The Nation Newspaper

Tag: ingenuity

  • Cleric charges church administrators on honesty, ingenuity

    The Assistant General Overseer (Administrative and Personnel) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Johnson Odesola, has challenged Church administrators to be creative and committed to the body of Christ.

    He spoke at the annual conference of administrative Officers and Secretaries in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Region 1 at the RCCG, Throne of Grace, Region 1, Ebute-metta, Lagos.

    Odesola said God is looking for sincere, dependable, dedicated and creative administrators in the church and in all spheres of life because their roles are critical in solving problems and accelerating development.

    According to him: “Honesty and creativity are required by everyone in administrative and managerial positions to solving management problems and producing positive impact and development.”

    He noted that administrators are leaders whose ingenuity and lifestyle can make or mar any family, organisation, community and the nation at large.

    He also appealed to them to shun evil companions and their antics, stressing that their obedience to God must be implicit in the discharge of their divine assignment.

    Director for Admin and Personnel, RCCG, Pastor Olurotimi Adegborioye, speaking on overcoming challenges and achieving result in the workplace, pointed out that every worthy venture in life is principally concerned about actualising goal, vision and mission of an organisation.

    He said achieving result requires administrators to take personal responsibility for getting things done and accountable for delivering the desired outcomes.

    “You should have a daily weekly, monthly and quarterly improvement targets/appraisal and learn to be honest, to exceed expectation and be prayerful,” he admonished.

  • Ingenuity in times of distress

    A picture in some national newspapers caught my attention recently; a Vice Chancellor of one of our private universities posed with his wife and son who just graduated from an American university.  My thought – after seeing the pictures – was how his students would feel if they see it. Will they feel betrayed that the VC does not have confidence to send his son to the institution he oversees? Will they feel justified that the millions they pay each semester are worth it? Is it that he does not have confidence in the lecturers he had a hand in employing? What happens if all our students relocate abroad for their education?

    However, let’s face facts: it is tough going to school in Nigeria; I will be flogging a dead horse if I say our educational sector has all but collapsed. We hear tales of undergraduates who cannot write a good job application. We also have thousands who cannot reason rationally or solve simple logic. It is therefore little wonder that Nigeria has remained a lucrative destination for endless education fairs where hitherto unknown countries now come to market their varsities.

    Exploiting this lacuna is not only the preserve of foreigners.’ A commercial bank has also cashed in by providing payment platforms where fees for foreign varsities can be paid from home with ease. I’m very sure that this bank’s ingenuity – if I may call it that – will soon be copied by others. Give it to Nigerians, we never miss opportunities even if it affects our system negatively, so long as we profit from it, it is fine. What this inadvertently does is further denting the self-confidence of “home grown” graduates who would be constantly reminded that they simply do not have what it takes to be relevant.

    A survey carried out late last year by i-graduate International Insight – an organization that focuses on the global benchmark for the student experience – stated that Nigerian students are the seventh most satisfied international students in the world. The survey was carried in 50 universities in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia and was filled in by 60,000 international students studying in these countries. For the survey, students were asked to rate their satisfaction on a scale of one to four – one meaning “very dissatisfied” and four meaning “very satisfied.”

    The average score of Nigerian students’ satisfaction was 3.11, a meagre 0.19 points lower than Spain with the most satisfied students at 3.30. Nigeria was also the only African country represented in the top 50.

    Like almost everything foreign, our craze for higher education abroad is common knowledge. In 2012, a non-governmental organization, Exam ethics international said that Nigeria loses over N1.5 trillion  to foreign education annually with neighbouring Ghana alone getting about N160 billion as tuition fees for the over 71,000 students studying there.

    The reason for this is not farfetched as it is a well-known fact that the declining standard of education is reason enough for Nigerian students search for greener pastures abroad. Am I saying it is wrong to school abroad? Absolutely not; but we have to be careful not to totally denigrate or destroy our institutions in the process, as is being consciously or unconsciously done. In this age of globalisation, we need all the international exposure and diversity we need. But we cannot effectively compete on the global scene if we neglect the cultural aspect that would assist in maintaining our image and “Nigerianness.” China and other Asian countries know this well and strive to ensure their culture and ways of life are not eroded through internationalisation.

