy, but it has neither exploited them beyond occasional eruptions of creativity nor shown any indication it has the scientific competence to recognise and tackle its challenges in ways that transcend its naturally emotive, violent and short-sighted approach to conflict resolution.

    At 56, Nigeria is advanced in age and should by now have come into its own in the world. But it still reasons and acts like a child. Traumatised by its leaders, Nigeria blames every other person but itself for its woes. Thus, its British colonial overlords were and still are responsible for its misshapen economic and political structures. However, its leaders have not explained why for more than five decades they have taken no step whatsoever in breaking down and remoulding the fundamental underpinnings of their country’s existence, and delinking themselves from the (neo-colonial and neo-imperialist) apron strings of their pre-independence rulers. The colonialists expropriated their wealth and sucked them unfairly and unequally into the vortex of the world economic system, but Nigerian leaders have said, and thought, nothing of inheriting the abhorrent mantle of becoming the new exploitative and oppressive class to their own people.

    It took the colonialists about four key constitutional conferences to realise that for a modicum of stability to be established in Nigeria, a federal structure was indispensable in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. Despite their tyrannously racial and condescending leadership style, the colonialists managed to bequeath a federalist structure to Nigeria, particularly along regionalist lines. They suspected nothing else would work. But after about six military coups, four (elected) republics, and a myriad of completed and uncompleted constitutional conferences, Nigeria’s governing elite have burrowed deeper into unitarianism, parochialism and hegemonism. They arrogantly and ignorantly insist nothing else would work even when the departing colonialists, in bequeathing a political system, thoughtfully acknowledged their bequests probably fell short of addressing the colony’s special and multifarious needs.

    In an orgy of buck-passing, Nigerians continue to blame their present woes on a vague and abstract past. They snort at white colonialists who built railway lines to link the country in a triangular arrangement that locked their big, colonial snout into raw materials centres. But apart from proving inept at maintaining that railway system, with consequent destruction of the poor network of roads, successive leaders and generations have had more than five decades to extend or build better railway systems to catalyse their own developmental efforts and new economies. Instead, huge resources have been voted and wasted, and Nigeria’s railway lines have remained either creaky and abandoned or operating fitfully. The colonial civil service was a foundation upon which independence leaders could remould a more committed and sophisticated independent civil service. Instead, Nigerian leaders, especially starting from the predatory military governments that ruled the country between the 1960s and 1990s, simply destroyed that anchor of statecraft thereby introducing lasting distortions into the concept of public service.

    The problems of today are much more a function of the ineptitude, poor vision and unpreparedness of Nigerian leaders than a function of colonial tyranny and structural distortions. Yes, the colonialists arrested nation-state formations and built a questionable and highly disputed and conflictual foundation for Nigeria, and have reprovingly stood as guarantors of that suspect edifice and inspirers of those who wear the leadership mantle from time to time; but Nigerian leaders have themselves underscored the race theory of development, especially the eurocentric perspective, by being unable five decades later to extricate themselves and their country from the stranglehold of external puppeteers. For now, there are no indications that the narrative will change, or that Nigerians can begin to look forward to a future that represents a clear break from the past.

    But if Nigeria is to survive, if the past five decades and more of independence are to serve as a lesson and springboard from which to rebuild, then the county must learn the great and delicate art of producing bright and visionary leaders. The country’s many unprepared leaders have tended to pass the buck to the people, insisting that the blame for failure should be shared equitably between the ruled and the rulers. But the situation, not to say the blame, is in fact not as ambiguous as they make it look. Immediately after independence, the ruling elite took the parliamentary system of government and dashed it into pieces, blaming it for their own failures and shortcomings. Successive military regimes, enamoured of the American presidential system, also opted, in their own transition arrangements, to discard parliamentarianism completely. Yet, barely four years of the presidential system, the ruling elite again boxed themselves into a cul-de-sac, frustrated with every political system and flirting dangerously with diarchy.

    First and Second Republics, and an aborted Third Republic, soon brought the country reeling, panting and unsure of itself to a Fourth Republic. The latest republic is a product not of careful planning and political evolution, but of desperation, haste and ad hocism. By 1998, it was impossible for the country’s military rulers to go forward without a change in the ruling paradigm, having tried unskilfully to abort the process midstream in 1993. And so, a managed change was midwifed by a desperate military elite that had emasculated itself. But rather than set a free and fair template for the new republic, and quite unable to learn from the depressing experiences of the past, the military midwives again exercised a close control of the process by foisting on the country recycled leaders devoid of deep convictions or even appreciation of democracy and its processes.

