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Nigerian ports record worst congestion 14 years after concession P. 2

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L-R: Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Lagos State governor; Yemi Osinbajo, vice president of Nigeria; Segun Ogunsanya, MD/CEO, Airtel Nigeria, and Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, minister of communication and digital economy, at the Airtel Touching Lives Season 5 Premiere held in Lagos.

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Union Bank turns gaze on women with Alpher product launch nion Bank on Thursday launched an innovative gender-focused product targeted at women business owners and managers hoping to use learning from its unique foray into the hugely untapped SME market to beat competition.

Called ‘Alpher woman’, the product is woven around inspiring themes like “Woman enough to live her best life”; “Woman enough to earn her place”; “Woman enough to lead businesses”; “Woman enough to captain her life”, and “Woman enough to break barriers”.

Studies show that women can be reliable borrowers of funds but most lending products appear to ignore them, leaving out a significant segment of society.

Speaking at the colourful event, Union Bank CEO Emeka Emuwa said Alpher was first introduced at last year’s International Women’s Day celebrations and in the months that have passed. The service has been tested and perfected.

“We believe that Nigeria and

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Treasury bills

MTN plans IPO to sell 14% of Nigerian stake SEGUN ADAMS

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TN Group Ltd is preparing an Initial Public Offering (IPO) which will see it raise up to N340 billion from domestic investors as it seeks to sell down its Nigerian stake.

Nigerian investors currently own about 19.4 percent of MTN Nigeria, while 78.8 percent is owned by South Africa’s MTN Group.

MTN said on Thursday that

To diversify local shareholding, boost capex Share price may fall as supply hits market

it is looking to reduce majority ownership of its business in Nigeria, the carrier’s biggest and most profitable market, after the country’s attorney general (AGF) dropped a claim for $2 billion in back taxes.

Johannesburg-based MTN had earlier in 2019 listed its shares on the Nigerian Stock

Exchange (NSE) by way of introduction, whereby it did not raise any money.

“This is just the beginning; we still intend to pursue a future Public Offer giving more Nigerians greater access to the MTN opportunity,” said Ferdi Moolman, CEO of MTN Nigeria, at the time.

About 14 percent of the Lagos-listed operation could be sold, MTN said, reducing the stake to about 65 percent.

The move will be welcomed by domestic institutional and retail investors as it will help broaden the shareholder base Continues on page 38

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news Nigeria’s refineries moribund despite gulping billions in turnaround maintenance ... as Senate probes NNPC over $396m spent 2013-2015 SOLOMON AYADO, Abuja, & DIPO OLADEHINDE, Lagos

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frica’s biggest oilproducing country has spent billions of dollars in turnaround maintenance of refineries in the past 25 years with nothing to show for it, the Senate said on Thursday.

Despite the huge expenses, the oil production facilities have remained moribund as Nigeria still imports more than 80 percent of needed petroleum products which puts immense pressure on its foreign exchange, national reserves, and infrastructure.

“The country through NNPC has in the past 25 years spent billions of US dollars in turn-around maintenance of the refineries, the latest being over $396 million spent between 2013 and 2015 without meaningful result,” said Yusuf Yusuf (Taraba Central), who led the debate on the floor of the Senate.

“The refineries have remained in moribund state in the last 15-20 years and are almost reaching total collapse due to lack of proper maintenance of the facilities with a poor

average capacity utilisation hovering between 15 percent and 25 percent per annum,” he said.

The huge expenses on the ailing refineries are taking a toll on other critical sectors of the economy, with the nation’s education, health, security and agricultural sectors all struggling for funds, while the country remains the world’s poverty capital.

The Senate therefore resolved to probe the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over $396 million specifically expended on turn-around maintenance of refineries in the country between 2013 and 2015.

Describing as very poor the state of refineries in the country, the Senate lamented that the Federal Government has “wasted” billions in the guise of maintaining the refineries that are obviously not working. It said the government was simply inept and not ready to revive the oil production facilities.

The senators are also concerned that the inactivity of the refineries has prevented the creation of job opportunities to Continues on page 38

FG seeks collaboration with states, LGs, others to tackle insecurity ... silent on tenure of service chiefs TONY AILEMEN, Abuja

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he National Security Council rose from its quarterly meeting on Thursday with a resolution to seek collaboration with all strata of Nigerian society including states, local governments and members of the public to tackle the intractable security challenges facing the nation.

The National Security Council meeting which held at the Council Chambers in Abuja was attended

by Vice President Yemi Osinabjo, the service chiefs, Rauf Aregbesola (minister of interior), Bashir Magashi (minister of defence), Babagana Monguno (national security adviser), Muhammadu Dingyadi (minister of police affairs), Boss Mustapha (secretary to the government of the federation), Abba Kyari (chief of staff), Yusuf Bichi (directorgeneral of DSS), and Rufai

Abubakar (DG NIA).

Speaking after the meeting, Monguno said the meeting appraised the current security situation and agreed to seek collaboration with a wide spectrum of Nigerians to deal with the situation.

“We reviewed the current situation, the opportunities and the challenges and we arrived at the conclusion that we need collaboration with the larger Nigerian society to deal with the situation,” Monguno said.

The NSA, who described the security challenge as “multi-dimensional”, noted that there are internal and external dimensions which require the cooperation of all Nigerians.

“There is need for both parties to collaborate to deal with it right down. We can’t disclose anything on collaboration right now until Continues on page 38

Harriet Thompson, deputy British High Commissioner; Tobi Osinowo, real estate developer, and Stephen Jennings, CEO of Rendeavour, at a networking reception with Lord Ashcroft organised by the deputy High Commission in Lagos.

SEC-approved product rekindles hope on N130bn unclaimed dividend, missing shares …200 clients already subscribed HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

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nvestors and shareholders who may have lost hope of recovering their shares and their stake in the N130 billion unclaimed dividend in Nigeria’s capital market can now heave a sigh of relief as an investment company, Integrated Trust, has introduced a Securities & Exchange Commission-approved product to address these challenges.

The product, Integrated Shares Finder (ISF), is a financial advisory product designed to help the Nigerian investors to locate and recover their missing shares, loan stock and other capital market assets so that they can enjoy the benefit due

to them on their investments.

Unclaimed dividends in Nigeria’s capital market rose to N130 billion as at December 2019, from N103.1 billion in December 2016, according to market sources.

Despite the best efforts of SEC in reducing the amount of unclaimed dividends through the introduction and enforcement of e-dividends payment system, the amount of unclaimed dividends has continued to increase.

But with the new product, it is hoped that the suffering of investors over missing or lost investments will be alleviated and incidence of missing shares and unclaimed dividends will be reduced.

This will restore and enhance

investor confidence and bring investors back into the Nigerian capital market.

Dele Lawore, group managing director/CEO, Integrated Trust & Investment Limited, said over 200 clients have already subscribed to the Integrated Shares Finder and have been able to recover their missing shares and dividends.

Nigeria has a population of about 180 million out of which only 3 million or about 3 percent of the adult population invest in the stock market.

A recent study of the Nigerian stock market by Integrated Trust revealed that many shareholders are not aware of the true status of their shareholding in many of the companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange

(NSE) and NASD OTC market.

Many don’t know the location of their shares, the quantity of their shares, the value of the shares, the benefit accrued in terms of unclaimed dividends or bonus shares. Some shareholders do not receive any information from their companies in form of annual reports, chairman’s letters, scheme of arrangement documents, notices, among others.

“Inadequateinvestorinformation is a major challenge which has contributed greatly to low investor confidence and low participationofNigeriansinthestock market in recent times,” Lawore said at the official launch of the product in Lagos on Thursday.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

Nigerian ports record worst congestion 14 years after concession …as shippers decry economic cost of proposed vessel diversion AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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igerian ports are experiencing their worst congestion since the cargo handling aspect of the port business was handed over to private terminal operators 14 years ago.

Vessels with laden containers, which ordinarily should seamlessly discharge their consignments within 48 hours, now wait up to three weeks before accessing the ports to berth, indicating a roll-back of the high level of efficiency achieved with the port reform exercise in 2006.

Hapag-Lloyd, a German shipping firm, recently raised alarm that vessel waiting time for berth has increased to more than 20 days in Apapa Container Terminal and exceeds 10 days in Tin-Can Container Terminal.

“We are recording high volume of overtime cargoes such that at APM Terminals

alone, the number of overtime containers presently stands at 2,259 boxes, which is about 3,000 TEUs while ENL terminal now has longer cargo dwell time because of the project cargoes for the Lekki Deep Seaport that is yet to be evacuated,” Funmilayo Olotu, port manager of Lagos Port Complex (LPC), said at the last quarter 2019 stakeholders’ meeting in Lagos.

Jonathan Nicol, president, Shippers Association of Lagos State, pointed to an apparent increase in the volume of cargo, suggesting that the ports in Lagos need to be expanded.

“Our port system lacks the basic infrastructure. The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) also lacks functional scanning machines to ease cargo inspection, rather they rely on 100 percent physical examination, which elongates the dwell time of cargo at the ports. We have an increased volume of empty containers that litter almost all the port

terminals because shipping companies are not retrieving their empties,” Nicol said.

“The ports lack government warehouses where overtime cargoes can be kept, rather such cargoes are kept in the same terminal where laden cargoes should berth.

Overtime containers are government property and in most cases government can abandon them in the terminal for more than three years, thereby occupying space and creating congestion,” he said.

Tony Anakebe, managing director, Gold-Link Investment Ltd, a Lagos-based clearing and forwarding firm, said the problem the port industry is facing has to do with managing the success of the border closure.

“Several ships now queue on Nigerian waters without berthing due to lack of space.

Several terminals are filled to the brim, and importers are made to pay demurrage as well as storage charges,”

Anakebe said.

He said that in addition to congestion, importers also bear the brunt of the congestion on roads leading to Apapa as trucks queue for days to have access into the port to lift laden containers while shipping lines are making money from demurrages charged through container deposit.

“Given the situation of the roads, the cost of haulage has escalated such that importers pay between N600,000 and N700,000 to move 20-foot and 40-foot containers to warehouses in Lagos, and close to N1.2 million to go to other parts of the country,” he said.

To deal with congestion problem, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) said it would begin to divert vessels that have waited for long to berth at any terminal within the Lagos Pilotage District to other terminals with capacity to berth vessels within the dis-

Continues on page 38

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news

Malabu Oil: Court orders arrest of Etete, two others … grants Adoke bail in sum of N50m Felix Omohomhion, Abuja

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n FCT High Court sitting in Gwagwalada, Abuja, Thursday, ordered the arrest of former petroleum minister, Dan Etete, and oneMunamunaSeidouughaand Joseph Amaran, alleged owners of Malabu Oil, operational mining licence (OML 245).

This was sequel to an exparte motion filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), brought in pursuant to Section 3, 35, 36 and 37 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.

In granting the prayers of the EFCC, Justice Abubakar Idris Kutigi, said it was imperative to grant the order as prayed for the delivery of justice. In the 8-paragragh affidavit, the EFCC sought a warrant of arrest to be able to extradite Etete and the two others.

In one of the prayers, the antigraft agency urged the court to grant it the warrant of arrest.

The commission held that the charges against the three suspects involves over $1.09 billion Malabu Oil Bloc (OPL 245) Settlement Agreement.

The EFCC alleged that Etete, Seidougha, Amaran (all at large) sometime in 2013, in Abuja, dishonestly used as genuine the forged form CAC 7 and Board Resolution of Malabu Oil and Gas Limited and the letter of resignation of one Mohammed Sani, which they then knew to

be forged documents, to open a bank account No. 2018288005 to receive $401,540,000.00 .

The commission also alleged that Seidougha, Amaran and (Dauzia Loya) Etete, sometime in 2013, in Abuja, “dishonestly used as genuine the forged form CAC 7 and Board Resolution of Malabu Oil and Gas Limited and the letter of resignation of one Mohammed Sani, which they then knew to be forged, documents to open a Bank Account No. 3610042472 to receive $400,540,000.00 (Four Hundred Thousand United States Dollars).

According to an ex parte application by the EFCC counsel, Bala Sanga, the suspects have been residing in France and in some Africa countries.

Meanwhile, the same Court admitted to bail in the sum of N50 million former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke.

Adoke, alongside six others, are facing 42 count-charges bordering on money laundering, bribing and corruption, said to be inimical to national interest.

According to the Federal Government, as attorney-general, Adoke mediated controversial agreements that ceded OPL 245 to Shell and Eni who in turn paid about $1.1 billion to accounts controlled by former petroleum minister, Dan Etete.

Ruling on bail application, Justice Abubakar Idris Kutigi held

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that the offences the defendants were charge with are bailable.

Also admitted to bail in the sum of N50 million and N10 million are Aliu Abubakar and Rasky Gbinigie, who are second and third defendants, respectively, in the alleged fraud trial by the Federal Government.

The EFCC also said the suspects were occasionally sighted in different parts of Europe. The anti-graft agency prayed the court to issue a warrant of arrest, which is a pre-condition for the extradition of the suspects.

An affidavit sworn to by an Investigating Officer, Ibrahim Ahmed said Etete and others are wanted because they are part of the brains behind Malabu Oil and Gas Limited.

The document read: “That I know as a fact and I verily believe that the investigation of the Malabu Oil and Gas: Limited matter disclosed a prima facie commission of offence by the respondents among others.

“That I know as a fact which I verily believe that our investigation has revealed the following: The respondents (mentioned in counts 14, 15, 16, 17 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, and 421 of Charge No: CR/151/2020 and indicated to be at large) are still at large and intelligence report indicates that they reside in France and occasionally in some other countries.

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news

Polaris Bank supports gender equality campaign

LAPO MFB promotes savings culture with new product

…as Abiru is nominated UNWomen Gender Equality Champion

HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

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olaris Bank has lent its voice to support the global “HeForShe” movement initiative of the United Nations (UN) in line with its Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Policy thrust, even as the Bank’s CEO, Tokunbo Abiru is nominated Gender Equality Champion by the Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs & PovertyAlleviationinconjunction with UNWomen.

ThePolarisBankCEOgavehis commitment at the launching of the HeForShe campaign in Lagos State on Tuesday, where the Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu flagged off the Campaign in the state. He reiterated the Bank’s commitment to the advancement of gender equality, affirming his nomination to be a HeForShe Advocate/Champion.

Abiru stated: “Our commitment to gender equality runs just as deep as our passion for creating value which is why it is one of the main focus of the Women and Youth Empowerment pillar of our Sustainability and CSR Policy.”

According to Abiru, “Women are the most deprived gender in the world and apart from constituting majority of the unbanked, they are also deprived on cultural grounds in developing economies.” He further stated that: “In support of the objective of the HeForShe movement, we

have and will continue to support particularly, the economic and financial growth of women and contribute to building an enabling environment for them.”

Earlier in her welcome address, the host and Lagos State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Bolaji Dada said: “HeForShe is a platform through which men and boys are encouraged to become agents of change,” adding that “it is an initiative for men to stand in solidarity with women to create a bold, visible and united force for gender equality.”

While giving the opening remarks and overview of UN Women Work in Nigeria, Comfort Lamptey, who was represented by Lansana Wonneh disclosed that Nigeria, in spite of its leadership role in Africa lags behind when it comes to promoting gender equality and empowermentofwomenwithan indexof0.85.Hehoweverextolled Lagos State for leading the drive for gender equality in the country.

According to Wonneh, “The statistics of women in government in the State is perhaps the best in Nigeria and the launching of the HeForShe Campaign is indeed, a demonstration and commitment not only of the government, but also of the men and the women of Lagos State to gender equality and empowerment of women.”

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eying into the financial inclusion and financial literacy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), LAPO Microfinance Bank Limited is promoting savings culture among women and children.

Consequently, the bank has introduced into the financial market a new product called ‘My Pikin and I’, which is a savings account designed to provide support for women and children.

The product offers a competitive interest rate and can be opened with a minimum balance of as low as N200. It also offers insurance cover for fire disaster, burglary, and disability.

There is also scholarship offer to the beneficiaries for up to one year, if a customer saves up to N150,000. Existing and new customers can open account through LAPO thrift collectors, or to the bank’s branch nationwide, or through its over 1,300 agents.

Godwin Ehigiamusoe, managing director of the bank, was concerned that women and children were neglected in the society and that gave the organisation the push to go into the business of helping to relieve them of the financial burden.

“The two objectives for any savings products for us is to

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be able to assist the savers to build up capital because we do realise that the challenge of most people especially women is that they have very slim capital base in terms of building up their savings.

“The second obviously for us as an institution is that we build to boost our deposit base.

This is a product that we already had. It is just that we have designed a new one, which we eventually consolidate together.

So we see this increasing our deposit base in the next few months. We normally we have about 2or 3 billion on monthly basis. We see this going up may be by about 30 percent,” Ehigiamusoe said.

He was worried that in Africa, savings culture was low.

Giving a reason why people don’t save, he said, “A lot of things have made it difficult for people to inculcate savings culture and it has to be improved.

I believe people have to plan their budget and determine what they really need over what they want, once they are able to do that, they are able to set some money aside. I think there should be availability of instrument like this that presents the opportunity for people to save.”

In remote communities, he said people don’t have the opportunity to save, they prefer to hide their money under their mattresses, but with more products like this, the level of savings culture will improve.

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Stakeholders outline 2020 working strategies for next-generation business leaders KELECHI EWUZIE

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takeholders in the marketing and innovation ecosystem have urged the next generation of business leaders to embrace innovation in all their operational strategies if they hope to stay afloat in this new decade and beyond.

They observe that in an unforgiving and fast-paced marketing environment, one thing is certain, businesses either innovate or die.

Victor Gbenga Afolabi, group managing director, GDM Group, says marketing is changing, clients are changing and so we must change too to serve them better.

Afolabi, speaking at the Marketing Innovation Masterclass organised by GDM Group in Lagos, states that Marketing is in a transitional era, adding that Innovation is critical because marketing is constantly moving.

The group managing director opines that Marketing Innovation Masterclass is an annual GDM platform where the company connects with stakeholders in the marketing and innovation industry for knowledge sharing purpose.

According to Afolabi, “The 2020 edition aims to create a platform for young minds to network with industry thought leaders; Impact knowledge with working strategies for 2020 and beyond and set a foundation for economic advancement in

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2020.”

Speaking on this year’s theme ‘Raising the bar,’ Afolabi says, “We intend to share the decade-long story of GDM Group; how we have successfully distilled complex marketing problems, serviced some of the largest homebred and cosmopolitan brands, emerged as an institution leader, and now raising the bar into the next big thing.”

Lampe Omoyele, CEO, Nitro 121, in his presentation, notes that Strategy is not just a plan; Strategy is your chosen way to play the game/perform. Strategy is not a short-term play, but long term and usually a year and above to see the effect.

“Attheheartofmarketinginnovation and strategy development are people. Question is no longer just ‘What’ and ‘How’ should you sell but ‘Why’ should you sell and to ‘Who’,” Omoyele states.