    It needs to be pointed out that Nigerian students’ mass exodus in search of foreign education is not always as rosy as the i-graduate survey report may suggest. Late last year, the Federal Government for the first time in eight months preceding the end of the year,  paid allowances it owed the over 322 Nigerian students on the Bilateral Educational Agreement scholarship in Russia. Only last week I came across a letter written by a Nigerian lecturer studying abroad who appealed to the government to release their fees payment under the 2009 ASUU-FG agreement for lecturers on study abroad. He was concerned that the current political campaigns are seriously affecting governance.

    The increase in the number of students travelling abroad had initially been attributed to the parlous state of Nigerian universities. Obviously, there is some truth in this, considering the frequency of industrial actions, paucity of funds, dilapidated state of infrastructure and the lack of manpower in the public universities. The rapid growth in the number of private universities in Nigeria, which offer a relative measure of stability, should have stemmed the tide in the number of those going overseas to study. This has however not happened, clearly indicating the presence of a broader set of drivers that are contributing to sustaining interest in foreign education.

    One of such drivers is globalisation, which I mentioned earlier. And perhaps the biggest primer of globalisation is technology – or more specifically – the advent of the internet, which has made communication easier and also, shrunk the global community. We can now communicate with someone who is several thousand kilometres away; we can find information on different locations while sitting at our desks. Travel has become easier, faster and cheaper. Across the world, the effect of globalisation has been an increase in the number of people travelling to new destinations on vacation, to live, work or study. Globalisation is good if you’re not operating from a disadvantaged position.

    Aside this, Nigerians are an aspirational lot. Parents sacrifice to put their children through school. Postgraduate students rely on savings, borrowing and support from family members to pay for their education. While the oil economy ensures that there is some money in circulation, thereby  ensuring that there is a steady stream of students who are financially able, Nigerian banks have also started to provide education loans, enabling more people to access study opportunities abroad. It remain to be seen how the dwindling oil price will affect this.

    Personal motivation is also another key driver. For some, it is a means to enhance their career prospects at home; for others, a route to starting a new life abroad. In the first scenario, it does appear that the companies who offer top paying jobs in Nigeria now have a preference for holders of foreign degrees. Indeed, such companies regularly attend job fairs in Europe and North America, hunting for Nigerians who studied abroad, to come and work in Nigeria.

    This trend may well continue as more international firms are seeking investment opportunities in emerging economies such as Nigeria, as growth in the advanced economies has remained slow for years now.  This can only motivate more individuals to seek that extra edge which will give them a fighting chance for the best jobs.

    In the second instance, despite the slow growth earlier mentioned, the number of individuals from Nigeria and other developing economies who desire to migrate to the western world continues to grow. However, academic qualifications from Nigeria are often shunned by employers in many western economies and those who desire to migrate abroad explore foreign study opportunities to enable them secure decent employment in their chosen destinations. It is an open fact that the opportunity to reside and work is often used as an incentive by governments to attract students to their countries.

    For example, the UK post study work permit was an attraction for many international students. The law has now been amended by the UK government but that has not caused a substantial reduction in the number of Nigerian students travelling to the UK for higher education, though it appears to have had a more significant impact in India. Canada and Australia are recent examples of countries that are now using such post study work permits to promote their countries as study destinations, and there are already growing interest in these destinations.

    While we continue our quests for better education we should please not forget the home front because the reality is that we cannot all school abroad.

  • States need ingenuity to develop, says Ahmed

    Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed has said states need ingenuity to develop, given the shrinking revenue allocation from the Federation Account.

    He said the era of governments’ reliance on Federation Account for growth and development was over.