    In the midst of this unremitting gloom, the country managed in 2015 to achieve a successful transition of power from one party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to another, the All Progressives Congress (APC), a feat already surpassed by some African countries. It was unprecedented in Nigeria; it was pleasantly unique. How sustainable that change will be, however, may not be known in the short term. Indeed, what remains is how to ensure the emergence of the right calibre and temper of leaders. In a country riven by primordial ethnic sentiments and fierce religious loyalties, the yardsticks for producing such leaders are not always altruistic or meritorious. Overcoming such limiting behaviours is absolutely essential for national stability and progress. After frittering away more than five precious decades during which other countries caught up with Nigeria and overtook her, that task will not be easy.

    Nigeria needs a new ethos and a new political culture. To satisfy these needs and to break the mould, new leaders with fiery intellect, deep intuitive grasp of the complex issues shaping the 21st century, and instinctive feel of the yearnings and aspirations of the people whose disparate needs are sometimes too abstract and formless to put in words, must emerge. The new leaders, detribalised and large-hearted, are the ones to act on the demands of the moment. They are the ones to drive the great processes needed to tackle the present challenges as well as brilliantly anticipate the future challenges still embedded in the womb of time. Given the intensity of the problems and challenges facing the country, not to say their complexity and ossification over time, such leaders must emerge urgently if the country is not to sink under the weight of its own contradictions and fracture irredeemably along its deep fault lines.

  • Foreign investment and future of Nigeria

    Since the beginning of the Third Republic and return to democracy in 1999, our elected leaders spend more time travelling to Europe, the West, America and Asia looking and shopping for foreign investors.  When they return from such foreign trips, their intellectual wing in the academia and political jobbers take to the airwaves popping champagne that MOUs are being prepared for foreign direct investment in all areas of our economy. Whenever we have challenges with our economy, we start looking for foreigners; if it is a security problem, we expect that it can only be solved by foreigners. We are still struggling with the problem of feeding our population and beg foreign donors and agencies to come to our aid with all God and nature have endowed us with.

    We have refused to stand up for our country and we do not have faith that we can do anything for ourselves and yet we feel bad when they treat our citizens abroad like sub humans.   Our leaders make us to look inferior before the donor agencies and foreigners who unknown to them are not benevolent benefactors because every such  aids or assistance are tied to demands that are alien to our culture and belief system. These foreign nations with stable political and economic system that we run to at every twist and turn developed their countries through the patriotic efforts of their citizens making great sacrifices.  There is no quick fix and shortcuts for nations to get to the rank of the first world and be a developed country; if you have to get gold, you have to dig deep; it is not found on the surface.

    Before industrialization in Europe and the New World, as America was then referred to, the imperialists came to Africa and carried our fathers into slavery to work in their mines and farms to feed their growing population.  The Europeans only see slavery as evil after they had used African labour to build their factories and became industrialized.   The imperialists remained in most of the African countries to ensure a steady supply of raw materials for their industries using their trading companies as administrators.  They established schools that would provide them with administrators to harness their investment and again when they were done, they closed shop and our school system has not departed from that path of producing administrators and services.  No country survives on the trade-off of its economy to the superior technology of another sovereign nation.  The foreign investors are traders with mercantile mentality for profit maximization and at the close of business; he repatriates his profit to his home country leaving us with the short end of the stick.

    History has taught us that we do not learn from history that is why we are repeating the mistake of yesterday in the 21st Century.  In the 1970s and 80s companies like UAC and PZ controlled the nerve-centre of our economy which of course has never been a producing economy just as it is today, extracting the raw materials to the imperialists metropolis and returning to sell the finished product at a prohibitive cost to us.  During the same period, the Asians controlled the textile industries from Kano, Kaduna to Lagos using our people as slave labours like the caste system in India allowing them barely a survival wage.  During the economic recession in the 1980s the companies’ closed shops and the Asians went home with their profit leaving the factories like the empty shells of a canon, useless.