He further notes that people always talk about wanting technology, but they also want human interaction, adding that as innovative marketers, bearing this paradox in mind and finding that middle ground in the delivery of our services is key.

On her part, Iquo Ukoh, CEO, Entod Marketing, in her presentation, “Timeless Principles of Effective Marketing,” observes being one of the 4Ps of marketing, ‘place’ is one of the most important factors to consider for your business.

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Friday 31 January 2020

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IMPACT INVESTING

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In Association With

‘Africa’s business landscape may be challenging, returns are as high as 100%’ The Impact Investor’s Foundation (IIF) recently launched an impact investing landscape report on Nigeria and Ghana. On the sidelines, TELIAT SULE (BusinessDay Research Unit) engaged ASTOU DIA and ANITA AIGBOGUN both of Dalberg Advisors on the relevance of the report to current and prospective impact investors interested in the African continent. Excerpts.

Kindly give us an overview of the report that Dalberg wrote which was launched by IIF y name is Anita Aigbogun, a consultant and part of the Dalberg Advisors team which carried out the Nigeria-Ghana Impact investing research between September and November 2019. The new report relies on the GIIN (Global Impact Investing Network) report 2015, and updates the readers on how much capital has been deployed since 2015 and in what sectors; what the deal sizes are; what challenges impact investors have closing deals and in terms of the policy landscape. It also highlights examples from other countries that can be an inspiration to fill up the gaps.

To update the 2015 study, we analysed available deal databases such as EMPEA and AVCA. In addition, we contacted over 50 impact investors active in Nigeria and Ghana to get additional data on resources they have deployed in the region since 2015, the type of deals they closed, and the constraints they face operating in the region, especially in Nigeria and Ghana which represent more than 50% of the market.

Impact investors are targeting a wider range of sectors. In the 2015 study, there was concentration on agriculture, financial services, and technology. Now the impact investors are widening their coverage, investing in sectors such as energy, transportation, or education.

Through conversations with investors, we realised that specific policy changes can be a major catalyst for growth. In Nigeria, policy changes in the energy sector (e.g., the strong work of the Rural Electrification Fund [REF] within Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency [REA] in enabling off-grid energy investments) have unlocked growth. However, there are also cases in which policy and regulatory complexity inhibited investment (notably in areas such as financial inclusion, where a tight and changing regulatory environment constrained the industry for some time).

What kinds of inspirations could local impact investors draw from the report?

DIA: This report aims to fill in the information gap with regards to the impact investing landscape in Ghana and Nigeria. It shows the growing importance of impact investing in the region and the attractivity of Nigeria in particular. This is evidenced by the fact that despite a worsening economic climate, the number of impact investors active in Ghana and Nigeria increased markedly. The report also

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Anita Aigbogun

Astou Dia

sets out a number of policy recommendations for consideration with regard to the impact investing sector.

How do you think local impact investors can make a head way considering the amount of bottlenecks they face in this country?

It is important to acknowledge that although policy and advocacy work can unlock further transactions, policy has not stopped investment in Nigeria. However, there is room for improvement in many areas.

First, there is a lack of clarity in the definition of impact investing. In this study, we have kept the GIIN definition that refers to ‘investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return.’ A lot of development finance institutions’ (DFIs) lending to government for roads, electrification supports, falls into that category and are accounted for. This broad definition does not help in recognizing impact investing as an asset class and making the required policy changes to enable local fundraising.

With most capital in the market seeking commercial returns, there are significant challenges in driving blended finance. Leveraging concessional capital from DFIs and blending it with private and locally available money could help deliver greater social impact on a longer horizon.

AIGBOGUN: Other points came out during the launch of the report.

Some investors are noting the fact that capital is not really “blended” as the returns expected are the same for all investors. Another thing that will help address this is some formal education and increased awareness www.businessday.ng

to help stakeholders understand how blended capital works and how it can be used to better direct private capital.

How is Dalberg contributing in changing the landscape and lifting some of these challenges?

Dalberg is a global advisory firm that partners various organizations in the space. With our 26 offices across the globe, we are able to draw lessons and experiences from the US, Europe, and Asia and can support institutions, such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) and IFF, shape the African landscape.

Dalberg also incubated and launched Convergence, global network for blended finance that generates blended finance data, intelligence, and deal flow to increase private sector investment in developing countries.

DIA: In other countries such as Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire, we incubated and supported the launch of investment clubs and funds “by women for women” (Women’s Investment Club, WIC). As we realized there was a finance gap for small and medium enterprise (SME), female owned businesses, we designed a mechanism to tap into local savings to scale women led businesses. WIC’s vision is to give women privileged access to modern financial instruments for inclusive economic development.

AIGBOGUN: Dalberg is also a member of the Impact Investor’s Foundation (IIF) board.

Do you have special funds for women-led enterprises in Nigeria?

DIA: Having specific funds tailored towards women businesses can go a long way to uplift women and the country as a whole. We are planning to replicate the WIC initiative across

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Africa and definitely in Nigeria.

AIGBOGUN: Recently, we conducted a study for EFina (Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access) specifically focusing on women where we focused on what was driving the behaviours of women towards finances and how we could support women led businesses in Nigeria.

From your findings, how could you liaise with government to improve the impact investing landscape in Nigeria?

DIA: This body of knowledge can support advocacy that will lead to improvements in the business environment in Nigeria. Anita made mention of the energy sector earlier where tailored policy changes resulted in increased investment. An organization like IFF can bring to governments attention some of the recommendations of the study and make the case for policy changes that have the potential to bring even more investment (close to $5 billion were invested in Nigeria since 2015).

Checking impact investors that support Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there are hardly firms of African origin. Doesn’t that pose a serious challenge?

DIA: Domiciliation of impact investing funds within West Africa is not easy as most countries have far less flexible and modern legal frameworks, fewer tax incentives, and less stable political and economic systems than Mauritius, the US, or the UK. The lack of tax incentives remains one of the main reasons why funds operating in the region are mostly domiciled in Mauritius. However, the decisions of investors to register in foreign jurisdictions do not prevent them from doing business in Nigeria or Ghana. @Businessdayng

As such, most often, when you look at the nationality of the fund manager, you will see a strong representation of Africans that understand the context in which they are operating.

So, out of the 23 fund managers that we interviewed, a majority were of African origin.

What is the outlook for impact investing on the African continent?

I am very optimistic because almost every day or every month, someone is raising funds to invest in Africa. This is because, when you see the growth in Africa, despite the environment, investors can really get something valuable in return.

It is risky, but the return potential is five to ten times higher on the African continent compared with other markets. In other words, Africa’s business landscape may be challenging, returns are as high as 100%. Based on the analysis and on the conversations, we are optimistic about the potential of impact investing. The more we can make the environment more conducive the more we will see funds operating and located in the region. In five years, the number of impact investors in Nigeria and Ghana has tripled, imagine what would happen if the challenges are removed.

Aren’t there challenges in coming up with an appropriate model to measure impact investing?

As mentioned earlier, the first challenge is definition. One of the pillars of impact investing is that you track and measure impact investing.

What we see is that people labour to get money maybe from DFIs, but then, they do not measure and track the impact. You will see something like XYZ Firm gave out money to create say about 20,000 jobs, but nobody is actually measuring if such firm truly created 20,000 jobs.

So, one of the recommendations is to have a more stringent definition of what can be classified as impact capital and to require impact investors to have formal and well-developed impact metrics that are measured and reported regularly. This would also help in defining potential impact capital incentives and mitigating the risk of ‘impact washing’.

AIGBOGUN: DFIs that are providing concessional funding must also clearly specify their objectives when they are releasing funds to the impact investors and put in place mechanisms to ensure that these investors are directing their funding to meet the specified objectives.

Impact investors need to go beyond intentionality and commit to measuring and tracking impact.

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Britain and the new scramble for Africa THE NEW WEALTH OF NATIONS

Obadiah Mailafia

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et me place my cards on the table: I have always been partial towards Britain. Apart from my Nigeria, it is the only other place I can call “home”.

Sadly, we would never forget that the British colonialists wilfully left behind a lopsided federal contraption that was inevitably to lead to a civil war that consumed more than 2 million Nigerians.

To forgive, they say, is divine.

The Britain-Africa Investment Summit came and went last week, the first of its kind on British shores. Some 21 African countries attended the event.

In his welcome address, Prime Minister Boris Johnson described Britain as a “one-stop shop for investment and business”. He also spoke passionately about his ambitions to develop strong trade relations with Africa. In the preconference announcement, the organisers declared that their objective is to make London not only the destination of choice for “development financing” but also the largest source of FDI for Africa. They also aim to make Britain the largest investor in Africa among the G7 nations by 2022.

The event was hosted by the Department for International Development (DFID) and featured prominent British leaders in government, industry and finance. In addition to the Prime Minister, among the prominent British leaders who featured at the event

were: Development Secretary Alok Sharma, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Trade Secretary Elizabeth Mary Truss and Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom. British captains of industry that also featured in the event included Vodafone boss Nick Read, CEO of BP Bernard Looney, Standard Life Aberdeen boss Keith Skeoch, G4S Chairman Ashley Martin Almanza, CEO of Associated British Foods George Weston and Managing Director of the London Stock Exchange David Schwimmer.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson had one-on-one sessions with General Muhammadu Buhari, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Paul Kagame of Rwanda.

He also met with various African business leaders.

The event was finalised with a banquet at Buckingham Palace hosted by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge.

Among the immediate outcomes was the announcement by CEO of the financial agency CDC that they would commit funding to the tune of £2 billion (equivalent to $2.61 billion) to support companies investing in Africa, in addition to £400 ($523) for SMEs aiming to develop trade and business investments in Africa). The CEO of the agency Nick O’Donohoe was quoted as saying that, “Investors have a real opportunity to embrace the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals — in partnership with African countries and businesses — to fight climate change, create jobs and skills, and bring about positive social and environmental change”.

The DFID also announced that they are creating a partnership fund with the African Development Bank for investment in African infrastructures development.

From all we gather, it was a successful event. Britain and our continent have

had a long and chequered relationship.

Britain was one of the imperial powers, the others being France, Portugal and Spain. British influence spans Southern Africa, to East Africa and West Africa, together with Sudan and Egypt.

Today, Britain has a population of 67.5 million and a nominal GDP of US$2.982 trillion, the fifth largest economy in the world; coming behind USA ($21.506 trillion), China ($14.242 trillion), Japan ($6.231 trillion) and Germany ($4,210 trillion) and closely tailed

by India ($2.935 trillion) and France ($2.934 trillion).

Britain is a world leader in technology and innovation. Its first-tier universities – Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College, London School of Economics, University College London, Edinburgh and Warwick – are the gold standard throughout the world.

The computer is a British invention.

It was invented by a Cambridge mathematician, Charles Babbage, while he was developing an algorithm to decode German military communications during the Second World War. The World Wide Web was also invented by another Briton, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, an Oxford-educated engineer and computer scientist.

Britain is a world leader in petrochemicals as well as in biotechnology.

British scientists discovered DNA and Britain has been a pioneer in developing a DNA data base. It is also a world leader in telecoms, aerospace and shipping, railways and other transport infrastructures technology. Peter Higgs, of Edinburgh University, working with five other physicists, was first propounded the theory of the Higgs boson , a particle that was later discovered in 2012 at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, a $10 billion dollar laboratory constructed by the Europe Centre for Nuclear Research.

The new discovery explains how mass

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With the benefit of hindsight, however, we ought to have seen it coming.

There is, in the heart of Europe, a bureaucratic beast that has no soul and no spirit. The beast speaks a strange bureaucratic language anchored on the idiom of power without accountability

works at the sub-atomic level.

The Thatcherite neo-liberal economic policies of the eighties did serve to rejuvenate Britain as a nation; but it was largely at the expense of industrial development. Most of the capital and investments moved into high finance, with the City of London becoming the financial hub of Europe and the world.

More than a trillion dollars pass through the City of London financial hub every single day. Today Britain is the centre of the global Eurodollar market as well as the highest net exporter of financial services in the world, ahead of the USA, China, Japan and Germany.

The biggest factor driving Britain’s new scramble for Africa is the imminence of Brexit. After years of heardwringing and rather bitter political altercations, the December 2019 elections and the emergence of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister have settled the debate.

It is now a foregone conclusion that Britain will leave Europe. British leaders themselves are aware that Brexit will come with consequences. Already, several major firms are re-locating to continental Europe. Capital worth more than $770 billion is forecast to be haemorrhaged out of the City of London. It has therefore become imperative for Britain to cultivate new business and trading partners. The obvious suspects are the United States and the older Commonwealth Dominions of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to the virgin territories of Africa.

Note: The rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @https://businessday.ng Dr. Mailafia is a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, a development economist and public finance expert with a DPhil from Oxford obmailafia@gmail.com; 08036590990 (text messages only)

Performance goals

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his week has been so hectic, I am so happy it is the weekend again. To be honest what would we do without weekends? Some people are in jobs that don’t have weekends, meaning they work with the same intensity throughout the week.

I feel for you because after most weeks, people are so grateful for the weekend. There actually was a time when there were no weekends. The weekend was a human resource victory. More about that later.

In the last article we were talking about Performance Appraisals and about how it starts with setting well thought out goals, today we will look at how to set goals.

Goals help both employer and employee focus, with the efficient use of resources, it helps to accomplish more. Goals serve as communication tools to convey what needs to get done and enhance mutual understanding. it increases the likelihood that the desired results will be achieved. Goals challenge and stretch employees to be better.

Goal setting fosters alignment within groups and among co-workers. It helps Identify resources and collaboration needed to accomplish work and finally they clarify how work is accomplished – the behaviours we use to achieve goals-.

There are two types of goals to be set. Job performance goals which focus on what needs to be accomplished during the year including specific tasks, projects, or outcomes and professional development goals which focus on how the work will get done by the acquisition of skills, competencies and knowledge.

Over the years, people have come up with an acronym of how to recognise a good goal which has been properly crafted. it is referred to as a

SMART goal.

SMART: S stands for Specific; the question to answer here is, what is the outcome expected?

Clearly state the outcome what is to be accomplished. This plainly means stating what you want to achieve.

M stands for Measurable; how will goal achievement be evaluated? You will need to provide the metrics to indicate level of completion. This is important because if you can’t track it, how will you know it has been achieved or that it will be achieved within the expected period.

What you don’t measure you can’t manage.

Measurable Goals equal the evidence of progress. The goal must state to increase, to provide, to improve, to save, etc.

If a goal can’t be clearly measured, then describe clearly what successful completion of the goal will look like. For example, what the current state is and what the desired state is.

How it will be evaluated. What specific results and behaviours indicate success and how you intend to evaluate performance against this goal?

A stands for Attainable; what will it take to achieve the goal? Discuss indicators, activities and resources that will contribute to successful performance.

R stands for Result-oriented; does the goal focus on the right results? Describe the desired changes, improvements or output. In goal setting there has to be a lot of description so that everybody understands what the expectations are and what the outcomes will look like.

T stands for Time; identify the target dates and milestones for completion. This has to be done realistically with all parameters taken into consideration.

Example: This year’s Job Performance Goals

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in Finance Improve the monthly financial reports that are delivered to the management committee, add comments to fields so the data is easier to understand – Ongoing Create a tracking system that will identify deficits and discrepancies in our accounts – March Generate financial reports and documents to support portfolio spending – Ongoing Assist with grant proposals by collecting data, proofreading and delivering the proposal according to deadlines - Ongoing Prepare payroll documentation for the department when necessary including new hires, additional payments, and personal data change forms – Ongoing In the appraisal goal setting form, personal development goals must also be taken into consideration. lack of personal development goals will hinder achievement of performance goals, The supervisors need to work closely with staff to set both performance and development goals.

In achieving developmental goals, there are some important questions to be asked; What key skills and knowledge do you need to develop, in order to meet expectations and be more effective in your current or future roles ?

What would make work even more satisfying for you?

Supervisor and staff need to discuss and identify a few specific development goals, and list activities that will foster learning, consider different approaches to learning: on-the-job assignments, mentoring / peer coaching, and training or coursework.

The example; Increase editorial skills and knowledge of

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Olamide Balogun departmental accounting systems.

Attend two GAD trainings: “Proofing and Editing” and “Chart of Accounts Training” – March Explore interests in a future financial management role. Identify stretch tasks to expand skills and test abilities in a broader job role.

Ongoing Work closely with the Senior Manager Finance to learn more about her role and determine what might come off her workload to serve as a development opportunity – Ongoing, with formal check-ins at calendar year-end and in April .

Strengthen teamwork and collaboration skills. Ongoing Seek feedback from supervisor and fellow team members to design the new tracking system – October The above are examples I pulled from a Harvard Human Resources goal setting sample.

What is clear is that the goal setting is deliberate and properly done, It can’t be a cut and paste matter. Goals are intertwined with the job descriptions, career path and succession planning.

Balogun is the founder of Box & Cedar Ltd a boutique Recruitment and HR Consulting firm Www.boxandcedar.com

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Ekwegh is a private legal practitioner with over 15 years

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

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From ‘the year of the pig’ to ‘the year of the rat’ – a new virus is born in Wuhan HumanAngle

Femi olugbile

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he Chinese Lunar New Year is the most important festival in the year for people of Chinese extraction. It is a time when people travel long distances to reunite with their parents and other family members.

In Chinese cosmogony, 2019 was The Year of the Pig. The Pig symbol is considered a generally positive one, indicating wealth and good fortune.

On the twenty-fifth of January 2020, the Chinese welcomed another Year, the year of the Rat. People born in the Year of the Rat, according to Chinese Astrology, are instinctive and alert, which makes them good businessmen. They are cheerful and positive, but may be stubborn, prickly and querulous. They will pass examinations and get promotions. On the downside, they may suffer from respiratory disease and heart problems.

Sadly, the transition from the Year of the Pig to the Year of the Rat has not been a happy one for China. The entire world is now beginning to catch a fever on account of developments out of Wuhan.

Wuhan is the capital of Hubei Province in central China. It is a commercial district through which flow the Yangtze

and Han rivers. It is popular with tourists, especially between the months of March and September, when the weather is warm.

It was observed recently that several people in the city began to show up in hospitals with fever, cough and other symptoms of respiratory infection.

On close inspection, it was found that they were traders or recent visitors to a popular livestock and seafood market – the Wuhan “wet” market. This was a place where animals such as bats, snakes and other exotic delicacies – the Chinese version of “bush meat”, were sold alongside other livestock.

The story got more curious when it was discovered that the causative organism was a previously unknown and unnamed species of Coronavirus.

The coronaviruses are a large family of organisms capable of infecting human beings and animals. Before this century, their greatest presence was in the common cold, an annoying little affliction that carried little consequence.