    Ahmed spoke at the weekend in Ilorin, the state capital, during the first Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the state-owned Harmony Holdings Limited.

    The governor said the holding company has a revenue target of N50 billion by 2032.

    “The purpose of the Kwara Holdings Limited is becoming clearer to all of us. We are finding ourselves at a time in Nigeria where it is no more business as usual.

    “It is becoming clearer everyday that we cannot continue our affairs the way we used to.

    “As a government we cannot continue to rely on money coming from the Federation Account for growth and development. The reason is because the allocation is becoming smaller every other day.

    “The rate of population growth is higher than the rate of growth of the internally generated revenue (IGR). More people are pursing allocation that is not forthcoming.

    “That tells us that as a government, we must begin to think strategically. That is why any serious government that intends to deliver goods and services to the people must look for other ways and means to raise money to drive governance.

    “If you don’t have the idea, you have no business contesting. You cannot come to the seat and begin to complain that the allocation is small.

    “You must come up with ingenuity on how to raise the money and part of this is to use what we have to get what we want. That led us to begin to review all government assets.

    “Today, government had to take a look at all the assets it has with a view to converting them to resources that can help build the state. Because Kwara needs money, these companies were not set up for social services.

    “The only way we can get it done when we have an articulate way we can measure our assets, put them into use for them to generate revenue for us.  It is that simple.

    “The moment that the resources we expect to come from Harmony Holdings Ltd improves and becomes standard, then government can commit itself to long term borrowings to execute capital projects.”

  • ‘Aba ingenuity has come to stay’

    ‘Aba ingenuity has come to stay’

    They have a way with gadgets. They see through the most complicated machines, and their magic fingers move in to fashion out stunning pieces. Aba, a city of 1.5m people in Abia State, teems with a rare breed of fabricators and technologists.

    They bring failed industrial machines back to life. Badly damaged car parts are easily replaced in Aba. All manner of old and broken-down cooling items such as refrigerators and air conditioners are taken apart and made to work again as if nothing went wrong in the first place.

    Yet, the ingenuity of Aba technologists is not limited to gadgets. In fact, they are unlimited. Various home appliances come to life in the city, as do clothing like jeans.

    Though the origin of one of the most populous commercial towns, east of the Niger, could be traced as far back as 1901, Aba became famous for the women’s riot of 1929 when women resisted attempts by the colonial masters to impose taxes on them especially in the then Eastern Province.

    Apart from the women’s riot, the city also became popular because of its importance to the state and the volume of economic activities in the city. No wonder the journey of any serious investor in Nigeria would not be complete if he or she failed to visit Aba.

    Aba is ranked among Nigeria’s economically buoyant cities because of its volume of trading activities. Experts in the economic sector have often claimed that the amount of revenue generated in Aba, if well managed and properly utilised, can sustain the state economy. The city’s major economic activities range from textiles, pharmaceuticals, plastics, cement, lubricants, cosmetics and its high technological creativity. There are breweries and distilleries within the commercial city.

    This city popularly called ‘Enyimba’ is also known for its industrial profile, perhaps recognised as a global market. It is the home handcrafts. The ingenuity and the industry of the people in crafts such as handbags, belts and shoes, tailoring, steel works (machines, tools and equipment) and fabrication of both domestic and industrial engines spare parts justifies the ‘Japan of Africa’ slogan.

    The unskilled engineers in the commercial nerve centre of Abia State have become the most wanted by most dredging companies who rely on them to replicate or reproduce some of their machine parts that are either scarce or must have been phased out of the market.

    The ingenuity of the people in using locally sourced materials to produce things that can compete favourably with their counterparts in the global market has earned its goods the popular nickname ‘Made in Aba’ just like we have ‘Made in China, UK, U.S.A,’ among others.

    Many have argued that what people regarded as ‘fake’ because it was produced in Aba, would outshine their contemporaries both in quality and durability.

    This has attracted high patronage on goods produced and manufactured in Aba by consumers beyond the shores of the country. Aba products traverse the West, East and North African countries, making the commercial city a sort of Mecca for traders within Nigeria and other African sub-regions.