    America, the West, and Europe have reached the apogee of their civilization today including the Asian countries and are looking for territories and market to rehabilitate their population which they know that in no distant future they would not be able to cater for.   The solution to them was quick in coming and they sold to the world the concept of globalization.  The concept looked attractive to nations of Africa where people do not like to challenge their mental capacity to develop beyond subsistence agriculture.   We refuse to interrogate whether we have anything that we are bringing to the table when the world is reduced to a global village in the process of globalization.

    Europe and America have since conquered nature with superior technology and are today getting fuel from the rock through the technology of fracking as their resources are nearing exhaustion.  They are today in space prospecting for opportunity of life and relocating and leaving to us the famished earth.

    Africa has remained a virgin land and its people and population are unable to harness the abundant natural and human resources for the benefit of her people.  We are busy perpetually fighting one another over mundane things and religion; things that do not unite our people, promote our secularism and develop our economy.  Our leaders cannot think out of the box and we are welcoming with open arms and drums, the handover of our rich arable land to foreigners that were driven away from other climes.  When we invite foreigners with advanced technology to take over our economy, we are only denying our unemployed youths the much needed job and mortgaging the future of our children and posterity will judge us harshly.  Our leaders would rather prefer to behave like rampaging band of gorillas wasting everything along their way, looting our common patrimony to develop foreign land.

    Now is the time for our government to be circumspect and think through their policies once again.  Foreigners cannot solve our political problems; they cannot solve our economic problems and can never solve our security problem because they have no stake in Nigeria.  We have made mockery of ourselves enough; let us stand up to the challenges of our country.  It is mental indolence to think that the solutions to our problems lie in foreign investors whether it is in agriculture, science and technology, politics, economic or security.  Besides Europe and America, countries in Asia closed their borders when they faced the challenges of development and today, India, Pakistan, China, the  two Koreas, North and South, Singapore are all technologically advanced countries due to the patriotic zeal of their leaders.  But today, Indians and Chinese are not only enslaving our people in their companies, our leaders are going cap in hand to them to come and take over the running of our economy for immediate gains and not for the long term benefits because there is none.

    Our youths have to rise up now and engage the political class to reclaim what belongs to us as a nation.  We must challenge the rapacious and voracious appetite of our leaders for exotic food which all of us are beginning to develop the palate for. The war against corruption must be fought and won and it must be holistic; there should be no Jew or Gentile in the prosecution of the war.  We should hold our leaders to account; budget padding is corruption and no linguistic semantics can cure it. We should interrogate the validity of foreign investment; it is tantamount to mortgaging our future. We should interrogate activities of the National Assembly and the viability and wisdom of bicameral legislature; it is fast becoming a drain pipe of waste.  Our leaders should come back home and look inward.  We say no to foreign investment and no to mortgaging the future of generations yet unborn.

     

    • KebonkwuEsq, writes from Abuja.
  • To the future with hope

    To the future with hope

    Nigeria’s high unemployment rate, especially among the youth, appears to have defied solution. However, many youths are not giving up; they are taking their destinies in their hands, exploiting opportunities in the thriving Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. OLATUNDE ODEBIYI reports on the youths’exploits in the sector .

    He probably never envisaged that his choice of an obscure corner in the  busy Computer Village in Ikeja, Lagos, would pay off. But the trader, who preferred to be identified by his first name, Paul, has carved a niche for himself in the sale of mobile phone accessories, including phone pouch, chargers, screen protector and ear piece.

    Since venturing into the business about four years ago, Paul has never looked back. Although he declined to say how much he makes from the business, the fact that the business, which he plied using a table space has expanded to the extent of engaging apprentices is an indication that he could not have made a better decision.

    Another dealer in accessories, Mr. Uche Barnabas, also counts himself lucky for heeding his friends advice to relocate to the Computer Village, which is arguably, Africa’s biggest Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Barnabas was originally in the business of selling Peugeot spares parts in Abule Egba area of Lagos. That was eight years ago before he heard about the thriving ICT market from his friend.

    Barnabas wasted no time in moving his business to the computer market. But unlike Paul who had to pay for the small space he uses, Barnabas brought innovation and ingenuity into the business by selling all kinds of phone and laptop accessories such as phone charger, laptop charger, memory cards, ear piece, flash drive and hard drive right from the boot of his car.

    The wares are neatly arranged in a show glass. Proceeds from the business, he said, have been sustaining his family made of his wife and four children. He told The Nation that he makes about N5, 000 daily, which translates to about N150, 000 monthly. This is an amount most salary earners can only dream of.