However, three times already this century, this group of organisms have caused great alarm and harm to human beings as they morphed into new varieties. The world was thrown into panic in 20022003 with the spread of the deadly SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus. The pandemic was only arrested by concerted multi-national action, including the culling of large number of chicken in many countries, including Nigeria. A similar pattern of threat and reaction, on a smaller scale, followed in 2012 with the emergence of MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome).

The Wuhan outbreak has marred the celebration of the arrival of the Year of the Rat and led to alarm and even panic in different parts of the world.

The Chinese government shut down the “wet” market and imposed a travel ban on Wuhan and nearby cities, effectively locking down about 60 million Chinese and foreigners in quarantine.

They ‘cleared out’ hospitals to accommodate patients with the new virus and are rushing through the building of two new mega-hospitals to accommodate the overflow.

In the past few days, the numbers have stacked up, and the risk – both to the Chinese and the rest of humanity appears to be multiplying almost exponentially.

There have been more than a hundred deaths and more than four thousand people have been positively diagnosed. All the deaths, and most of the confirmed cases, have been in China.

However, a number of cases have been diagnosed in sixteen different countries. All the people diagnosed with the illness abroad have been students and tourists who recently returned from China, or, more alarmingly, people who have been in contact with such persons.

How worried should the world, including Nigeria, be?

A lot of Nigerian traders and businessmen travel to the Chinese mainland regularly. In addition, there are thousands of Chinese expatriates in Nigeria working on road, rail and other construction projects. Many of them would have travelled home to usher in the Year of the Rat. Many would be returning to Nigeria about now.

To compound the worry, it has been disclosed that carriers of the virus may be able to spread the infection even before they are “symptomatic”. That means for some days before the fever or cough is reported or detected, a person may be spreading the virus. That ren-

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A calm, commonsense strategy, as done in the United Kingdom, is probably the way to go. Chinese workers and Nigerians returning from anywhere on the Chinese mainland should be screened, but even those without symptoms should be advised to selfquarantine

ders border-control measures futile and means even the people on the plane with a ‘pre-symptomatic’ carrier have become potential ‘carriers’ themselves.

Although there is no acknowledged effective treatment for the disease outside of general medical supportive measures, Chinese doctors are said to be treating some severely ill patients with anti-retroviral drugs.

What should Nigeria do?

A calm, common-sense strategy, as done in the United Kingdom, is probably the way to go. Chinese workers and Nigerians returning from anywhere on the Chinese mainland should be screened, but even those without symptoms should be advised to “self-quarantine” in their homes, for a two-week period, and perhaps followed up. It is a good time to reawaken public advocacy on basic hygiene measures such as hand washing in homes, schools and marketplaces, and avoiding crowded places. If positive cases are detected, more stringent public health measures may be required in affected localities. The public may be cautioned about the need to handle ‘bush meat’ with utmost circumspection. Basic preparedness, and the stockpiling of test kits and personal protective equipment, may be in order, to deal with any cases that may emerge.

It could get much worse, unfortunately, before it gets better.

President Xi jinping of China, in frustration, has called the virus a “demon”.

Only when the demon is defeated, and the world is breathing easy, can the Chinese hope to settle down to enjoy the good things their astrologers have predicted for the Year of the Rat. Olugbile is a writer and psychiatrist. synthesiz@gmail.com

The pulse of change in the healthcare industry is driven by digital transformation

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magine a world where people spend less time travelling to medical appointments because they can get check-ups and consultations at home; every patient has a single 360-degree medical record continuously updated by care teams, devices, and self-reporting; highly visual, personalised dashboards streamline physician workflow and help analyse patient data in real time; the costs and complications of chronic disease will drop as remote patient monitoring and virtual coaching become routine practice.

Welcome to the world of Connected Health, where smarter, faster, more accurate interactions between people, devices, data, analytics, and applications are transforming the way healthcare is delivered. A convergence of challenges and enabling technologies are bringing change across the care spectrum—and the pace of change is accelerating.

More simply, we define Connected Health as connecting doctors to data, connecting patients to healthcare providers, and connecting practices to networks—all with the objective of delivering better, more integrated care and health outcomes-. So, as the sector becomes more inter-connected, a web of intelligent communication and actionable information sharing with the intention of improving patient outcomes is transforming the way healthcare is delivered.

Enter the internet of things in healthcare.

While Connected Health builds on decades of healthcare specific experience with mobile health (mHealth) and telehealth solutions, it is propelled by a rapidly evolving Internet of Things (IoT) that connects intelligent sensors, devices, software and networks across the Internet.

What is the potential impact?

According to a report from MarketResearch. com, the Internet of Things in Healthcare is expected to reach $117 billion by 2020, while the mobile health segment continues to reshape

care delivery, with an estimated growth of $59.15 billion by 2020. Sceptics might doubt that the healthcare industry, noted for its slow adoption of information technology, will undergo dramatic change quickly, however, powerful drivers and enablers are converging in ways that signal that a tipping point is indeed on the horizon.

Healthcare is a priority in most national government agendas: The GCC healthcare market is projected to grow at a 12.1 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from an estimated $40.3 billion in 2015 to $71.3 billion in 2020 and is poised to cross $100 billion mark by 2023. There is an increasing consensus in governments, about the urgency of moving the needle on seemingly intractable healthcare challenges of access, quality, and cost.

Aging populations, chronic disease: Two compelling drivers are aging populations and the high incidence of chronic disease, which consume a disproportionate amount of health resources.

In the UAE, the country’s Vision 2021 national agenda aims to achieve a world-class healthcare system to help tackle and prevent lifestyle illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes that are prevalent in the region. According to the International Diabetes Federation , Saudi Arabia and the UAE ranked 10th and 12th respectively in the prevalence of diabetes globally in 2018. As such, it has become more important to track disease trends and monitor chronic patients’ adherence to treatment schedules and recovery progress.

How can organisations get ready for connected health?

So, what are some of the technology challenges that face healthcare providers today? And what do they need to address to become leaders in this digital era?

Too much data, too little insight: As healthcare becomes more interconnected with the increasing adoption of telehealth, mHealth, and

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enabling technologies from IoT to digital sensors, familiar data challenges must be addressed to realise the full promise of Connected Health.

Being able to get patient data from all healthcare services to the right people at the right time remains a challenge. Today with Edge and IoT devices, health leaders are identifying opportunities to derive actionable insights. When analysed using Big Data analytics, these individual points reveal unexpected trends, patterns and insights to improve care delivery and outcomes.

Lack of integration and interoperability: The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) define interoperability as “the extent to which systems and devices can exchange data and interpret that shared data.

For two systems to be compatible, they must be able to exchange data and subsequently present.

The lack of interoperability between devices and systems exists either because these remain closed systems and/or because they contain non-standardised data. New technology vendors entering the healthcare space continue to build closed IoT devices, making it difficult to share data generated from these devices.

Security first, last and always: Cyber security tools and privacy protections must be incorporated when building digital infrastructure.

The security architecture must encompass data governance and security requirements across users, applications and devices, looking at how authentication and validation will be managed.

They can guide health organisations in designing and deploying a multi-faceted security approach with identity management, access management, encryption, proactive security analytics and network security.

A new world of tech: Human-machine partnerships are reshaping how we share medical information, treat disease and discover new therapies more precisely. Dell Technologies recently partnered with Vanson Bourne to survey

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Scott Andrew healthcare business leaders and found a divided vision of the future, but agreement on the need to transform and how to get there. 60 percent of healthcare business leaders report their organisations struggle to keep up. But all of them agreed on the need to transform and are optimistic they can provide essential infrastructure to achieve their digital business goals within the next five years. The data is hugely positive and indicates that the industry is poised to leap ahead as 89 percent of organisations expect to complete their transition to a software defined business with 80 percent using artificial intelligence (AI) to pre-empt patient demands.

To conclude, the healthcare market is poised to leapfrog, but there is a critical step that must occur before digital transformation can be completely realised. Achieving true transformation requires healthcare organisations to cross the digital divide: the gap between connecting IT transformation (modernising the infrastructure) with business transformation (being efficient at analysing and digitising operations). It’s therefore important that healthcare organisations select the right technology partners to create a Connected Health ecosystem and advance in the digital era, transforming the way they work so that they can in turn transform the lives of people.

Andrew is healthcare industry director – MERAT, Dell Technologies

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

Editorial Frank Aigbogun

Hard but possible: Inclusive growth in the new decade

editor Patrick Atuanya

More attention must be paid to the means to achieve the end

Publisher/Editor-in-chief

DEPUTY EDITOR John Osadolor, Abuja NEWS EDITOR Chuks Oluigbo MANAGING DIRECTOR Dr. Ogho Okiti EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS Fabian Akagha EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STRATEGY, INNOVATION & PARTNERSHIPS Oghenevwoke Ighure ADVERT MANAGER Ijeoma Ude FINANCE MANAGER Emeka Ifeanyi MANAGER, CONFERENCES & EVENTS Obiora Onyeaso BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER (South East, South South) Patrick Ijegbai COPY SALES MANAGER Florence Kadiri DIGITAL SALES MANAGER Linda Ochugbua GM, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (North)

Bashir Ibrahim Hassan

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igeria is nowhere near what was envisioned 23 years ago in the economic agenda, Vision 2020. A month into the second decade of the 21st century we choose to remain optimistic that Nigeria can still attain its economic potential; however, it must be ready to make difficult choices.

This week, BusinesssDay, Deloitte and the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) held conferences on Nigeria’s economic outlook for the year 2020. They all found a middle ground: Nigeria cannot afford to do the same things and expect different results.

For Nigeria to join the train of economies pursuing sustainable and inclusive growth but more importantly, it must understand the models being adopted by economies currently experiencing inclusive growth.

It is a sad reality that Nigeria and South-Africa – the two biggest economies in sub-Saharan

Africa – dampen the many bright spots on the continent with their lacklustre GDP. The challenges Nigeria faces revolve around low economic growth, high unemployment and widespread poverty and should top the priorities of the federal government in the new decade.

However, economics is the science of means and ends and across the world, economies that have aspired to be successful have placed more emphasis on the means and not the end. What means must Nigeria put in place to achieve this end?

The growth of the economy is as volatile as the crude oil market and has trailed the cycles of ups and downs of its price. During boom times, we saw the economy pickup (as it did between 2005 and 2014 when the price of crude oil coasted comfortably around $100).The bubble burst when oil prices plunged. Our dependence on oil has favoured the country less than it has benefitted her. Hence the need to breakup this volatile relationship.

Economies of the world strive on two major pillars; commodity trade and capital – in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment (FPI). In the first nine months of last year Nigeria attracted $666 million ($1 billion when annualised) in FDI – the lowest since 2008 – while FPI “hot money” accounted for 73.4 percent.

A glut in commodity supply has depressed global prices and eroded Africa’s export earnings (especially Nigeria). Some proactive African countries have joined the race of pursuing cheap global capital which is in surplus due to large liquidity injections by the central banks of the US and EU. Nigeria needs to join the race to attract more FDI which is a patient capital that builds factories and roads that will boost production, provide jobs and make the economy grow. Deloitte, a consulting firm, says policy transparency and predictability, financial deepening and inclusion, and reduced regulatory discretion are focus areas needed to boost productivity and

growth.

India’s Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (LPG) model holds a good lesson for Nigeria; a template for the federal government which needs to push bold reforms in security, infrastructure, and investment-friendly policies.

Economists say about 25 percent of capital in the world are in developed countries where yields are negative and if Nigeria could attract a mere 2 percent, the country can unlock most of its growth potential. Also, Nigeria has adequate domestic capital in private hands who only demand a conducive and secured environment to invest. The government has no business in doing business.

It must only play a supporting role and let the private sector take the wheel.

Nigeria must also recognise the role of its diaspora and begin to think of private-to-government remittances through diaspora bonds.

The federal government must focus on these areas to unlock prosperity in the new decade.

GM, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (South) Ignatius Chukwu HEAD, HUMAN RESOURCES Adeola Obisesan

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Imo Itsueli Mohammed Hayatudeen Afolabi Oladele Vincent Maduka Opeyemi Agbaje Amina Oyagbola Bolanle Onagoruwa Fola Laoye Chuka Mordi Mezuo Nwuneli Charles Anudu Tunji Adegbesan Eyo Ekpo Wiebe Boer Paul Arinze Boye Olusanya Ayo Gbeleyi Haruna Jalo-Waziri Clement Isong

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BUSINESS DAY

comment Tribes, dispositions and work place success

13

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EIZU UWAOMA

W

hy do the Rosetti people of Italy live so long? Why are Indians and Jewish people so smart? Why is Suya sold mainly at night and also majorly

by Hausas? In Nigeria, aren’t Yoruba’s always the most diplomatic and socially intelligent? When have you seen a healthy Igbo man begging on the streets than hustle or a Fulani man you can’t bank on his words and even threat?

Let’s explore an interesting case study of the Nnewi people, why are they so successful? Is it something about where they are from? Absolutely yes.

It’s about their apprenticeship model, their culture and the ability to support each other to the top. It’s something about their thoughts and dispositions that fuel their drive. It’s about their associations too. Nnewi according to the Forbes Magazine has bred more billionaires than any other town in Africa (It’s the hometown of Cletus Ibeto of Ibeto Cements, Cosmas Maduka of Coscharis, Chika Okafor of A-Z Petroleum, Ilodibe of Ekene Dili Chukwu Transports, Ifeanyi Ubah .of Capital Oil, Innocent Chukwuma of Innoson and hundreds more).

If we dig into the history of the success of the Nnewi people as a case study, we’d find names like Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu (The father of the late Oxford trained Biafran warlord, Ojukwu). He is reportedly Nigeria’s first black billionaire, and founding president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. The royal honour came after he helped the British during World War II with his fleet of trucks. He was so wealthy that during the Queen’s visit in 1956, she

was chauffeured around in his Rolls Royce – apparently the only one in the country at the time – on the request of the colonial administration. Now, coming from a village with people like that, you definitely will have a higher drive seeing it as a norm to succeed and be wealthy.

As the saying goes, you can’t feature in a future you can’t picture. It’s easy to visualize being successful when it’s all around you to see and even leverage on.

As a culture too, Nnewi people show how wealthy they are by not what they have but by what they bring back home and what they have done for their community. That is a major reason for the set-up of industries and state of the art social infrastructures in that village.

It’s not just the Nnewi’s but also the Igbos that have that overly ambitious drive and a need to return to the village with glory. The Igbos sometimes refers to themselves as the ‘Jews of Africa’. It’s okay to say, what a complex though. An average Igbo man walks around with an arrogance of self-sufficiency or seems himself as self-made and would rather be independent. That is also traceable to what they’ve been through. They seem to have entrepreneurship in their blood.

They have built themselves from the ground up, with little help from the government, after a controversial policy left them all with 20 pounds each, regardless of their bank balance, at the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970. So is it something in them?

Wealth and success really doesn’t come from what you leave with people, but what you leave in the people. It starts off usually as an idea, then manifested into habits and then over time, it becomes genetic.

In other words, watch your background. When you inherit a wrong one, the first step is to try to undo and change it by your associations. Watch your associations, they inspire your thought, watch your thoughts they create your words.

Watch your words they become actions.

Watch your actions they become habits.

Watch your habits for they are passed on to your offspring as genetics!

This article is about the correlation

between our backgrounds and predictable results. It is also a thin line between stereotyping and thin slicing. Thin slicing is the ability to make strategic decisions about the future based on very little available information of the present, simply by using past precedencies and associations.

I do a lot of think slicing myself. When I interact with people, whether it’s at a job interview or a dinner table on a Friday evening. Instead of being direct, I ask simple questions that reveal more. When I meet someone, say ladies, I usually ask them what they spend most of their time on. What’s their favourite movie, most magic moments, when last they read a book, the name of the book, what kind of song they listen to? I try to know about their 5 closest friends (the average of the 5 tells, who they are and where they are going to). And then I stylishly ask them, “What does success mean to you”. What do you want most out of life, what is most important to you. And sometimes the analysis of everything can be shocking.

That’s the whole idea of thin slicing.

You don’t have to agree with thin slicing. But like I always say, no matter how badly written a book is there’s always something to learn from that book, even if it’s on how not to write a bad book.

One of those chapters of the book you don’t have to agree with is that genes, upbringing and associations are the biggest determinant to our success.

If you agree that our genetics and where we come from plays a vital role on capabilities, then HR can use it with higher levels of accuracy to predict the best strategic fit per role. It is safe to hire people based on where they are from (not in relation to where you are from, that’s nepotism). Take for example if you work in a multi-cultural multinational organisation, you’d clearly see that Japanese are known for their discipline, Chinese for their work ethics, Indians for their maths skills, which make them analytical and practically better in the management of things. Italians are known for style, French for sophistication. The truth is by nature, some people just seem to do better in certain areas.

If truly people from a certain cluster

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As the saying goes, you can’t feature in a future you can’t picture. It’s easy to visualize being successful when it’s all around you to see and even leverage on

group or tribe are better in some things, why don’t we take that as their authentic area of strength and let them play on that turf mainly. And then avoid the time wasting on converting spoofs into the original.

That’s like trying to turn an alligator to a crocodile. The truth is, alligators may look like crocodiles, but by genetics and behaviour they are not the same.

A few days ago, a client of mine with a large retail chain was searching for a pretty good general manager for his brand. And as he tried to describe his long list of things the person must have (especially in terms of personality), my response was simple. For managing retail chain, and someone that is tech savvy, hire an Indian. Now, that’s thin slicing and stereotyping. But it doesn’t take away the fact that Indians are good at managing retail chains, managing inventory, people and technology. It’s just something about them. But why is that so?

By genetics, parenting and upbringing what we see in HR is that some people have been raised to be highflyers; permit me to tag them as crocodiles.

Others may have to more pain to learn it if they have the right motivation. So my dear HR or CEOs, how about when you hire, don’t mix up crocodiles for alligators. Alligators are easier to come by, but bear in mind that you may have to start from first re-engineering their genetics and doing what parents and their neighbourhoods should have done.

Doing this is hard work and distractive to your core business. In a nutshell, don’t burn out trying to turn alligators into crocodiles. Most businesses fail fundamentally and miss the point with not having the right people. And the right people are most times traceable to a root; find that root. Sometimes it’s in a tribe, alumni, a neighbourhood or even a nationality. I personally have learnt to have a steady supply of different skill sets from pre-defined sources.

Note: The rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @https://businessday.ng Uwaoma is a start-up, corporate restructuring and strategy consultant. He writes via contacteizu@gmail.com

China’s great economic transformation: Lessons for Nigeria (1)

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efore 1978, China was amongst the poorest countries on earth and was at the verge of total collapse, macroeconomically. However, from 1978 to 2019, the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew from $150 billion to $14 trillion, while its per capita income rose from $153 to $10,000. In the same vein, between 1981 and 2015, the country’s poverty rate fell from 88 percent to 0.7 percent; while its foreign reserves grew from $0.17 billion in 1978 to $3.14 trillion in 2015. It could be summarised that in just three decades, China has transformed its economy from a communist backwater into a capitalist dynamo, becoming the second largest economy in the world by nominal GDP, following the United States, and the first in purchasing power parity. Economic growth rate has averaged 6 percent for 3 decades; and China is projected to be the largest economy in the world by 2032.