    Aba has long been touted as the Japan of Africa given the many innovative and entrepreneurial activities going on among the inhabitants of the city. Speaking on the ingenuity of Aba Mr. Fortunate Dike, the President, Aba Small Scale Industrialist Initiative (ASSII) and a fruit drink manufacturer, in a chat with this reporter in his office boasted that, locally fabricated industrial machine spare parts lasts longer than the imported ones.

    Dike said that for Aba engineers to compete favourably with their foreign counterparts, “all they need is to be exposed to the modern technologies in order to help them meet with the modern trends of technology”.

    Professor Charles Chinekezi, a media consultant, added “anybody who tells you that Aba is an ingenuity city is only stating the obvious. From the beginning, Aba as a city has been known and exemplified for the gospel of copy technology which remains the scoring points of the Japanese technology and development. Today, the People’s Republic of China has repeated exactly what the Japanese did in the early 70s. If we talk about Nigeria, and possibly when you talk about Africa, Aba remains the bastion of the gospel of copy technology.

    “The multi-nationals have survived doing business, making profits, keeping their owners and investors in all corners of the world in the last 25 to 30 years from the ingenuity of the mere illiterate artisans who parade the streets of Aba. So, if anybody tells you that Aba has played a greater role in the development of Nigeria and Africa due to its commitment to the gospel of copy technology, that person is merely stating the obvious.

    “One of the problems Aba would face is lack of interest of the government to help these people to grow.”

    The government has refused to build technological villages, clusters and a mere encouragement of individuals, organizations, companies, associations and unions that promote this gospel of copy technology and that’s what have been crying about in the last 25 years, because of irregularity and inconsistency of people in government or because of the poor quality and judgmental pattern of government in choosing who runs the technocratic departments of the government in the last 25 to 30yeras. That is the only challenge we suffer from the promotion of this gospel of copy technology for which Aba as a commercial city is known in Nigeria, West Africa and Africa specifically. So, I am afraid. But I think if with the help of the press, civil society organisations, intellectual discusses and public campaigns and lectures, I think we can overcome this weakness or threat to our development as regards to the promotion and development of our indigenous technology.

    “How can anybody say that things produced anywhere is fake? They are just being mischievous to say that anything produced in Aba is fake. If you say that something that is produced in Aba is fake, that means, something produced in London, Italy, France, New York, Tokoyo (Japan), Hong Kong is also fake. That’s just the meaning. We are only interested in quality control which is a standard issue worldwide and specifications. The standardisation of quality control is the same from here (Aba) to where the world ends. We can only be talking about fake when people in our territory refuse to adhere to certain acceptable global standards. Anyone who is talking about fake and fakeness when it concerns quality control, when we are willing to collaborate with other people is being unreasonable. Technology is never transferred, it is acquired worldwide.”

    However, the pride of the commercial town of Abia State is at risk as most respondents said that they were contemplating leaving the state due to what they described as ‘harsh and unfriendly’ condition of doing business, excessive taxes and levies by government agencies is threatening their continued existence in the business.

    According to a machine fabricating engineer, “the challenges of epileptic power supply and over-estimation of PHCN bills has been a problem that we have long tried to address without any positive result. You know how much diesel is being sold at filling stations today and then imagine the amount of money we spend every day or would have spent running on generator throughout the year.

    “All we need is for the federal and state government to provide us with the enabling environment to do our businesses. Aba is known for its ingenuity. We are proud of it and will always make sure that, that which Aba is known for will be protected. We hope that the state of power supply will improve when Geometric Power Station and the EEDC (Enugu Electricity Distribution Company) finally resolve whatever that has been hindering effective power generation and distribution in Aba.”

    One thing that is certain is that the ingenuity of Aba people has come to stay and will only require the partnership of the artisans with Abia State, Federal government to sharpen their skills in order to help them grow their businesses beyond its present state.