    Encouraged by his remarkable success and the ICT sector’s positive growth prospects, Barnabas told The Nation that in the near future, he hoped to import his stock from China, assuring that he would sell only original accessories to satisfy his growing customers.

    Similarly, Suntex Computer Limited, a firm which deals in new and used mobile phones, laptops, games as well as accessories, has been waxing stronger 10 years after it was established. Its founder, who pleaded anonymity, said the business which started off with his selling of phone accessories in a show glass, today boasts five other shops.

    It’s the same story for Olatunji Akinyemi who sells United Kingdom (UK)-used mobile phones. A school dropout, Akinyemi could not continue his education at Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ogun State due to lack of tuition fees. He is doing the business with his sister and raising money to further his education at Yaba College of Technology.

    While admitting that business has been good, Akinyemi said his dream is to become a an ICT business mogul in the mould of Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft Founder Bill gates.

    Many youths are turning to the ICT sector to beat the unemployment scourge. According to a Professor of Science, Technology and Society, Patience Akpan-Obong of the Arizona State University, United States, the ICT industry has done a lot to increase the level of employment in the country.

    She said various segments of the sector have generated income for Nigerians, including those in the business of selling mobile devices, accessories and recharge cards among others. The don added that government can create more jobs from the ICT sector by investing in the manufacturing of ICT components and development of human capacity.

    Akpan-Obong said the government can also invest in the manufacturing of mobile devices and its accessories; hardware, software and applications. She lamented that Nigeria is still importing chargers and mobile devices when it has the capacity, man power and resources to make ICT components.

    “If Nigeria has a factory that manufactures mobile devices and its accessories, it would generate a lot of employment for both people working in the factory and service providers,” she said, adding that the country needs to believe in and develop her human capacity.

    According to Akpan-Obong, “We need to look at the human resources we have in the country and exploit it to develop both the ICT sector and generate employment. Government should look into hiring Nigerian ICT professionals to develop the sector.

    “We should not always rely on foreigners because Nigerians have the capacity and we must take our own people seriously by giving them contracts, consultancy and jobs.”

     Rising unemployment driving uptake of ICT jobs

    The paradigm shift to the ICT sector, observers say, is driven largely by Nigeria’s unenviable employment, particularly among the youths. The rising unemployment rate is said to have forced a strategic rethink by many youths in favour of self- employment instead of searching for non-existent white collar jobs.

    According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), unemployment rate rose to 12.1 per cent in the first quarter of the year, from 10.4 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year. It was the highest since December 2009.

    The Bureau, in its latest unemployment watch report, said between last December and March this year, the population of unemployed Nigerians increased by 518,000 to over 1.45 million. NBS said the unemployed Nigerians were those who were looking for work, but could not find work.

    The West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) Director-General, Prof Akpan Ekpo, noted that Nigeria’s unemployment rate has been rising alongside the increased incidence of poverty. He described the country’s rising unemployment as “a looming time bomb and a national crisis”.

    Indeed, the rising violent crimes and the widespread insecurity across the country, many people believe, is traced to the rising unemployment in the last couple of years. Today, kidnapping, advance fee fraud, otherwise called ‘419’, armed robbery, prostitution, cultism, drug and child trafficking, among others, have become daily occurrences.

    A new and scary dimension has since been added to these social ills, following the upsurge in violent campaigns by terrorist groups, particularly the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents. Many youths, for lack of paid employments, have become ready recruits into terrorist organisations, a development that confirms fears that the country is, indeed, sitting on a keg of gunpowder.

    Indeed, the worsening unemployment in the country, especially among youths, which experts put at 54 per cent, poses great danger to the economic, social and political stability of the country. This has prompted calls by stakeholders in various sectors of the economy for the adoption of appropriate policies to fix the problem.

    Some of them who spoke with The Nation said this could be done through the creation of an enabling environment for the private sector, especially the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), to retain jobs and create new ones.

    For instance, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) recently added its voice to the call to halt the unemployment scourge. Although the Council acknowledged the various initiatives of the government, such as the Youth Enterprise for Innovation (YouWin) programme, it believes that given the magnitude of the problem, a more fundamental and sustainable strategy was necessary.

    The LCCI proposed, among other policy options, support for SMEs to retain jobs and create new ones; critical areas of support to include funding and capacity building; the government should accord higher priority to investments in infrastructure to reduce the high infrastructure deficit and moderate the cost of doing business in the economy.