A comparison between China and Nigeria presents a reversal of fortunes. While China’s per capita income was $153 in 1978, Nigeria’s was $527. Similarly, while 88 percent of Chinese citizens were poor in 1981, Nigeria only had 30 percent of its population living in poverty at the same time. In addition, while China’s foreign reserves were at $0.17 billion in 1978, Nigeria’s was at $2 billion. Fast forward to present

day, China is now the world’s second largest economy, while Nigeria currently faces several macro-economic battles primarily as a result of its dependence on oil for government revenues and source of foreign exchange.

These challenges include: reduction in government revenues, following the fall in oil prices since the end of 2015 which caused an economic recession (an echolalia of the scenario in early 1980); rising debt profile which makes up 27.26 percent of its GDP; a paltry per capita income of $1,900; rising unemployment rate; worsening poverty statistics (Nigeria is currently the poverty capital of the world); gross infrastructural gaps, and failure to industrialize its economy for decades, amongst other considerable number of economic issues.

There are several literatures that have interrogated the factors that gave birth to China’s macroeconomic strides starting with its market economy reforms in 1978. These studies present strategies and tactics that developing countries could adopt, in their quest to develop. However, development is not a one-size-fits-all phenomenon. While China and Nigeria may share a few things in common, there are many other areas in which there is little to no common ground as regards the duo political economy, history and geography. Following this, this piece narrows down five (5) strategies or factors that catalysed www.businessday.ng

China’s growth which Nigeria could learn from.

First building markets with weak institutions and allowing co-evolution of institutions and market. An essential takeaway from China’s growth is the actuality that it was unconventional, and against the traditional Weberian bureaucratic and developmental (modernization) theses. China kick-started a development drive by transitioning from communism to capitalism, with inherent poor institutions characterised by limited property rights, poor standardization, personalization of public service, weak infrastructure and rule of law, red tape, poor judicial systems etc. China built markets with weak institutions. It did not wait to build strong institutions before its economic take-off (Weberian bureaucracies) or built markets through massive capital injection from foreign aid (modernisation thesis) before building strong institutions. Both markets and governance co-evolved in its development.

How China did this is examined further below.

Secondly is an aggressive attraction of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) by all rank and files in China’s bureaucracy. There is no country that has ever successfully attempted growth and industrialization without foreign investments.

This traditional growth principle was obvious in China’s growth. With weak institutions and market, China unleashed an aggressive drive

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Chambers Umezulike for investment attraction through having every local official and agency courting investors.

Special Economic Zones (SEZ) were established in a few areas where all the enabling factors for manufacturing were provided. What China used to its advantage on this were: 1, its network of diaspora community, and 2, communism strategy of mobilization. Considering the latter, the investment drive was campaign-styled and less technocratic (as evident in East Asia).

A significant extraction from this was that the communist discipline instilled in the citizens and local officials was apparent. Investments were sought after from every place and by everyone. Nigeria has a lot to learn from this especially through thinking about how to engage and involve the diaspora. With her market size and availability of raw materials, Nigeria has no excuses to explain its industrial backwardness.

The author, Chambers Umezulike is a Development Governance Expert and Writer. He can be reached through chambers.umezulike@gmail.com and on Twitter via @ Prof_Umezulike

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

cityfile World Hijab Day: Groups seek equal right for women JOSHUA BASSEY

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coalition of Islamic groups has demanded equal right for hijab-wearing women, saying the prejudice against women in veil amounts to denying them their fundamental rights as guaranteed in the Nigerian constitution.

Accordingtothegroup,womeninhijabarebeing deprived and denied the chance of furthering their education and other things as guaranteed by theconstitution.Thecoalitionsaidthatthepromotion of girl child education can only be achieved if the girls in hijab are not harassed or molested by their teachers on the basis of hijab usage.

Speaking at the commemoration of the 2020 World Hijab Day, the executive director of Hijab Right Advocacy Initiative, Mutiat Balogun said that it was high time Nigerians stopped needless discrimination against women on the basis of hijab. She noted that women and girls in hijab have proven to the world they were capable and able in all fields of endeavour.

According to Balogun, the discrimination should be urgently addressed She said: “Give this a thought, girl that was forced to remove her hijab in order to write an exam will definitely not perform optimally reducing the chance of getting a further education, despite our claims of promoting the education of the girl child. A researcher screened out of a job placement because of the hijab may be the one in whose mind is trapped the cure for cancer. The Muslim nurse, who had to change her profession because she was not allowed to wear her hijab, may be just the person you need to get you through your hard time in hospital. Denying a person their right not only affects them, but affects us all,” she said.

Balogun, a lawyer also appealed to the Federal Government to ensure that women in hijab are given equal opportunity and not treated unjustly on the basis of their appearance, saying that women in hijab have the capacity to perform excellently in their callings.

“We want to be allowed to carry out our duties and contribute to our society without fear of discrimination or experiencing discrimination. We want our daughters to be able to attend schools, register and write exams in their hijab without intimidation, abuse and discrimination. We want to have equal access to services of regulatory bodies without being asked or expected to first compromise our faith.

We want to be given a level playing field like everyone else, not to be denied job interviews, job placements and opportunities because we dress as obligated by our faith,” she said.

Danjuma Elisha (m), commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Cross River Command, presenting suspects for allegedly operating illegal Computer Based Test (CBT) registration centres and extorting high fees from candidates, in Calabar on Wednesday.

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Ebonyi community protests illegal mining of limestone FELIX UKA, Abakaliki

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Landlord in trouble for ‘harbouring’ fraudsters in Ibadan

REMI FEYISIPO, Ibadan

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peratives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have arrested a 33-year property owner, Stanley Ejike Awam, for allegedly habouring suspected internet fraudsters.

Stanley and 10 other suspected ‘Yahoo Boys’ were picked up at different locations within the Ibadan metropolis following actionable intelligence on their alleged illegal activities.

For men of the commission who carried out the arrest, it was a daunting task locating Stanley’s six-flat property tucked inside an isolated environment around Ologuneru area of the Oyo State capital.

Nine suspects, including Stanley, were arrested at the premises. Others are Henry Echefu, Usman Mustapha, Adeleke David, Olafuyi Josiah, Shorefire Ayokunmi, Riliwan Ajao, Abulsalam Abubakar and Lukman Salam.

The EFCC operatives also, on Wednesday, arrested two other suspected internet fraudsters - Adeyemo Muktarh and Bashir Mohammed. The two were respectively picked up at Eleyele and Old Bodija areas of the ancient city.

imestone-rich Ndiezoke/Igbeagu community in Izzi local government area of Ebonyi State, have protested against an alleged illegal mining of solid minerals in their community by an indigenous firm.

The protesters, who marched to the Government House in Abakaliki, on Wednesday, said that the peaceful protest was to drive home their discontent over the illegal invasion of their land for the purposes of mining.

The community members, mostly women, were seen only in wrappers round their chest, and palm leaves around their foreheads, chanting songs of

appeal to Governor David Umahi.

Addressing government representatives in front of the Government House, leader of the protesters, Christian Nwogbaga called on the state government to intervene in the brewing crisis in the area, as one John Nwenyi, one-time traditional ruler in the area had put machineries in place to begin illegal mining and exploration of the natural resources in the area.

“We are here to protest the proposed illegal mining of the natural resources in our community. One former traditional ruler had started terrorising people in the village with police and army because he wants to forcefully mine our resources.

“We are appealing to the governor to intervene in the matter. He should use

his peaceful disposition to settle this raging storm. We are the ones holding our youths from commencing crisis in the country following the activities of the illegal miner.”

The state commissioner for Border Peace and Internal Security, Stanley Emegha assured the people of the government’s prompt intervention in the matter.

He appealed to them to sustain the peace and togetherness in the community as the state government would not relent until justice is served.

“The government will intervene in the matter. Make sure you maintain peace and order. Your rights and what is due to you people will not be taken away. Your request will get to the governor without any delay,” assured Emegha.

Undergraduate arraigned for internet fraud in Osun REMI FEYISIPO, Ibadan

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he Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibadan zonal office is pressing charges against one Ebenezer Tobiloba Okunlola, an undergraduate suspected internet fraudster.

Okunlola is facing a three-count charge bordering on false pretence, impersonation, possession of scam documents and obtaining money by false pretence.

The suspect, who claimed to be a 300 level student of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), is standing trial before Justice Peter Odo Lifu of the Federal High Court 2, sitting in Osogbo,

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the Osun State capital.

One of the charges read: “That you Okunlola Tobiloba Ebenezer, “M” (a.k.a Ryan Antley) sometime in 2019, in Osogbo, Osun State, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court with intent to defraud, obtained lTunes gift cards worth of $750 from one Kimmy Antley an American citizen when you falsely represented yourself as a white man with the name Ryan Dudely, the pretext you knew to be false.”

The defendant, who was in court on Wednesday, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges when read to him. In view of his not-guilty plea, the prosecution counsel, Murtala Usman prayed the court for a trial date and an order to remand

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the accused in the correctional custody.

But the defence counsel, M. O Ademola, made an oral bail application, praying the court to admit his client to bail pending the determination of the charges filed against him.

The presiding judge granted the prayer as he granted him bail in the sum of N10 million and one surety in like sum.

The surety, the judge held, must be a civil servant, a land owner residing within the jurisdiction of the court and must be related by blood to the defendant.

He also ordered that the accused be remanded in the Nigeria correctional service’s custody pending the time he meets his bail condition. The matter has been adjourned to February 6, 2020.

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

15

AgriBusinessInsight Market Insights

Analysis

Commentaries

Experts/Industry Views

Commodities watch

Policy Reviews

Send in Commentaries to caleb.ojewale@businessdayonline.com

7 things we learnt from the agric minister’s visit to Lagos . . . CBN, NIRSAL will drive agric devt, not ministry . . . Real farmers, processors should get CBN loans - Nestle CEO CALEB OJEWALE Twiiter: @calebtinolu

meeting .

The minister explained that considering Nigeria’s huge population (and the regional expectations); the country has to find solutions through “agricultural development and agroallied value chains”.

Increasing production in the agricultural sector is not difficult, according to Nanono, rather, “linking the agricultural sector with the agro-allied industry is very critical as it is the only way to address the high unemployment challenges and also increase productivity”.

Without these linkages, Nigeria will not make much progress, he said.

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ot much has been heard in terms of strategic or policy direction since Sabo Nanono became minister for agriculture and rural development, but this Monday, an opportunity presented itself to hear from the minister, while on a visit to Nestle Nigeria Plc’s head office in Lagos. Speaking with selected journalists after a closed door meeting with Nestle’s management team, Nanono touched on a few expectations those keen about agriculture should expect this year, and for the foreseeable future.

The visit according to the minister was the first he will be making to the private sector in the South, describing his choice of Nestlé as predicated on the company being, “a huge agroallied industry and I think it is one that can save the country from the huge unemployment situation”.

Agribusiness Insight picked seven key things from this meeting and one of these had become particularly popular in the course of the week, a claim that Nigeria will start exporting rice in two years. However, the minister did not say this as a matter of certainty. The takeaways are as follow: Intervention of CBN, NIRSAL and others will drive development, not ministry’s budget Asked how the ministry would deploy this year’s budget of N138 billion to advance agricultural development in the country, the Minister said “In the first place, do not worry too much about budget.”

According to him, while the budget is important, “it is a guideline, but probably in terms of agricultural intervention, think of what the CBN, NIRSAL and other agencies are doing, which are in billions, and probably ten times more than the ministry’s budget.”

He also said a lot of funding will be coming into the country particularly

L-R: Mauricio Alarcon, CEO, Nestle Nigeria Plc and Sabo Nanono, minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, during the minister’s visit to Nestle’s head office on Monday.

by virtue of an ongoing agricultural mechanisation programme, which he describes as a priority area for government.

“This budget, just probably is an appetizer, but the real money comes from CBN, NIRSAL and foreign investment coming massively into the country, and we will see results in the next one or two years,” he said.

Does this mean the agric ministry is ceding its responsibilities to the Central Bank of Nigeria and others?

Nigeria ‘may’ start exporting rice in two years?

Rice has been the focus of government in the last four years. It was therefore not a surprise that the minister was passionate to speak about this staple crop widely consumed

by Nigerians. The summary of the minister’s discourse on rice is that “in the next two years we may even export rice”. The comment, even as it was not with a tone of certainty, was also not backed with statistics reflecting current levels of national demand and supply, production capacities,

and estimates that show Nigeria will have excess enough to export.

According to the minister, there are currently 11 rice-milling plants of capacities ranging between 180 to 350 tons per day in Kano. He also says another mill with a capacity of 400 tons per day is to be opened soon. Apart from these, there are smaller ones, about 34 of them, and the clusters in different areas.

Before border closure, he explained most of these rice-milling plants were partially operating but are now operating at full capacity and also expanding, not only within their premises but also to other states.

On the basis of his observations (which focused on Kano from his analogy), “if we maintain the same momentum, in the next two years we may even export rice.”

Agric policy ‘will not change’ The Agriculture Promotion Policy (2016 to 2020) terminates this year and the minister was asked what is to be expected from the next policy.

“It is very simple, the main policy

A group photograph of the Minister’s delegation and some Nestle management staff. www.businessday.ng

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thrust remains the same, feed and create a platform for value chain,” he said. “That is the focus in whatever form you look at it, and does not deviate from that.”

That was all the minister said about what any agric policy coming after the APP would entail, and could perhaps, be all stakeholders in the sector should expect.

50 thousand extension agents to be trained to support farmers Companies that source raw material locally have two major requirements; getting the right quality and quantity so that they have no need for importation. The question therefore was how the ministry will provide a framework to achieve this objective.

According to the minister, “we lack extension agents in Nigeria, and need them to guide the farmers on how to use fertilisers in different soils.

“When there are enough extension agents, they are the ones that will guide the farmers on how to grow each crop. They know the level of chemical application; pesticides etc, but unfortunately these are things we are lacking. That is why we are embarking on training of 50,000 extension workers over the next three years.”

With the training of these extension agents, the minister expects the quantity and quality issues in farm output to be substantially addressed.

Nigeria’s success in agriculture is critical for West Africa “We are quoting Nigeria to be about 200 million people, in the next three decades we would reach about 400 million People. So how do we feed them? Nigeria controls over 70 percent of the West African regional GDP so what we do in the agricultural sector is not only critical to our country but also important to the neighbouring countries,” said Nanono while addressing his hosts earlier in the @Businessdayng

Support for industry is key One thing Nanono, the agric minister stressed in some of his comments, was the desire to create an enabling environment for industrial users of agricultural products to thrive, by ensuring production is not only ramped up, but achieving linkage between producers and processors.

“The synergy between the ministry and industry like your own must be highly valued, consistent, proactive and consistent. We must cooperate and support each other because you need us, and we need you more,” Nanono said.

How much of this is achieved will only become clear in the months and years to come.

Real farmers, processors should get CBN loans - Nestle CEO The minister’s points were not all that dominated the meeting, as Mauricio Alarcon, Nestle’s CEO also gave insights on spurring growth in the agric sector to meet the needs of industry.

With the CBN’s seemingly passionate push to facilitate credit to the real sector in recent years, Alarcon was asked how he thinks improving access to credit will drive growth, and making the current system work better.

“What we want is for those loans to be given to the right people in the value chain. Those are people like the processors and farmers as those loans are very critical to them,” Alarcon said.

He explained that the only way to make this successful is to ensure there is a linkage in the value chain.

When a farmer produces but does not have someone to off take it, then there is no further business, and therefore the loan would not have been a productive one.

In the same vein, if the loan is put into processors and they do not have raw materials to process it, then this will also create an unsuccessful loan, as according to him “a successful loan is something that is paid back”.

However, when either a producer or processor has no linkage to either side, then whatever loan may have been secured for their operations is likely to be unserviceable.

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

FINTECH News

Products Review

In association with

Technology Review

Personality Review

Company Review

How CRR raise gives fintech firms edge in retail lending FRANK ELEANYA

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he Nigerian banking regulator ’s attempt to curb rising inflation by raising the cash reserve ratio (CRR) could have serious implications towards its efforts to increase access to credit and deepen financial inclusion. Also, banks may be forced to ease off on retail lending, thereby, opening an advantage for fintech startups.

At the first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the year held on 23rd and 24th January 2020, the CBN raised Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) by 500bps to 27.5 percent from 22.5 percent.

The cash reserve ratio refers to the portion of total deposits lenders are expected to keep with the central bank. It serves as a monetary management tool used by the central bank to control the volume of money in circulation.

In curbing inflation, the CBN’s increase of CRR forces the banks to have less money for lending. In turn, banks would need to increase lending rates to maintain profit margins. With banks increasing interest rates, people would be forced to borrow less money. As the interest rate increases money supply reduces and demand goes down dragging inflation along with it.

“The Committee is confident that increasing the CRR at this time is fortuitous as it will help address monetaryinduced inflation whilst retaining the benefits from the

Bank’s LDR policy, which has been successful in significantly increasing credit to the private sector as well as pushing market interest rates downwards,” said Godwin Emefiele, governor, CBN during the MPC meeting with the press.

The only twist is that the CBN is counting on the deposit money banks (DMBs) to drive its more than 90 million Nigerians financially included by 2024. As part of achieving the target, the CBN has since 2019 mandated DMBs to maintain a 65 percent lending to deposit ratio (LDR) with the objective of forcing banks to lend money to small businesses

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thereby deepening financial inclusion.

The new decision, however, does not exactly make it easier for banks as increasing the CRR reduces the amount of money in banks which means less money to lend to small businesses.

But Azeez Lawal, an investment banker does not think the LDR will be affected much.

“Deposits of customers with banks are currently estimated to be over N16 trillion and growing, a 5% (500bps) increase in CRR will take less than a trillion naira from the system, as a result, we do not expect the increase in CRR to immediately impact the current

status-quo,” Lawal said.

The increase will no doubt affect the way banks approach financial inclusion. Facing reduced cash flow, banks are likely to tune up their drive for deposits from big-ticket customers to meet the new requirement.

Taiwo Obasan, CEO of Fundall explained that the CRR is a ratio and if it is to be grown, there is a need to increase deposits.

“Here’s a good example, if I’m required to always keep 25 percent of all deposits; if I collect N100 billion, that is N75 billion left with me to play with. However, if I decide to increase that to N200 billion, I’d be left with N150

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billion to play with,” he told BusinessDay. He added that the single number play will encourage banks to work towards increasing their deposits through induced deposit rate increase or expanding their collection net to include areas, people and demographics without proper banking.

In the long run, more banks are likely to opt for the latter because there is no incentive to increase deposit interest rates due to the current rate crash in treasury bills and bonds. This is partly why banks have become aggressive in offering salary-loans and wooing high networth individuals (HNI) and corporate

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organisations to take loans for their projects.

“There’s definitely going to be a bullish trend in reaching more people so they can be financially included and banks can collect their deposits however it is not very certain that these people will be able to access loans at a cheaper rate,” Obasan said.

Should the banks be forced to increase lending rates to maintain profit margin, many small businesses could be discouraged from applying for loans leaving banks once more focusing on more worthy takers. With small businesses financially excluded, as usual, fintech companies have a good chance of leading the retail lending space.

Although fintech companies lend at double-digit rates which could be high for startups, Obasan suggests they could leverage technology to reduce operational expenses. While that would help drive down cost, it is doubtful whether the use of technology would make a significant difference. Even with a near hundred percent dependence on technology, some fintech companies still lend for up to 40 to 50 percent while most banks’ maximum lending rate is usually between 20 and 30 percent.

The advantage for fintech is that due to high demand the mass retail market usually borrow without taking much notice of rates.

“So it’s going to be a good ride for FinTechs hopefully Google and Government don’t catch-up,” Obasan said.

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

COMPANIES & MARKETS

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Company news analysis insight

CRR hike to cast pall on equities as T-Bill rates rise first time in 16 weeks ENDURANCE OKAFOR & Segun Adams

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h i ke i n Ca s h Reserve Ratio (CRR) for Nigerian banks that saw an uptick in primary auction NTBills rates for the first time in 16 weeks could weigh on stocks after a previous policy by the CBN pushed short-term bonds yields lower and supported flows to the equities market.

A total of N229.63 billion worth of successful transactions was recorded at the Nigerian Treasury Bills (T-Bills) auction conducted Wednesday by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), this was the same amount offered at the auction.

“The impact is expected to be bearish on the equities market,” said Ayorinde Akinloye, a research analyst Lagos-based CSL Stockbrokers Ltd. Akinloye said initial ex-

pectations was that there would be a liquidity anomaly in the fixed income space given negative yields which could have forced some funds back to the equities market particularly from PFAs. “However, with yields showing signs of recovery, I expect PFAs to exercise patience to see if yields can come up to a decent level for them and thus could impact possible flows into the equities market,” Akinloye said.

The stock market declined for third-straight session on Wednesday as year’s return dropped to 8.45 percent.

Thinning yields in treasury bills with negative real return have forced big local investors to look elsewhere for gains.

According to the National Pension Commission (PenCom) data as of 30 November 2019, there was an increase in equity exposure of local fund managers to 5.36 percent, up from 4.85 percent at the end of October.

Meanwhile Boboye

Olaolu, Investment Research Analyst at Cordros Capital Limited said despite Wednesday’s auction outcome, yields are still at unfavourable levels compared to 13 percent levels it was late last year, above inflation rate.

“The high-end rate you saw at the auction, only few bills were sold at that rate.

However, rates might go higher in next auction,” he said.

Analysts say banks will reduce demand for bonds as they struggle to meet up with CBN’s 65 percent LDR policy amid new CRR requirement.

A move that would support higher fixed income yields.

The hike in Cash reserve ratio for commercial banks in the last Monetary Policy meeting from 22.5% to 27.5% is expected to suck up 5% of banks deposit, reducing the money supply.

The fear of a further spike in inflation regime forced the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to undertake a moderate tightening stance at the first monetary policy of 2020, leading to the raising of Banks’ cash reserve ratio

(CRR) by 500 basis point, from 22.5 per cent to a new level of 27.5 percent.

The move by the Central Bank is to mop up what the apex bank described as liquidity surfeit in the Nigerian economy, responsible for driving the inflation since August of 2019.

A breakdown of the results for the Treasury bill auction for January 29, 2020, reveals that the allotment for the 91-day and 182-day maturities were oversubscribed by a joint N42.73 billion.

The 91-day instrument was oversubscribed by N21.82 billion, the total amount that was placed on offer stood at N28.02 billion but investors jostled for N49.84 billion. For the 182-day, N33.68 billion was offered for auction but investors bid forN54.59 billion.

“This is the obvious impact of the increase in CRR. The increase took effect immediately and banks are therefore concerned about preserving liquidity,” Ayorinde Akinloye, a research analyst at Lagos-based CSL

said.

While investors bid at rates as high as 12 percent, 11.5 percent and 14.4 percent on the 91-day,182-day and 364-day bills, the apex bank lowered rates across the three tenors to 3.5 percent, 4.5 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively. While the rates are the first rise since October 2019, they compare with 2.95 percent, 3.95 percent and 5 percent they cleared on the 91-day, 182-day and 364-day bills at the previous T-Bills auction which saw rates crash to a single digit for the first time in 3years.

“The investors’ panic mode has begun to subside.

Due to the availability of other investment options like the Federal Government promissory notes with a higher yield, investors bided at a higher rate. Also, investors are cautious to lock in their funds at a lower rate,” Ayodeji Ebo, Managing Director, Afrinvest Securities Limited.

Stop rates across all maturities took a downward

turn from 11 percent in October 2019 to the lowest bid rate for 364 days at 4 percent, as compiled from market auction results for January 15, 2020.

Analysis of the auction result for Wednesday 29 January 2019 revealed that the 364-day maturity was under-subscribed by a tune of N42.73 billion. While a total of N167.93 billion was offered, investors bid were N125.20 billion.

Market analysts see the move by investors, the first in a long time as an indication of unwillingness to stay at the long end of the curve.

According to Ebo, the DMO could not achieve its planned offer for the 364 days due to the higher bid rates. “This may be the end to the downward trend in yields, albeit, we do not foresee any significant rise in yields at the next auction,” he said.

Akinloye expects this to persist in the face of tightening system liquidity “while upcoming maturities are not very significant.”

Consumer Goods

NASCON swings to quarter loss of N118.28m on rising cost of sales OLUFIKAYO OWOEYE

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onsumer Goods C o m p a n y NASCON Allied Industries recorded its first quarterly loss N118.29m as mounting cost of sales dragged its fourth quarter 2019 result. In standalone Q4 result, the makers of Dangote salt and Dan-Q maggi recorded 6.6percent decrease in quarterly revenue to N6.54bn in fourth quarter 2019 from N7.01bn recorded in fourth quarter 2018, while cost of sales surged 6.48percent to N5.75bn in fourth quarter 2019 from N5.40 in same period in 2018.

According to analyst at Cordros securities, the fourth quarter result came as a huge surprise as Q4 is traditionally the company’s strongest quarter, coupled with NASCON’s expansion in its seasoning capacity to 5,678MT in No-

vember (from 2,900MT), a move that should have ordinarily supported volume growth in the period.

“We suspect its lower pricing strategy must have contributed to the revenue decline in the period. Beyond that, we also believe that the company cut prices in the refined salt segment in order to grow its market share,” Cordros said.

NASCON’s net finance charges expanded by 1,821.5percent yearon-year as the company expanded its debt profile with a new N3bn loan.

NASCON’s exposure to In full year from January-December cost of sales surged 20.4percent to N21.65bn from N17.98bn and 56.2percent surge in operating cost outpacing revenue growth at 7percent. Revenue from the sale of salt, seasoning, and vegetable in 2019 grew slightly to N23.36bn from

N21.68bn while revenue from freight from the delivery of salt and seasoning also increased to N4.21bn from N4.08bn.

Further analysis of revenue generation by geo-

graphical location shows that it generates the most revenue from the Northern part of the country with N18.86bn while it generates N7.05bn from the west and N1.69 from

the East.

Analysts believe the Q4 numbers would force management to rethink its pricing strategy.

NASCON, one of the subsidiaries of Dangote

Industries Limited in 2019 announced the relocation of 60percent of its operations from its Apapa plant, an area known for heavy traffic gridlock, to Oregun and Port Harcourt.

L-R: Norfadelizan Abdulrahman, MD, TAJBank; Mohammed Ataba Sani Omolori, clerk of the National Assembly; Hamid Joda, founder/ COO, TAJBank; Sherif Idi, co-founder/CMO, TAJBank, and Yahaya Dan-Zaria, director Public Affairs, National Assembly, at the official launch of the Bank’s 3rd office at the National Assembly

18

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

COMPANIES&MARKETS

Business Event

Oil & Gas

Total sees biggest profit slump in 5 years as asset sales fail to lift bottom-line SEGUN ADAMS

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ownstream Oil and Gas player Total Nigeria saw its biggest profit decline in at least five years, despite an asset disposal that returned gains near three billion, as revenue woes worsened.

Unaudited result of Total, which distributes and markets refined petroleum products and fuels, showed profit slumped by 69.6 percent year-on-year to N2.4bn in 2019 after revenue declined 5.6 percent, the biggest contraction in sales since a 13.5 decline in 2015.

Total’s underwhelming result comes despite a one-off asset disposal gain of N2.8bn in the year.

“Ex the disposal gain, TOTAL would have reported a c. N341.4mn loss,” analysts at Lagos-based CardinalStone said in a note to clients Wednesday.

Total’s profit came more than a percent higher than CardinalStone had expected. However, a 12-month target price for the oil firm, which traded flat at N107.00 per share in the

day, was set for N96.55 a unit with a sell rating on the stock.

Total’s 2020 estimate PE is 21.0x relative to 8.3x for peers, an indication that market price is not supported by earnings capabilities hence the stock is overvalued.

Revenue of Total was dragged by a 7.39 percent year-on-year decline in the company’s main segment involving sales of petroleum products (82 percent of total revenue) while segment for Lubricants and other products (18 percent of total revenue) rose 4.1 percent year-on-year.

Analysts at CardinalStone say the revenue setback was a fallout of growing competition in the downstream sector.

“As noted in our 2020 outlook titled ‘Treading uncharted Waters’, TOTAL may have been less aggressive on the expansion of retail presence compared to peers such as MOBIL and FO,” the analysts said.

“For 2020, mild resurgence in the fuels business, as well as sustained growth in lubricant sales, are likely to

drive a recovery in revenue of 2 percent.”

Total’s cost of sale fell in the period by 5.9 percent year-on-year to N257.1bn, helping to limit gross profit decline to 2.8 percent.

With a top-line of N33.8bn, Total made N11.6 from every N100 sales in 2019 as gross profit compared to N11.3 per hundred naira sales the year before.

The company’s operating expenses jumped by 106.5 percent to N28.1bn while other income rose 279.5 percent to N4.6bn in the period.

Plunge in Petroleum Subsidy Fund (PSF) saw Net finance income fall by 83 percent while finance cost rose in the period to push net finance cost into a negative of N6.71bn compared to a previous positive net finance cost of N2.29bn in 2018.

Profit before tax also fell by nearly 70 percent to N3.7bn.

The profit margin for Total in 2019 stood at 0.8 percent compared to 2.6 percent in 2018 while earnings per share fell to N7.13 from N23.45.

Tony Attah, MD, NLNG, in a symbolic handshake with Ibok-Ete Ibas, vice admiral, CNS, during Attah’s courtesy visit to the Naval Headquarters, Abuja.

L-R: Simon Okeke, manager, sales & trade development, MTN Nigeria; Adekunle Adebiyi, chief sales and distribution officer, MTN Nigeria; Adenike Odewunmi, national winner of the Fortune 100 Award/ CEO, Golad Telecoms; Mazen Mroue, chief operating officer, MTN Nigeria, and Josephine Sarouk, GM, regional operations, Lagos and South West, at the Annual Sales Gala & Awards Night for MTN Partners and Staff at the Lagos

Real Estate

Landshop moves to curb deficit through affordable housing Gbemi Faminu

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andshop Limited, a real estate consulting and property development company, which recently made its entrance into the property market in Nigeria, is working on bridging the countr y’s housing deficit by offering land and homes at affordable prices with options for instalment payments.

Speaking to journalists at a press conference in Lagos, David Omaghomi, CEO, Landshop said, “Our mission is to reduce the housing deficit in Nigeria, one home at a time, through the provision of genuine, cost-effective, greenfield real estate products in both shared and wholesome units, to carter for all levels of the population and ensure people can invest early and reap immense values from the appreciation value of lands or rental income from houses.”

He said the company has affordable options in various places, including

areas on the Lagos Island such as Lekki, Chevron, and Epe, among others, as well as some areas in the Mainland including Ayobo, Mowe.

He further said the company has affordable options in some states across the country.

Speaking on the company’s available options for home and land ownership, he said the process of land and property ownership has been updated to ensure a speedy and legitimate method that is attractive to prospective land owners at an affordable rate.

Omaghomi further said there are various options available which includes ‘Grow Your Land’, ‘Grow Your Home’, ‘Grow Your Community’ and the newly introduced ‘LandAjo System’ where properties can be owned in clusters at a rate as low as N100.

Speakingon LandAjo, he said, “It is a new and convenient way for aspiring home owners to secure land as it enables people to pull their resources together in clusters for an easy

purchase of land, which can be developed after acquiring 300 square meters or more. He added that the scheme is also open to gainfully employed people where those within the same social network can pool resources together to purchase land for the purpose of either commercial or residential development.

Samuel Rotimi Onalaru, brand director, LandShop, said the available scheme used by the company is enabled by block chain technology which allows Nigerians the opportunity to own real estate investment with ease. He said as a part of its package, Landshop offers acquisition and ownership of properties within and outside Lagos with options of either securing land at convenience for personal goals like building a house or business, collaborate with friends and family to build an expansive land portfolio, earn rental income from as low as 1SQM while buyers enjoy land appreciation over time.

L-R: Rob Taiwo, MD, Phillips Consulting (pcl.), and Foyinsola Akinjayeju, partner strategy & ops business, Phillips Consulting (pcl.), at the Association of Microfinance Banks of Nigeria (NAMBLAG) seminar themed:”Effective Risk Management and Succession Planning in Lagos.

L-R: Chu Maoming, consulate general of the People’s Republic of China in Lagos; Olusola Babajide Sanwoolu, governor of Lagos State; Uzamat Akinbile-Yusuf, Lagos State commissioner for tourism arts & culture, and Monsurat Aramide Adeoye, the special adviser on works and Infrastructure, at the 1st Chinese New year’s celebration in Lagos

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

MoneyInsight What to expect from Bitcoin Halving in May FRANK ELEANYA

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y May 2020, it would be the fourth year since the cryptocurrency the market had a Bitcoin halving, which occurs once every 210,000 blocks until the maximum supply of 21 million has been generated by the network.

The halving in May – when the number of blocks hits 630,000 – is likely to significantly change the value of Bitcoin. Experts also say that it would increase demand for the cryptocurrency by further restricting supply.

The expected increase in demand is already being reflected by the number of people searching for ‘Bitcoin Halving’ in January. It grew more almost 100 percent in the new year. The growing Google search is likely to have some impact on the price of the cryptocurrency.

Traders were exchanging one bitcoin for $8,773 on the Coindesk index on Monday. On the Luno exchange in Nigeria,

one bitcoin exchanged hands for N3.1 million, representing growth from the previous week.

A Bitcoin halving refers to a process of reducing the rate at

which new cryptocurrency units are generated. For instance, the halving in May would see the block reward fall from 12.5 to 6.25 bitcoins. Essentially, halv-

ing ensures that miners have to spend more time to mine each of the cryptocurrency. Invariably, the miners would likely push up the price of the cryptocur-

19

rency to compensate for the extra effort.

Previous Bitcoin Halvings took place in November 2012 and July 2016. At the time of the first halving event, the price of Bitcoin was $12.31. The following year after the first halving in 2012, the price began to climb dramatically, reaching a new high of over $1,100 in 2013. However, the price crashed down to the $220 and $240 range where it remained for many years until the next halving.

Also at the time of the second halving event, the price was $650.63. It would be recalled that the event in 2016 preceded the market’s epic run in 2017. The price of bitcoin hit an all-time high of over $19,000 by December 2017.

There will only ever be 32 bitcoin halving events, according to Binance. As soon as the 32 events are completed in 2140, there will be no more halvings and there will also be no more Bitcoin created as the maximum supply would have been reached.

At FNCCI breakfast meeting, analysts highlight themes shaping Nigeria’s economy in 2020 ISAAC ANYAOGU

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igeria’s economy is projected to grow by 2.5 percent this year a development which could fail to lift over 100million people from poverty.

This was the central issue at the breakfast meeting organised by the Franco Nigerian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI) in Lagos on January 28.

In his keynote address, Andrew Nevin, chief economist at PwC, said going into the next decade, Nigeria would need to bring more people from the informal economy to the formal economy and highlights key themes that will shape the new year.

Though five of the fastest growing economies in Africa are in West Africa including South Sudan, Rwanda, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia but the two major economic powers, Nigeria and South Africa are driving down growth in the performance of the continent.

The economic outlook in Nigeria does not appear rosy.

Growth has trailed a recovery path since recession in 2017 and projected at 2.5 percent in 2020.

Inflation is expected to keep

A section of participants at the FNCCI Breakfast meeting in Lagos, January 28.

soaring and stay about the single digit target of the Central Bank in 2020 until the border closure is reversed.

Fiscal deficit-to-GDP ratio is projected to rise from 2.8percent in 2018 to about 4.3 percent by the end of 2020. Oil prices are expected at below 60 dollar per barrel and current account balance-to-GDP ratio will decline marginally to 1.7 percent by 2022.

This macroeconomic reality has implications for the private and public sector. Nevin in his www.businessday.ng

address presented seven key themes that will define the economic outlook for 2020 including dead capital, diaspora power, large informal sector, shrinking public fund, investment rate to GDP, disparate growth measuring SDGs instead of GDP. Nevin also said Africa’s largest economy would need to unlock its dead capital, the country’s underutilised asset that can’t be used productively. “The biggest source of debt capital in this country is real estate,” he said.

Nigeria is said to hold about

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$900bn worth of dead capital in residential real estate and agricultural land which needs to become active to deliver value for the economy.

In 2018, Nigeria become the largest recipient of remittance flow to Sub-Saharan Africa which grew by 14 percent from $22billion to $25billion and represents about 6.1 percent of the country’s GDP. Nevin counsels that Nigeria’s biggest export is now human capital and must be strategic to make it benefit the country. @Businessdayng

Nevin said the large economic size of Nigeria is not applaudable if it does not reflect improved welfare of an average resident of the state, calling for adoption of measuring the SDGs as they constitute better performance indicators of human development than cold GDP data.

Shrinking public funds and lower taxes has seen Nigeria underperform its peers leaving tax to GDP rate at around 8 percent while Ghana is 13.1 percent and South Africa 25.8 percent. Though the new finance bill is set to address some of this situation, analysts at the event said Nigeria has to find a way to stimulate the economy for more taxation to occur, Nigeria has an active informal economy, large informal trade, informal tax to non-state actors and billions in informal remittances.

According to PwC estimates, Nigeria’s informal sector in 2018 accounted for 55.8 percent of the country’s GDP. This is higher than the 49.6 percent contribution reported the year before.