    Despite the robust, far-reaching recommendations, the government’s perceived failure to implement some of these may have forced youths to look inward. And for many of them, the burgeoning ICT sector hold promises hence the rush to take advantage of the opportunities therein.

  • Olorunleke undecided about Sunshine Stars future

    Olorunleke undecided about Sunshine Stars future

    Ojo Olorunleke has revealed that he is unsure about his future with Sunshine Stars following their win over Niger Tornadoes.

    The result has kept the Akure outfit within distance to a continental slot having amassed 43 points from 28 matches.

    “I am grateful to God and happy to have been doing well for myself and for the team. I also want to thank everyone that has been supporting and encouraging me with prayers. For now I can’t say if I am staying permanently or leaving Sunshine Stars at the end of the season,” Olorunleke told Goal.

    “I have a target,I’m trusting God for something great. So, everything is in God’s hands, He knows the best for me. But I must confess that Sunshine Stars is a great team that players dream to play for.

    “Saturday’s match was my fourth clean sheet to the glory of God. And I am still trusting Him for more, all I need to do is to continue to prepare well and remain focused towards every match,” he added.

    “So, secondly, the result of yesterday’s match against Niger Tornadoes meant a lot to us because we really worked hard and prayed so hard for this match and we are grateful to God for the answered prayers. We  are really happy.”

  • Fidson optimistic on future growth despite first-half slowdown

    Fidson optimistic on future growth despite first-half slowdown

    The management of Fidson Healthcare Plc has reassured that the healthcare company remains on the path to attaining significant growth in the near future as its focus on its strategies for market expansion, brand building and opportunities that exist through local and international partnerships would lead to better returns for shareholders.

    Against the background of 32 per cent decline in the company’s turnover in the first half of this year, the company stated that the low sales figure was as a result of unavailability of products, a direct consequence of the scarcity of foreign exchange shortage experienced by the manufacturing sector during the period.

    According to the management, Fidson only accessed 30 per cent of its foreign exchange needs in the first six months of the year. The paucity of foreign exchange, for the importation of products and essential raw materials, and macroeconomic headwinds were disruptive to the manufacturers in the pharmaceutical industry including the company’s business.

    Key extracts of the six-month half-year report for the period ended June 30, 2016 showed that sales dropped by 32 per cent from N4.032 billion in first half 2015 to N2.61 billion in first half 2016. Profit-after tax also declined to N39.582 million in 2016 as against N324.206 million recorded in the comparable period of 2015.

    Fidson stated that its cost optimisation strategy, which it embarked on a couple of years ago, continued in 2016 in line with the strategy to drive efficiency in the face of a challenging business environment.

    The management noted that the strategy saw Fidson reducing its operating cost by over 60 per cent in the period under review, assuring that the company will continue to drive efficiency into its processes, which will continue to result in savings on administration expenses.

    Fidson’s growth strategies are premised on the recent move to the company’s new World Health Organisation Good Manufacturing Practice (WHO-GMP), where local production recently commenced. The newly completed state-of-the-art facility will provide several benefits including increased profitability, increased efficiency from economies of scale, increased product offerings as well as job creation with an additional 300 jobs expected to be created.

    Aside from increasing production capacity, the new factory would enhance the company’s business prospects by enhancing its ability to tender for WHO sponsored programmes, which Nigerian pharmaceutical manufacturers are unable to access, losing out to foreign companies in these tenders.

  • In memory of Nigeria’s future!

    The future comes slowly, the present flies and the past stands still forever. – Johann Friedrich Von Schiller.

    Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Nigeria’s journey to 2019 has already started and one can only wish the country well!

    Having run its first full-circle four year-term,  2019 will put to test the capacity of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to renew its contract with Nigerians as well as the opposition’s ability to reassess itself, especially, in the light of significant challenges of poverty, unemployment and ethno-religious fundamentalism currently confronting the country.

    Well, while some of us on this side of the divide may not be seeing what others elsewhere are seeing in terms of the epileptic existence, structural weakness and economic vulnerability that have unfortunately-yet-understandably taken the shine off this administration, that Nigerians are hungry  and that President Muhammadu Buhari needs to put some smiles on their faces before the situation gets out of hand is no longer in doubt.  As it stands, there is too much anger, which typifies the frustration of the people; and there’s too much capability to deliver violence in the midst of little or no tolerance. Perhaps, the more reason there are so many deaths in the land.