The informal sector employs about 89 percent of the total labour force in Nigeria.

20

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

21

FRANK OKOSUN

CEOINterview

CEO, Knight Frank Nigeria

Interview with Private Sector Leaders

‘As a real estate firm, we do not see competition but collaboration’ The estate surveying and valuation market in Nigeria is increasingly gaining traction, driven chiefly by excellent service delivery and growing technology. FRANK OKOSUN, senior partner, chief executive officer, Knight Frank Nigeria, the founding father of transformational and integrity-based real estate practice in Nigeria, in this interview with CHUKA UROKO and KELECHI EWUZIE, speaks on the property market in Nigeria. Okosun, who is currently the world vice president of brokers, also shares the plans of the company and opportunities in using technology to drive business in Nigeria. Excerpts:

Y

ou were appointed recently as a senior partner/ CEO for Knight Frank Nigeria which is a-no-mean feat.

May we know some of the programmes you hope to pursue to create more opportunities for the company?

My focus and that of my partners is beyond Knight Frank. We are looking at a global thing to take the profession to greater heights. Our focus will include programmes to strengthen the real estate practice.

During my welcome speech at the investiture as senior partner and CEO Knight Frank Nigeria, I promised to create what is called the Real Estate Academy- a programme that will train and retrain young surveyors and valuers to ensure they imbibe the professionalism culture, the Estate Surveying and Valuation practice is known for. The dynamism of the profession is more than what students are currently learning in school and we plan to bring fresh graduates, retrain them and imbibe in them the culture of the profession. It is my belief that by bridging this gap noticed in the industry, we are not doing it for Knight Frank alone; we are doing it for the benefit of other real estate firms and the Nigerian economy at large. We will also teach the fresh graduates what valuation, property management and facility management really mean, in practical terms. Conventional schools only teach students basic topics like the principles of estate surveying and management, but when such students get out of school, they need to learn the practical aspects of this profession. Knight Frank is a school of estate surveying and valuations and has all the departments of estate management such as valuation department; the property management and facility management; feasibility studies, research and advisory, brokerage, capital market, the agency, etc.

These are the processes of the academy we want to put in place.

Train them, give them stipends and allowance. This is done in Knight Frank United Kingdom; so, this is what I want to bring to Nigeria. Most of the Real estate firms will enjoy it and the economy at large. This will also ensure we have quality chartered real estate surveyors and valuers and not just estate agents. Knight Frank taught most of the big boys you have in

the real estate business in Nigeria.

We are still the leaders. We intend to broaden the horizon; it is not all about the market transactions; we are going to get our clients connected to the market. Today, in real estate practice, there is a human element in it which most companies take for granted. So, we are going to put that in place in our approach and relationship with our clients and ensure that trust between our clients are put in place.

As a professional, you have garnered almost two decades of practical experience in estate surveying and valuation. Tell us about your professional experience.

My experience in this profession over the past two decades is driven by my passion, excellence and hard work in this our great profession. The value of contentment, ensuring that I deliver the best practices at all times and ensure those value of integrity remains my watch word. To ensure I continue to put them in place so our clients are highly protected. In real estate industry, it is all about trust.

If you don’t get it right, you will lose your clients. In this industry, the human element put in place determines how successful or not a company becomes. With the Knight Frank brand, all we are taught is continuous learning in the profession. You are taught the culture of excellence, which is why you see people come to Knight Frank. We ensure that all

the values we stand for are put in place. Looking back to those years of experience, I have realised that it is the assessment of your impact in what you were taught and how you relate it to your clients that will determine your progress or otherwise in this industry. It is not enough to say you have over 20 years experience; the question would be what have you to show for it?

Knight Frank is said to be the founding father of transformational and integritybased real estate practice in Nigeria. What do you do differently that distinguishes you from other property consultancy firms?

Knight Frank is a market leader because we provide professional real estate solutions that other firms don’t have. We cater for clients that require advisory services.

Any firm can do any valuation, but top clients would still come to us because they know that the Knight Frank does not compromise on standards. We have international standards. The brand speaks for itself. With about 19,000 staff strength, with 512 offices across 60 cities globally. Whatsoever services a client wants, with us, they get it. We have local experts and we are properly connected to the market. These core functions distance us from other real estate companies. You cannot have the kind of expertise the Knight Frank brand has without getting solutions to all real estate demands

policy should be able to handle.

The challenge of housing deficit for instance, why can’t the government take a position and cap the rental market with monthly rent? You still notice that owners of the markets still dictate what happens; it is time for the government to come in and look into this so we can reduce the deficit in the housing delivery. We have Lagos as the commercial city; Abuja as the political headquarters; Port Harcourt as the Oil and gas city, by the time government comes in to harness these three cities, there will be affordable homes, but the government should be able to look at it critically and bring in the experts to advise them professionally on what to do.

delivered. We are still harnessing the brand, that is why I said it is a continuous assessment and learning. There is no major valuation service done in Nigeria by government, banks and other sector big players that Knight Frank expertise is not involved. To put it mildly, I will say the company is the final bus stop for valuations.

Your company is reputed to have some of the most successful entrepreneurs, individuals and multi-billion dollar companies as clients and you enable them and their businesses to work where they want to. How do you do this?

We have an integration network of offices across the globe. So, if a client brings any job to us, and if the local experts cannot get it delivered, the global experts take care of them. It is safe to say that we are locally connected and globally available to the market.

We have the capacity to deliver for all levels of clients. There is no kind of services from various clients that we cannot deliver. We

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@Businessdayng

‘

One vital fact management of companies should bear in mind in their development template is the adoption of technology can access the billionaires and equally access mid-level clients.

The Nigerian economy is slowing and that impacts negatively on the country’s real estate market. Is this in any way impacting your operations and the bottom-line in the country?

The economy may appear slow, but companies are declaring profits. Companies are doing development; staff are moving from smaller apartments to bigger ones; there are transactions every day. Yes, the economy of year 2019 budget and that of 2020 looks similar and slow, but there are lots of transactions taking place. We must come together as Nigerians, as professionals and approach the economy with a win-win solution; let come together and be able to actualise these things. When there are challenges, that is when you find opportunities for the market. When things are slow, you must be able to come up with a product to meet clients’ demands.

This is exactly what some of the banks and multi-national companies are doing. With Housing deficit challenge, we should be looking at solution to harness this target market. Take a cue from the unoccupied homes in Ikoyi today, these are duties government

Nigeria is a very competitive market where competitors go all out to out-do and outwit one another. What have been your experience and attitude to competition in this crowded market?

In this industry, you must distinguish yourself in service delivery to clients. It is the products that we put in the market that distinguish Knight Frank brand from the rest. Knight Frank Services are top-notch professionals; we don’t compromise on standard, and these have always distinguished us from the rest. Our valuation reports are up to standard. In terms of professional charges to clients considering the current economic realities, we are very moderate. As a company, we do not see competition, we see collaboration. We are always ready to teach other firms what it takes to be successful. There is no need for competition because the market is there for everybody.

Rather than compete, we prefer to collaborate. In the market today, there are some valuations some of the smaller firms cannot handle; they come to us and that is the spirit of collaboration.

Knight Frank brand is known for its structure. A company that has been in operation for over five decades is indeed successful in its collaborative drive. Real estate is a practice with noble people.

The estate surveying and valuation management profession are made of a class of people that are well respected in society. All the chartered surveyors and valuers possess integrity culture. When you have people with integrity, what else do you want? That is why we try to distinguish estate www.businessday.ng

surveyors from the quacks.

2019 was particularly a very difficult year in Nigeria for businesses like yours. How did you cope, especially with the recession in the sector where you play?

In 2019, the economy was very slow, but as a company, we were able to mitigate those challenges by being prudent in all our allocation of professional expenses so that the bottom line will not suffer.

As a company, when you are prudent in your spending, ensuring that you are not over-spending on operational expenses, you will be able to survive slow economy.

Investors seem to have decided to go to market despite lack of clarity in government policies. Do we see that playing out the more in the new year? In other words, what are your projections for 2020?

The 2020 outlook would basically look like that of 2019. It is new decade with little or no changes from the point of government policy. The only way we can harness economic outlook of 2020 is hinged on the Federal Government policies. We need to look at what the financial targets would be for each company, look at our internal capacity, marry those two out and come up with products that we feel would work in tandem with the government policy that is in place. In 2020, there would be more direct investment coming in.

If government signs the petroleum bill, there is going to be lots of transactions which will encourage free flow of investments into the economy. With these coming, people will look for more office space, residential apartments and this will bring more transaction into the real estate sector. So, it is a win-win thing. There is going to be big opportunity if government implement those things.

will leave us behind. One vital fact management of companies should bear in mind in their development template is the adoption of technology. Management must train, spend money on technology, bring in the new technology in place to be able to harness business. These, Knight Frank has done, and will continue to do.

Technology is a strategic win-win for us as a company. There is no business today that technology has not helped.

Increasingly, technology is narrowing the space for professional practice in real estate with its disruptive impact. How prepared are you to retain your market share in spite of everything?

Technology, such as ProTech, which we have deployed in-house in our service delivery, is good.

Technology makes things move faster. We have spent so much on technology. We are adapting to it, if we don’t, the business world

What other agenda do you have for Knight Frank Nigeria in the next five years?

My business plan for the next year would be to increase revenue; I will also look at my internal capacity and working environment.

With these three pillars, I will strategise to take the company from where it is currently to a higher level. Those plans are in place and is being worked out and the dimension is to take each as it comes based on our plans for

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@Businessdayng

each of them. By the time we finish, it is not going to be the Knight Frank Nigeria again; it is going to be an international brand that is in Nigeria. In summary, we are going to increase our financial targets, increase internal working capacity with the staff, increase their professionalism by exposing them to what the template of best practices are in order for them to deliver service to our clients and connect adequately with them.

I am generally positively driven.

What others call challenges; I see as opportunities. All things are possible if you believe.

However, speaking of Nigeria generally. There is so much talent, but harnessing is a challenge.

Many young people roam the street ‘unemployable’, yet organisations (locally and internationally) are head-hunting every day for special skills. This presents an opportunity for organisations to partner with educational institutions towards equipping graduates for the business environment.

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

Health Business&Life Nigeria could loose 2m children to pneumonia in the next decade - UNICEF ...As malnutrition, air pollution and lack of access to vaccines remain prevalent across the country Cynthia Egboboh & Godsgift Onyedinefu, Abuja

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oosting efforts to fight pneumonia could avert over 2 million child deaths from pneumonia and other major diseases in Nigeria, United Nation’s Children Fund (UNICEF) report reveals.

According to the report, malnutrition, air pollution and lack of access to vaccines and antibiotics which has been identified as the main drivers of preventable deaths from pneumonia has been prevalent in most part of Nigeria.

Pneumonia is caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi, and leaves children fighting for breath as their lungs fill with pus and fluid. “ This disease is the leading killer of children in Nigeria, causing 19 percent of under-five deaths.

Pneumonia in 2019, killed a child every three minutes in Nigeria”.

According to the report, forecasts show that 1.4 million children under the age

of five could die from pneumonia over the next decade in Nigeria, on current trends representing the highest number of any country in the world and more than 20 percent of childhood deaths from pneumonia globally.

However, an estimated 809,000 of these deaths would be averted by signifi-

cantly scaling up services to prevent and treat pneumonia.

“Interventions like improving nutrition, increasing vaccine coverage or boosting breastfeeding rates are therefore to be considered as key measures that could reverse the risk of children dying from pneumonia as

well as stop thousands of child deaths from diseases like diarrhoea, meningitis, measles, and malaria”.

Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Nigeria’s Country Representative, in a statement said “We have a responsibility to do all we can to avert these deaths by pneumonia, deaths that are nearly all

preventable. It will take concerted action by all players”.

“The announcement by the Nigerian government of the world’s first-ever pneumonia control strategy coupled with the focus globally on combatting pneumonia is a huge step forward. We now need to follow this with concrete action on the ground to address the causes and drivers of childhood pneumonia deaths in this country.”

According to the report, the effect would be so large that pneumonia interventions alone would avert over 2 million predicted underfive child deaths in Nigeria from all causes combined by 2030.

“Most pneumonia deaths can be prevented with vaccines, and easily treated with low-cost antibiotics. But more than 40 percent of one-year-olds in Nigeria are unvaccinated, and three in four children suffering from pneumonia symptoms do not get access to medical treatment”.

Meanwhile, the federal government recent-

ly launched the National Pneumonia Control Strategy and Implementation Plan (NPCSIP), developed by the ministry to reduce the menace of pneumonia related morbidities and mortalities among children under the age of five years in Nigeria.

The minister of Health, O s a g i e E h a n i re w h i l e launching the plan, revealed that the pneumonia remains one of the world’s leading infectious disease killer of children which annually claim about 800,000 lives of children under the age of five, despite the disease being preventable, and treatable.

Ehanire stated that the highest burden of pneumonia is unfortunately concentrated in the world’s poorest countries. According to him, the most deprived and marginalised children suffer most, especially those from poor families in the low and middle income countries are likely to die due to the social and economic inequalities which lead to poor access to basic essential health service.

Tackling neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) has long-term economic gains for Africa The END Fund is the only private philanthropic initiative solely dedicated to ending the five most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) OYETOLA ODUYEMI, Africa Regional Adviser of the END Fund in this Interview with KELECHI EWUZIE, speaks on neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), the burden in Nigeria and how stakeholders can work to eradicate them. Excerpt:

W

hat can you tell us about the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)?

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of parasitic and bacterial infectious diseases affecting more than 1.7 billion of the world’s population, with about 40% of this burden concentrated in Africa. Two of the most common NTDs are intestinal worms and schistosomiasis, both of which are parasitic worm infections. Treatments for these diseases, commonly known as deworming, reduce stunted growth in children and improve food and vitamin absorption.

The NTDs disproportionately affect women and children. There are millions of mothers out there who cannot afford proper medical attention, and worms, the cause of some of the most prevalent NTDs as earlier mentioned, are a very real threat to family health. This is one of the reasons why the END Fund is committed to doing all we can, with the support of private sector and other key stakeholders in Nigeria, to end the NTDs in this generation, and support good health and wellness for all.

What are the benefits

ness and intestinal worms.

By engaging a community of activist-philanthropists and taking a systems approach, we are working in collaboration with governments, NGOs, pharmaceutical, and academic partners to end these diseases in our lifetime.

Oyetola Oduyemi

of ending NTDs in Nigeria?

Every dollar invested in NTD control and elimination results in an economic benefit of $27 - $42, which is N10, 000 - N15,000.

Studies have shown that children who are dewormed are 25% more likely to attend school, and adults are able to increase their earnings by 20%. Moreover, deworming also improves labour productivity and long-term economic gains.

With the Nigerian population expected to reach over 300 million by 2050, www.businessday.ng

addressing Nigeria’s NTD burden will not only directly improve the health and education of its people. In fact, it will also be critical to the country’s economic prosperity.

Take us through what the END Fund is all about?

The END Fund is the only private philanthropic initiative dedicated to ending the five most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) - a group of parasitic and bacterial infectious diseases, such as river blind-

What has the END Fund been doing in Nigeria?

The END Fund was founded in 2012, and we commenced programmatic intervention work in Nigeria in 2013.

Since then, the END Fund with our partners has delivered well over 65 million NTD treatments, to Nigerians. We have carried out surgeries, and have trained over 60,000 health workers; all at a cost exceeding $300 million. This we have done with the kind support of our partners.

Furthermore in 2019, we partnered with Youth Empowerment and Development Initiative (YEDI) and StreetfootballWorld to carry out an enlightenment campaign in Lagos on prevention and control of the endemic NTDs. This is because the NTDs are easily preventable; and with the right information provided to the general public and especially communities most at risk, we can reduce the NTD burden that Nige-

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ria bears.

In 2019 also, we carried out mass administration of medicine exercises to combat NTDs. In addition, we also ran a public service announcement with SuperEagles Defender, William Troost-Ekong, on the prevention and control of NTDs. This PSA ran on both radio and television in six Nigerian states: Akwa Ibom, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti, Bauchi, Gombe; and the Federal Capital Territory.

January 30th is World NTD Day. Why is this significant?

Health is a human right. Everyone, everywhere, should be able to get the health care they need, with dignity and without discrimination. What sets NTDs apart is how they disfigure, disable & blind people. In Nigeria, this means facing stigma, discrimination & social exclusion, which take a severe toll on #mentalhealth. World NTD Day is important because it will bring together civil society advocates, community leaders, global health experts and policymakers working across the diverse NTD landscape, and unify partners behind our common goal: to #BeatNTDs What are the burdens @Businessdayng

of these diseases in Nigeria?

Despite being the most populous and one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, Nigeria also bears the greatest burden of NTDs on the continent, with 133 million Nigerians in need of treatment for at least one NTD - about two thirds of its population.

What role do you think stakeholders like Ministry of Health, partners, can play in beating NTDs and how does this affect SDGs? The key thing is that all hands must be on deck. The Federal government, policymakers, and the private sector are critical to supporting the work that the END Fund is doing in Nigeria.

There are other African countries that have eradicated one or more NTDs in the last 10 years, and so we know this it is possible.

The key thing is the will to achieve it, getting the work done. If we drive awareness of NTDs, and build advocacy and partnerships to tackle these diseases, we can beat the NTDs. We however do need to take definitive action now.

Note: The rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @https://businessday.ng

Friday 31 January 2020

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Health Business&Life Lassa Fever: Kwara begins border screening, sets up isolation centre ...as Olufolake canvases UHCS SIKIRAT SHEHU, Ilorin

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wara State Government has begun intensive surveillance and screenings at its land borders and the Ilorin International Airports to check the spread of Lassa fever into the state, calling on the public to be vigilant and report any suspicious cases at the nearest health centres.

Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq State Governor, gave the directive according to the state commissioner for health, Raji Razaq.

“We are working with the port health authorities to ensure that any foreigner or travellers coming to Kwara State is screened before entering the state,” state Health Commissioner told journalists in Ilorin.

According to Razaq, government has also completed the construction of an isolation centre and activated State Epidemic Preparedness and Response, Rapid Response Teams and Incident Command System at the Kwara State Emergency Operation Centre to coordinate any outbreak of the disease currently ravaging some states.

He says: “The disease has remained a public health

challenge and has affected some states. We do not have any case in Kwara but it is important to be prepared.

“We have also designated an isolation centre for Lassa fever clinical management in Sobi Specialist Hospital, Ilorin and make available response commodities and medicines.”

Razaq urged residents of the state to adopt regular hand washing, proper cleaning of surroundings and household items, as he also called on residents of the state to keep their food items in good and hygienic conditions.

The Commissioner equally encouraged residents to eliminate rats in their homes and communities as well as desist from using bare hands to touch the trapped rats.

Razaq promised that the

state would continue to sensitise all health workers to have high index of suspicion and adhere strictly to standard precautions while providing care to the patients.

Meanwhile, the wife of the state Governor Olufolake Abdulrazaq, has advocated a Universal health coverage system in the state.

The Governor’s wife had while speaking when she met the Chairman, Kwara State House of Assembly Committee on Health, Razaq Owolabi, Commissioner for Health, Raji Razaq, Officials of the State Health Insurance Agency and EXARO Enterprise Solutions- the consortium handling the Kwara State Universal Health coverage, says “the programme is aimed at steming the tide of neonatal and maternal mortality rate.”

Introducing the team and

‘poor pharmaceutical care leads to half of treatment failures’ ANTHONIA OBOKOH

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bimbola Adebakin, the chief executive officer (CEO) and founder of Advantage Health Africa has said that poor pharmaceutical care is known to lead to half of treatment failures, saying that availability, accessibility and affordability of quality, safe and essential drugs are critical to the success of Nigeria’s healthcare delivery system - across all aspects of the value chain.

Speaking at the launching of MYPHARMACY in lagos, Adebakin said that this desire to improve healthcare outcomes has prompted Nigeria’s fastest growing pharmacy chain, to launch a value-based franchise chain, commencing with a 50 pharmacy premises in several cities and towns.

According to him, we aim to empower, innovate, create access and accelerate growth in the franchise chain to revolutionise the country’s healthcare sector. “we are targeting a significant improvement in healthcare outcomes for Nigerians.

Besides providing a collaborative platform between different pharmacies - to build a

HBL Team

giving a background information about the Universal Health coverage, Owolabi explained that “the initiative was borne out of the government’s effort to look into the issue of the health scheme for the benefit of kwarans.”

The Commissioner for Health, Raji Razaq commended the Governor’s wife for her proactive steps towards improving health service delivery, urging her husband to champion the roll out campaign for the Universal Healthcare Coverage.

Olubunmi Jetawo-Winter, the Executive Secretary of the State Health Insurance Agency, posited that efforts were ongoing for full implementation of the Insurance Scheme in the state.

Jetawo-Winter explained that the visit to the Office of the Governor’s wife is to give a progress report on the activities carried out by the agency and the consortium-EXARO. Giel Niekerl, the team leader of the EXARO company, introduced the company and areas of coverage to implement their scope of work.

Niekerl, highlighted other states where the company is presently operating and assured the Governor’s wife of quality service delivery.

to the overall growth of the country’s healthcare sector.

The competitive landscape and ecosystem has also not helped to enable many independent pharmacies to thrive. Regardless of the root causes, the need for urgent and scalable solutions are visible to all.

Adebakin, further said that the goal of the pharmacy is to bring together pharmacies with like - minded to work hand in hand to meet the pharmaceutical needs of Nigerians while growing businesses of economic value.

“This move will drive up the value proposition of independent pharmacies by building professional back-end processes on a performance basis. we expect the chain plans to grow to an unprecedented 1000 pharmacies by the end of 2024,” he said.

RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta

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s part of effort to investigate and prevent causative effect of charcoal-induced lung cancer in Nigeria, especially in Southwest, Royal Society, United Kingdom, has given a research grant of £300,000 to a researcher and staff of Department of Environmental Management and Toxicology, College of Environmental Resources Management, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB).

The research grant approved by the Royal Society, an independent scientific academy of United Kingdom and Commonwealth for the staff and the College of Environmental Resources Management of FUNAAB, was done for the undertaking of research and investigation as regards “effect of charcoal production on air quality, human respiratory and cancer risk in Southwest, Nigeria.”

Speaking at the press conference to herald 27th Convocation of the Federal

University of Agriculture, Abeokuta on Monday, Felix Salako, professor and vice chancellor of FUNAAB, declared that a researcher (name withheld) in Department of Environmental Management and Toxicology won the grant for the FUNAAB and Nigeria, saying the grant was meant to investigate and reduce prevalence of charcoal-induced lung cancer and human respiratory challenges.

Salako added that the university’s lecturers, staff and researchers, more than any other universities in Nigeria, won largest grants running to the tune of N266.7 million from 2019 National Research Fund supervised and disbursed by Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) dedicated to undertake various community development projects as demonstrated in the various products from FUNAAB Enterprises, including palm oil, bread, garri, palm wine, cashew nuts, odourless fufu flour, sachet and bottled water, among others.

Precautions for international travellers during corona virus outbreak Executive Travel Health

strong chain of independently owned pharmacies, other perks of belonging to the chain include; cost reduction through bulk purchasing of goods and services, business reliability improvement with standards and controls, increased revenue in leaps that independents cannot achieve singly,” said Adebakin.

Meanwhile, the growth of pharmacy businesses at the last mile, where essential healthcare is rendered, has been somewhat stunted over the years. This problem, largely based on their inability to remain financially afloat and differentiate their service offering, has forced several pharmacies out of operations.

Data has shown that over 50 percent of pharmacies close down businesses in the first five years, inevitably posing an objection

FUNAAB wins £300,000 grant from UK to investigate charcoal-induced cancer in Nigeria

Dr Ade Alakija Q-life Family Clinic

lifeadvisoryservices@outlook.com

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he current outbreak originated in Wuhan city, which is a major domestic and international transport hub. Given the large population movements and the observed human to human transmission, it is not unexpected that new confirmed cases will continue to appear in other areas and countries.

There is no vaccine against this novel coronavirus.

The death toll from this novel coronavirus has now reached more than 100 people, with most of the more than 4,500 cases reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epi-centre of the disease. At least 12 other countries have also reported cases, and five

ANTHONIA OBOKOH / Reporters. Email: obokoh.anthonia@businessdayonline.com

people in the United States have been diagnosed; all had recently returned from China.

Travellers are therefore warned to avoid all nonessential trips to China, the centre of the outbreak. Travellers to all countries should practice good respiratory hygiene and take the following precautions to reduce their chance of infection: Maintain strict hand hygiene; one of the most important ways of preventing the spread of infection is careful and frequent hand washing followed by proper drying. If soap, clean water and towels are not available, alcohol hand rub can be used. Avoid close contact with people who appear unwell and their personal items. Avoid touching ones’ own eyes/nose/ mouth unless hands have been adequately cleaned.

If suffering from symptoms of a respiratory infection, follow good hygiene practices: cover the nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing, use tissues only once, disposing of them promptly and carefully, wash hands frequently.

Avoid contact with wet or live animal markets, live animals and poultry (chickens, ducks, geese, pigeons, quail) or any

wild birds, surfaces that may be contaminated with animal/ bird droppings, for example commercial poultry farms, backyard poultry farms and live poultry markets, sick or dead birds or animals. Avoid eating uncooked or under cooked meat including poultry or poultry products.

On return to Nigeria: travellers should: Pay attention to their health particularly over the first 14 days. If respiratory symptoms develop, they should: Seek immediate medical attention.

Before visiting a health-care setting (for example health centre or hospital), describe your symptoms and tell the provider about your recent travel history.

Do not travel whilst unwell and limit contact with others as much as possible to prevent the spread of any infectious illness until assessed by a doctor.

Do not forget other travel precautions that are essential to your destinations and your health.

Ade Alakija, medical director Q-Life Family Clinic & Bukola Adeniyi, Consultant Family physician and travel medicine physician Q-Life Family Clinic.

I David Ogar, Graphics

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

LEADINGWOMAN

Florence Atunwa Olumodim, evolving with the digital age In my current role as Program Director in Nigeria for Digify Africa, my biggest challenge is scaling up on the project so that the impact can be even more widespread. The DigifyPro Project supported by Facebook is a very specialized initiative that is an intensive digital skill bootcamp that runs fulltime over 8 weeks. By virtue of the type of project it is, we are unable to admit too many graduates per cohort.

David Ibemere

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lorence Atunwa Olumodim is a Marketing Communications consultant; image and personal branding consultant, digital marketing strategist, speaker and trainer who love to find ways to leverage on the digital space across business processes and marketing, while extending brand presence online. Fondly known as the #ContentNinja! She is the Program Director in Nigeria for Digify Africa.

She has over 20 years’ experience in integrated marketing communications, brand management, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and project management, across various industries - specifically FMCG, banking and Information & Communications Technology (ICT).

Florence has worked with various audiences including youth, women, SMEs, schools, government parastatals, and international institutions to mention a few, working primarily on projects that build brands plus have social impact and relevance. In the last 8 years, she has worked actively on projects in ICT, youth empowerment, knowledge transfer and branding of businesses of all sizes.

How do you describe yourself?

I am a marketing communications professional, a certified digital marketer, a business consultant, coach and facilitator. I am on a mission to help entrepreneurs, women and young career professionals build their business and personal brands and grow profitable businesses.

Career trajectory I’ve got over 24 years background in marketing communications, leadership, image management, branding, project management, strategic planning, business development to name a few.

What would you say is fulfilment for you in the next five years?

In the next five years, I would like to look back having impacted thousands of Nigerian graduates with re-skilling, with digital skills and having established as many as possible of them in new careers in top organisations across the nation. I also look forward to scaling up the numbers of people who go through our programs and finally, I would like to have been able to start a digital skill and introduction to coding initiative for secondary school students, coaching them young.

I particularly help women entrepreneurs with their marketing communications, business, and personal branding. Besides being a marketing communications consultant and founder of Life Developers Network (LDN) in Lagos, I have also been the program director in Nigeria for a South Africa based not-for-profit, Digify Africa.

www.businessday.ng

You are engaged in various empowerment and skill acquisition programs for youths, what inspired this passion?

I have worked for years in fully commercial organisations and I am now driven by working with impactdriven projects by social impact organisations. I am driven by my desire to make a difference and my passion

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inspires excellence.

Challenges The toughest aspects of my work now is creating awareness and looking for sources of funding and partnerships for initiatives I work on.

How are you trying to meet your objectives to help youths become better in the society? @Businessdayng

Reason for career path The fourth industrial revolution changes the way we live and work due to the adoption of technology in every aspect of our livelihoods. My journey into the digital world was deliberate and inevitable. I have always been tech savvy but I also knew that with the world fast becoming a global village and the advent of theinternet-of-things, it was important to get certifications and update my skills to be relevant for the 4th revolution.

Final words I’d like to appeal to the private sector and government to partner with not-for-profits doing laudable social impact based initiatives to help scale up the total number of people benefiting from initiatives implemented for the people.

Friday 31 January 2020

Harvard Business Review

BUSINESS DAY

25

ManagementDigest

The transformer CLO

oped a matrix to help determine whether a given offering might be better handled with face-toface instruction, a purely digital approach or a blend of the two.

The matrix helps leaders weigh multiple factors: the type of content, the target audience, and development and delivery considerations.

— RETHINK FACE-TO-FACE LEARNING: Some companies have created hands-on simulations in which participants must solve real-life problems.

At UBS, employees take part in “three-dimensional case studies” to develop key capabilities, such as the ability to influence stakeholders or rethink a company product. The interactive case studies test not only their knowledge but also how they engage with others as the situation unfolds.

— GO BEYOND INSTRUCTION: Transformer CLOs believe that instruction alone is not sufficient for meaningful learning. Accenture’s senior managing director for talent, Rahul Varma, anchors his approach in what he calls the three I’s: instruction, introspection and immersion. The introspection part might involve giving employees time to privately mull over what they’ve learned or providing a formal opportunity during class to discuss it with a whole cohort. After introspection comes immersion, or putting what’s been learned into practice. The sooner and the more often that learning gets applied in real-life situations, the more likely it is to stick.

mind: — ACT AS CURATORS AND CO-CREATORS. Increasingly, transformer CLOs are identifying useful external content — everything from university courses to YouTube videos — and combining it with internal content. At Accenture, this approach allows the company to provide its employees with the most current insights on emerging technologies, which they can then share with clients.

— FOSTER LEARNING FROM PEERS: When new peer learning activities spring up, transformer CLOs investigate what’s happening and why. If the new effort has merit, they figure out how to support and amplify it. That’s what happened at Deutsche Telekom after an employee in one part of the business made use of the company intranet to start a forum called From Experts, For Experts.

— MEASURE IMPACT: Determining the impact of training can be difficult. The key is to consider multiple measures of how learning contributes to the organization’s overall strategy.

Telstra, the Australian telecom giant, adopted this approach for assessing its most strategically important technical and leadership programs. To judge how well it was training a large group of engineers who worked in software-defined networking, the company had both the engineers and their leaders assess their abilities. The learning department added that data to an analysis of the engineers’ various certifications and accreditations and then worked with an external vendor to develop a test targeting relevant areas of technical expertise. All that information was then folded together to arrive at a meaningful measurement of proficiency.

The fast-changing nature of business today requires organizations to enhance their capabilities. This presents an opportunity for CLOs to be transformers, not just trainers. Transformer CLOs are positioning employees to succeed and adapt to future changes. They’re making learning an integral part of their companies’ strategies. It’s a profound and important shift.

TRANSFORMING LEARNING DEPARTMENTS To make the trainer-to-transformer vision a reality, CLOs are redesigning their departments to be smaller and more strategic. Instead of simply providing training for specific skills, they are teaming up with the leaders of other business units to improve capabilities throughout the organization. As chief learning officers rethink how their departments operate, they should keep these recommendations in

Abbie Lundberg is the president of Lundberg Media, a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review Analytic Services and the former editor-in-chief of CIO magazine. Her work focuses on the ways in which business leaders are transforming their organizations. George Westerman is a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and principal research scientist for Workforce Learning with the MIT Jameel World Education Laboratory.

Abbie Lundberg and George Westerman

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n today’s dynamic business environment, workplace learning has become a lever for success. And with that shift, the traditional role of the chief learning officer is changing. No longer are CLOs responsible just for training. Instead, they’re embracing a more powerful role in which they reshape capabilities and organizational culture. We call this new type of leader the “transformer CLO.” Transformer CLOs are senior managers whose mission is to help their companies and their employees thrive, even as technologies and industries undergo rapid change.

Our recent research revealed that transformer CLOs are driving three principal types of change in their enterprises.

They’re transforming their organizations’ “learning goals,” shifting the focus from the development of skills to the development of mindsets and capabilities that will help workers perform well and adapt smoothly in the future. They’re transforming their organizations’ “learning methods,” making them more experiential and immediate, and atomizing content for delivery when and where it’s needed. And they’re transforming their organizations’ “learning departments,” making them more agile and strategic.

TRANSFORMING LEARNING GOALS The need for organizations to become more adaptable means changing the goals of corporate learning. Instead of narrowly focusing on job- or compliancerelated training for all but their high-potential leaders, organizations should cultivate every employee’s ability to learn and grow. The objective is not only to train people but also to position the company for success. To achieve this, CLOs should strive to do the following: — RESHAPE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT: Creating a true learning organization starts at the top, with preparing executives to lead in new ways. Three years ago, multinational financial services company Standard Chartered launched a strategy that required its leaders to build new strengths. The company began teaching leaders to augment their experience with investigation and data-driven analysis when making decisions about their parts of the organization.

Their instructions were: “Articulate a hypothesis. Go out and experiment. And if it doesn’t work, then why not? What did you learn? Add to it. Capture your learning. Share it with other

people.” This approach required changes in the leaders’ mindsets, not just their skills.

— CONCENTRATE ON CAPABILITIES, NOT COMPETENCE: In their change programs, transformer CLOs focus less on teaching currently needed skills and more on developing behaviors that can enable employees to perform well in tasks that may not yet be defined. This shift may also mean moving away from comprehensive skills inventories, which can lead people to check boxes rather than build capabilities.

— EMPHASIZE DIGITAL THINKING: The transformer CLOs we interviewed have sought to develop digital aptitude in their employees. Singapore-based DBS Bank, for example, created a learning curriculum that aims to build priority skills for digital-business success. One priority, for instance, is to get people more comfortable using data in decision-making.

Data-driven thinking is key for almost everyone in an organization, but in different ways. Frontline sales and service reps need to be aware of information about customer preferences and behaviors. Executives must learn to trust data even when it contradicts their past experiences.

— CULTIVATE CURIOSITY AND A GROWTH MINDSET: CLOs can amplify their teams’ capabilities by fostering a “pull” model of learning, in which employees set their own agendas for gaining knowledge and skills.

Doing that, however, requires an environment that sparks employees’ curiosity.

Leaders at DBS Bank launched a number of programs to find out what would inspire curiosity among their employees. One notable success is GANDALF Scholars, in which employees can apply to receive grants of $1,000 toward training on any work-related topic, as long as they agree to teach what they learn to at least 10 other people. UBS, DBS, Accenture and other companies that have embraced a growth mindset subscribe to two beliefs: that ev-

eryone’s abilities can and must be developed if the organization is to thrive in a fast-moving environment, and that innate talent is just the starting point. But for a growth mindset to become part of the company’s culture, all employees must internalize those beliefs. That won’t happen unless learning is available to everybody who might benefit from it.

TRANSFORMING LEARNING METHODS Until recently, providing learning to all employees was too expensive, and there weren’t enough trainers. Today, peer teaching expands the number of trainers. And digital instruction expands the reach of learning opportunities to more employees.

Transformer CLOs are taking advantage of all these developments. Perhaps most visibly, they are moving away from traditional classroom training in which people are exposed to the same content for the same amount of time regardless of their particular needs. They’re introducing innovations such as programs that set aside learning time on people’s calendars.

They’re encouraging the company’s own experts to produce YouTube-type instructional videos. In short, transformer CLOs do everything possible to create personalized and engaging experiences: — OPTIMIZE THE INVENTORY OF LEARNING RESOURCES: CLOs need to be selective about what learning materials to stock and how to supply them. At General Electric’s software company GE Digital, Heather Whiteman, the company’s former head of learning, used analytics with her team to study courses taken by employees — and then rooted out those found lacking in their effects on employee growth.

— BALANCE FACE-TO-FACE AND DIGITAL LEARNING.: CLOs should experiment to get the right mix of face-to-face and digital learning. Deutsche Telekom, for its part, has devel-

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

entertainment

Tony Allen, and his rhythms that underpinned Afrobeat N OBINNA EMLEIKE

o doubt, Afrobeat has given Nigerian music an identity globally, moving it from the general world music category to a genre of its own like reggae and others.

Of course, Afrobeat is also synonymous to Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the late legendary music maestro, who pioneered the exciting music genre that spotlights African heritage, amid warm beats, enthralling dance performances and rhythms infused with message.

While Fela’s contributed immensely to the popularity of Afrobeat genre, there are others who are also part of the pioneer team because of their individual and collective contributions.

One of such pioneers is Tony Oladipo Allen, an ace drummer, composer and songwriter.

Allen, who will turn 80 years this August, is Afrobeat living legend and former drummer of Fela Kuti.

Born in 1940 in Lagos, the ace drummer who lives in Paris is still sought after by his European fans, who he delights with Afrobeat, jazz and world music. As the drummer and musical director of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s band Africa ‘70 from 1968 to 1979, Allen was one of the primary co-founders of the genre of Afrobeat music and Fela once stated that, “without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat”. He has also been described by Brian Eno as “perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived.