    With the benefit of hindsight, the 2015 presidential poll was a battle fought, largely, between a “populist appeal” and an “outlandish profligacy”. In that election, Nigerians saw in Buhari a clear, credible, reliable, forward-looking and development-oriented leader who would not only give the arrogance of office and insolence of power that had taken the better part of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s government arun for its money, he was also seen as the preferred brand who possessed an enormous amount of political capital to take key transformative decisions that would positively affect the fortunes of the downtrodden. Little wonder the former president was bent on capturing power by any means and at all costs. Though the rest, as it is often said, is history, the reality in this widely-diversified, ceaselessly-varying, half-organized and half-conscious society of which the electorate forms a part, is that Nigerians are always at home with “the concept of change in the metaphysical sense but not in any way that hurts them and their families or friends”.  This is where the problem lies and this is why the government has to do more in terms of communicating well with the citizens if it is indeed interested in retaining the electorate’s confidence in 2019.

    So far, so fair for the tragedy of victory which is much more than its defeat! Key indices have so far attested to how the worst of Buhari’sgovernment could be preferred to the best of Jonathan’s. But that is not what we are saying here! The rate at which Nigeria is going is very worrying and something needs to be done to salvage the precarious situation. Precisely, the naira is in bad shape, revenue generation is proving to be pressingly challenging even as the country is seeing a lot of household and international debts. Oil production recently sank to as low as800,000bpd  even as government revenues have declined by more than half of what it used to be, pre-Buhari era. While it cannot be denied that this government has done some good job in its anti-corruption crusade, it needs to be noted that less than 10% of our collective patrimony can actually be attributed to this socio-economic malaise while a greater percentage of the rest is siphoned out of the country by multinational companies with little or no effort by the government to remedy the situation.

    In the first quarter of 2016, Gross Domestic Product (GDP)was said to have contracted by 0.36%, the first negative growth in many years. During this period, unemployment rate stood at 12.1%; underemployment, 19.1%; and youth unemployment, 24%. Even, in crime rate, Nigeria ranks ‘high up’ there, Boko Haram terrorists and Niger Delta militants are her ‘prized’ jokers! As a matter of fact, Nigeria was said to have had the highest case of kidnapping in 2013 and 2014, after equally-endowed countries like Mexico and India. Threateningly too, she’s found a ‘comfortable’ seat among world’s most dangerous countries like Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea and Libya. And, as if these are not enough, the murderous activities of Fulani herdsmen have ‘spiced’ our broth as world’s fourth most deadly terrorist organization!

    In his remarkably personal book, How will you measure your life? Clayton Christensen describes management as “the most noble of professions, if practised well”. Christensen might be right, at least to the extent that “no other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility, be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a bigger team and a bigger purpose.” But then, I doubt if those who contended that Buhari was too old a warhorse to lead a country as vastly endowed as Nigeria on the road to socio-economic recovery were not too enmeshed inthe intricacies of inanity to have realized that the major contenders for Barrack Obama’s throne are also drinking from the same cup of age with our president. On the other hand, while other candidates were unadulterated lightweightswho merely wanted the electorate to learn how to pronounce their names, those who opposed the emergence of Buhari as the preferred choice in the last election have so far fallen short of telling Nigerians in what garb an alternative to Jonathan would have appeared.

    Yes, Buhari did inherit a past laced with selfish whims and inevitable traumatization.  Still, he can explore the womb of his party’s deliberate strategies, even the unanticipated alternatives that have so emerged, to create a future of opportunities and prosperity for Nigerians! The bitter truth is that a government that fails to adequately cater to the needs of its citizens will sooner than later provide space for the people to go haywire. So, the earlier the president realizesthat the honeymoon on Nigeria’s Qadesh-Barnea adventure is over, the better for Nigeria.  To the best of my understanding, the people are not asking for too much from this government. Their only demand – and, a legitimate one at that – is some relatively strong amount of confidence, happiness, and self-esteem, not dissatisfaction, frustration or ingratitude.

    Ours need not be like that popular actor who decided to apologize to her ‘big auntie’ for not being with her in her time of need only after her ‘big auntie’ has accessed afterlife! If Singapore could rise above the vagaries of a developing country to become one of world’s great success stories in one generation, that it is achievable in Nigeria is already conceded!

     

    • Komolafe writes in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State.