Aside being the inventor of the rhythms that underpinned Afrobeat, Allen recorded more than 30 albums with Fela and Africa ‘70,

as well as, three solo recordings: Jealousy (‘75), Progress (‘77), No Accommodation For Lagos (‘79) before leaving Africa ‘70 in 1979 in search of his own sound. In 1980, he formed No Discrimination, his own group. He recorded and performing in Lagos until emigrating to London in 1984, then later moved to Paris where currently lives.

In a bid to find his own sound after leaving Fela, Allen developed a hybrid sound, deconstructing and fusing Afrobeat with electronica, dub, R&B, and rap. He refers to this synthesis as afrofunk, which some upcoming musicians today claim as their style.

While in the country, Allen was hired by many musicians to

ensure great sounds, especially Victor Olaiya to play claves with his highlife band, the Cool Cats.

He also played with numerous local and international artistes to critical world acclaim such as Agu Norris and the Heatwaves, the Nigerian Messengers, and the Melody Maker.

Trailing his story, the self-taught musician began playing a drum kit at the age of 18, while working as an engineer for a Nigerian radio station.

Influenced by the music his father listened to including Juju and also American jazz, and the growing highlife scene in Nigeria and Ghana, Tony worked hard to develop a unique voice on the drums, feverishly studying LPs and magazine articles by Max Roach and Art Blakey,

Joseph premieres, celebrates African greatness

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arlier this week, criticallyacclaimed movie, Joseph, premiered in Lagos to rave reviews by cinema lovers. A trans-atlantic story of self-discovery and home-coming,

Joseph premiered at Filmhouse Cinemas, Landmark Village, Lagos to anaudience of art journalists, movie critics, culture enthusiasts, and cinema lovers.

A tale to bridge the narrative

Mawuli Gavor and Kevoy Burton, both actors, at the premiere of ‘Joseph’ www.businessday.ng

between Western and African audiences, Joseph, chronicles the transformative journey, embarked on by a young doctor, to discover his ancestry. The central character, Joseph, left a successful career in medicine to reconnect with his roots and ultimately his purpose.

Shot in Jamaica, Barbados, and across west Africa, Joseph touches a gamut of relatable subject areas, from parental pressure andsocietal expectations, to sibling rivalry, love and deception.

With successful cinema openings in the Caribbean and Ghana, and an exemplary pool of Nollywood and Caribbean talents, including Mawuli Gavor, Kevoy Burton and international singer/ songwriter Shontelle, Joseph is set to enthrall audiences across Nigeria.

Joseph is now in cinemas nationwide.

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but also revolutionary Ghanaian drummer Guy Warren (later known as Kofi Ghanaba – who developed a highly sought-after sound that mixed tribal Ghanaian drumming with bop – working with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker,Thelonious Monk, and Max Roach).

In 1964, Fela Kuti invited Allen to audition for a jazz-highlife band he was forming as they had played together as sidemen in the Lagos circuit. Allen became an original member of Fela’s ‘Koola Lobitos’ highlife-jazz band. In 1969, following a turbulent and educational trip to the United States, Fela and the newly renamed Africa ‘70 band developed a new militant African sound, mixing the heavy groove and universal appeal of soul with jazz,

highlife, and the polyrhythmic template of Yoruba conventions. Allen developed a novel style to complement Fela’s new African groove that blended these disparate genres.

He has always been very busy, touring and performing across the world from his Paris base. In 2017, he collaborated with Malian singer Oumou Sangaré for the track “Yere faga” from her album Mogoya, and recorded E.P. Tomorrow Comes The Harvest with Techno DJ Jeff Mills in 2018.

In 2019, filmmaker Opiyo Okeyo released the documentary film Birth of Afrobeat about Allen’s life in music.

Recently, on December 29, 2019, Allen was honoured with an Afrobeat Tribute Concert in Lagos, which was organized by Inspiro Productions, the organizers of Lagos Jazz Festival.

At the concert, the legendary drummer, who flew in from Paris, paled alongside Gboyega Adelaja (late Hugh Masekela’s keyboardist), Empress, Adunni Nefertiti, Temmie Ovwasa and a host of others.

Ayoola Sadare, CEO, Inspiro Productions, described Allen as a worthy cultural ambassador of Nigerian-African music hence the tribute concert held in recognition of the impact Afrobeat, which his co-created, is making globally.

“In Europe and on the global music scene, he is still very active.

His impact on Afrobeat, Jazz and World music is undeniable”, Sadare explained at the tribute concert.

His career and life story have been documented in his 2013 autobiography Tony Allen: Master Drummer of Afrobeat, co-written with author/musician Michael E. Veal, who previously wrote a comprehensive biography of Fela Kuti.

Chika Ike returns to cinema after 15 years with Small Chops

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ovie lovers were thrilled last weekend at Filmhouse Cinemas, IMAX, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos, when Chika Ike, an awarding-winning movie star and producer, hosted the premiere of ‘Small Chops’, her latest movie. The movie, which is coming after 15 years break in the industry, stars Nse-Etim, Sophie Alakija, Toyin Abraham, Eucharia Anunobi, Rachael Okonkwo, Nkem Owoh, Hafiz Ayetoro and Chika Ike, who plays the lead actress.

As expected, the premiere red carpet was packed with top Nollywood stars and celebrities who came to support the movie including; Peter Okoye, AY Makun, Uche Elendu, Chinedu Ikedieze, Falz, Uti Nwachukwu among others.

The break after 15 years of acting and filming back to back in Nollywood, according to Chika, enabled her to further her education and set up a business. @Businessdayng

The movie Small Chops shares the story of Nikita, an Afro performer at a hot-spot of a suburb, where she entertains at a place where randy men patronize and she has the most customers. Despite the odds and society labeling, she keeps her selfrespect.

The movie is directed by Robert Peters, the director behind films like ’30 Days in Atlanta’ and ‘A Trip to Jamaica’ and co-produced by Serah Donald Onyeachor.

Small Chops will be out in cinemas nationwide from January 31, 2020.

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entertainment

Business etiquette

Mapping out your business goals ‘ At this point

Janet Adetu

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am sure everywhere you turn everyone is talking about goals. From identifying to setting those goals, that is what is on the minds of serious-minded business professionals and entrepreneurs. It occurred to me that the idea of having a goal does not come so easily to many. During my training sessions when I ask participants to identify their goals the answer, I get is somewhat vague, not well thought out, impromptu or simply it indicates that they are not sure.

Well this is 2020 a brand- new decade and still early in the year the month of January to make a difference. Though fast running by set out to set your goals irrespective of the time of the year. It is one thing to to think about your personal goals as you plan to clarify your purpose, but if you own your own business or you run a corporate organization it is more strategic to map out what the business goals are or should be moving forward.

Are you stuck in a rut? Have you been procrastinating year in year out and today you are still in the same spot?

Are you stagnant on one goal not sure of when you will complete it?

Are you still unsure of what to do with your business, where to take it from here?

Are you thinking of diversifying into another area of interest?

Wherever you find yourself today it is time to strategize your business goals alongside your personal goals. I have a few guidelines on how best to map out these goals: Thoughts to paper This is the right time to think hard and fast about many things as it con-

cerns your business. Are you where you want to be or do you aspire to move bigger and better this year? Of course, the latter should be the case, so a pen and notepad is appropriate.

Jot all your ideas down both those that are very conspicuous to those tat are still quite vague. At this point it does not matter how many ideas you have just, lay them down plus possible contributions from others.

Ideally this is best done in a strategy session using experts of heads of departments. It is possible that the business has an opportunity to venture into something new seek and solicit the opinions of those that matter.

Sift your goals Your goals represent that objective or value add you intend to achieve. They may be realistic to quite unrealistic huge goals. Let me say this though for every goal that looks impossible remember it can be done if you set your mind to it. To make your goals achievable, spread them across the year fromweekly, monthly, quarterly to yearly tasks. In sifting your goals ask just a few questions: i. How many goals do you want to pursue in the course of the year ii. What impact will they have if you embark on them? iii. What returns will you benefit from? iiii. Can you truly achieve that goal? v. Do you have the capability and

capacity?

Identify true desires Since your goals will be many you may now place them in order of priority.

Which of the goals will give you utmost delight, keep your employees engaged and yield you positive rewards. This exercise can be accomplished on an individual departmental basis. Once the main goals of that department has been established as a team the true desires should be noted.

it does not matter how many ideas you have just, lay them down plus possible contributions from others

Your why If you own your business there was an initial reason why you went into that business, it could be borneby passion or interest. In the same light this is a crucial goal setting task expressing the reason for yourdecisions. Your business goals typically are to stir you towards greater financial growth and freedom. What are your strengths, weaknesses, possible threat areas that could affect your why? To make a difference and your goal mapping significant establish what is unique about your business. Do a survey of your customers, competitors a and general opinions.

knowledge and know how. It may require you prune your system let some resources go where necessary and or hire new efficient resources. If you are into products or production, then do take detailed stock all your goods.

Remain organized The task may become more daunting as you become more settled into your scope and ideas. Keep a good tab of all your process. Dedicate a staff member to keep track and flow with your steps, Adjust the process if requited but remain organized. Try to avoid distractions and negative opinions along the way, follow you gut feelings and allow it to stir its course.

Decide when and how Before you commence the execution stage strategically decide with project timelines when you intend to kick of your goals. Let the timeline com e in pieces so you can monitor your progress. It is easier to place your goals in stages per month or quarterly if long term, The how is the key as to achievement of that goal what steps are you to take, who will be responsible, who will monitor and keep track, who will criticize, who will commend.

Readjust where necessary Your goals will keep evolving and new things will erupt keep an open mind to what you are doing and adapt to change. It is very important to keep abreast of times, learn new things and embrace new technology. The latest in anything is supposed to make things easier so do not hug onto something because that is all you know. Be open minded again.

Assess & reward you efforts Finally, you must assess your performance at each stage, critically identifying what you did well and what could have done better. There is always a delight among your staff when you celebrate your WINs. Go out there and conquer the world.

Recognize your resources The success of any goal is tightly wrapped around he resources available. For your business also look beyond the finances though are very important, also assess your human capital, competences, pool of

Share your experience with me and follow me @janetadetu

Lagos to host 120 events, 200 performers at theatre festival

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he 7th edition of the Lagos Theatre Festival is set to hold in multiple locations within the Lagos metropolis including; National Museum Lagos, African Artists Foundation, British Council, Alliance Française with Freedom Park, Broad Street, Lagos Island as the main festival hub among other venues.

This year’s festival will explore the theme, ‘Going out of Bounds’ and will feature over 120 events – drama, opera, dance, comedy, and spoken word and evening events of karaoke, comedy, music performances and disco.

There will be side attractions to include the famous LTF Leisure Market bringing together vendors providing food, art and crafts, and services for the pleasure of attendants (families included) of the festival.

There will also be learning opportunities with workshops

and panel discussions included in festival activities for talent development.

Speaking recently at a press

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conference held at Freedom Park, Lagos, Olasupo Shasore (SAN), chairman of LTF Foundation, revealed that the festival is aimed

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at portraying Lagos as the home of artistic expressions.

This year’s edition, in partnership with the British Council, is

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aimed at exceeding bounds.

Bikiya Graham-Douglas, the festival executive director, shared that LTF remains focused on creating opportunities for upcoming performing artists through its site-specific scope of presentations outside the traditional theatre. “This festival will create platforms for many.

We want local and international production companies to see the Lagos Theatre Festival as a hub that fosters exchange and collaborations while telling our stories and promoting our culture”, she said.

Lydia Idakula-Sobogun, the artistic director, added that the event will bring together shows and events by over 45 production companies from home and abroad selected specifically to suit this year’s theme “Going out of Bounds” and the selection was made from over three hundred entries for LTF2020.

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

MADE in aba

Shoe industry can generate N640bn annually — ALAIN GODFREY OFURUM, Aba

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hoe industry can generate N640 billion annually if Nigerians patronise locally made products, observes Ken Anyanwu, secretary, Association of Leather and Allied Industrialists of Nigeria (ALAIN).

Anyanwu, in an interview with BusinessDay in Aba, says that the Aba shoe cluster produces about 320 million shoes annually and can generate N640 billion worth of business for the manufacturers if Nigerians buy two pairs of locally made shoes at the cost of N2,000 for a pair each year.

To boost local patronage, he says the association is embarking on a campaign tagged, ‘Operation Two Pairs of Shoes’ aimed at encouraging Nigerians to buy two pairs of locally made shoes per annum to promote the industry.

“We didn’t go into details,

but simply put, an average of two pairs of shoes at N2,000 per pair would give us N640 billion business done in

the sector. And if Nigerians hearken to our call and buy two pairs of shoes per annum, I tell you, there would be

food on the tables of many Nigerians that feed from this sector,” he affirms.

He explains that the data

currently used for policy and advocacy in the leather sector are mere estimates, stressing that no accurate and verifiable

information on the activities of the sector is available for use.

These include finished leather goods needed by Nigeria annually, finished leather produced and e x p o r t e d f r o m Ni g e r i a annually, Nigeria’s finished leather goods production capacity, quantity of products exported from the country and the accurate number of persons engaged in production in the sector.

The Aba leather cluster is said to be the biggest in West Africa. About 40,000 people are directly engaged in the manufacture of shoes, belts and bags. The production capacity of Aba leather makers is estimated at about one million pairs of shoes per week, and they produce for local and international markets.

However, due to unofficial export that goes on in the sector, it has been difficult for policy makers to get accurate data to develop the sector and this is one of the issues the RFID- enabled technology would help solve.

Group calls for industrial cluster for fashion designers in Aba GODFREY OFURUM, Aba

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ailors in Aba, under the aegis of Modern Garment Makers Association (MOGMA), have appealed to the federal and Abia State governments to establish an industrial park for tailors and fashion designers in the commercial city.

They argue that a cluster would provide a conducive environment for the sector, which is mainly made up of micro entrepreneurs..

Innocent Onwukwe, chairman, MOGMA, observed that it would be difficult for government to provide the needs of tailors in Aba, especially power, because of their spread.

He explained that with a cluster arrangement Aba tailors would be able to undertake high volume jobs, like military and paramilitary uniforms, and deliver on time.

“The state is also losing f u n d s, b e c a u s e w e a re operating individually and cannot do paramilitar y uniforms because we are not in a cluster. If we are in a cluster, we can apply for such jobs and when they come, they will see all of us in one place.

There is no job that we cannot do, considering our number.

“Some African countries can also come here to do their uniforms because that

is what we do here. We make clothes for customers in other West African countries.

I even have customers in United Kingdom, but we do these informally.

“Some of our customers go to China when the y receive high volume jobs, running into thousands, because individually, we don’t have the capacity to do high volumes. But if we are in a cluster, that will be easy to www.businessday.ng

do,” he stated.

He appealed to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu to ensure that the vision of the proposed Umukalika Industrial Cluster in Obingwa Local Government Area of the State was realised in his tenure, stressing that he was their only hope.

“We want government to build an industrial park for tailors in Aba. Even if it is a facility that can take about

5,000 tailors, that would boost the sector.

“We also need a common facility centre in Aba, but it must be sited within the cluster to enable tailors have easy access to it.”

Meanwhile, Godwin Iheme, managing director, ICI Garments Nigeria Limited, one of the leading garment makers in Aba, urged the federal government to ban importation of finished

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garment products into the country.

He noted that locallymade products, although superior to most imported labels, would not compete favourably with imported finished clothing items due to cost of production.

According to him, for local producers to compete favourably with their foreign counterparts, electricity and other infrastructure must be @Businessdayng

put right and urged the federal government not to relent in its quest to achieve constant power supply in the country.

He stressed that e p i l e p t i c p ow e r s u p p l y and multiple taxation were major challenges faced by the manufacturing sector and urged government to support the sector, which according to him, held key to the industrial development of the country.

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

Interview

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We consistently invest in research, development of unique solutions for emerging markets – Giwa Nasir Giwa is the vice president of power and gas, Siemens Limited, Nigeria. In this interview with IFEOMA OKEKE, Giwa speaks on how Siemens is investing in research and development of its solutions for emerging markets and how the company is playing a role by engaging the government and other stakeholders to address issues in the power sector.

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hat would you say Siemens is doing differently in Nigeria’s power and gas sector?

In Nigeria, our long-standing motto is “Siemens is in Nigeria, for Nigeria”.

This statement is echoed in every business activity that we conduct in the country, especially in the power and gas sector. We do not view our activities and operations within the industry as simple business transactions, rather as longterm investments to provide world class solutions to the electrification challenges facing Nigeria, a country which we’ve called home for up to 50 years. This commitment is what we’ve repeatedly shown by delivering on what we’ve promised on time and on schedule in every power project we have undertaken which our customers within the industry can attest to.

and gas?

We have worked on several projects and the most recent and notable are the Azura Edo IPP, Geregu IPP Phase 1 and 2, Obu Cement Plant Captive Power for BUA, Ibese Cement Plant Captive Power for Dangote as well as, other numerous power solutions for our partners in the upstream sector in the oil and gas industry.

Our solutions have also contributed significantly to Nigeria’s power sector. Based on our track record, our projects are carried out to time and on budget; this is a great record to hold in our industry.

Nigeria has an abundance of untapped gas resources. How is Siemens taking advantage of this, especially through integrated gas to power solutions?

We are currently in discussion with several companies in the oil industry to utilize flare gas for our Gas to Power solution in Nigeria. This is a work in progress as a lot of technicalities and commercial issues are being addressed to facilitate this in the nearest future.

Also, we were selected along with one of our partners as the preferred bidder for the implementation of the Kaduna IPP project which will see the development of a 900MW Gas Fired Power Plant that will be fed from the AjaokutaKaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline being developed.

Who are the customers of Siemens power and gas solutions?

Our customers range from government institutions and parastatals interested in investing in power solutions; private customers including Independent Power Producers and industrial customers especially manufacturers who are in need of regular and reliable power solutions for their business operations; and residential estates or clusters who want to invest in private energy solutions.

The world is shifting from the traditional approach of energy transmission and distribution. How is Siemens keeping up with the new trends and evolving dynamics in the power mix?

To a significant degree, a lot of these innovations within the electrification value chain and the power and gas sector in a broader sense are being fuelled by digitalisation. We are trailblazers in innovation and with the huge impact of these disruptive energy trends and solutions, we continue to work towards becoming a key player by investing in the research and development of our unique solutions for this emerging market. One of these solutions is our SGT-A45 Mobile Fast Power which we’ve proposed as an integral part of the Embedded Power Solution.

Nigeria has a high demand for fast and reliable electricity deployment. Can you tell us how Siemens is addressing this need for fast power in Nigeria?

We developed the SGT-A45 to address this unique demand for fast power in Nigeria and other parts of the world that also face our unique energy challenges. Traditional power solutions which have been the staple in the past typically take at least two years for installation and deployment due to the amount of site preparation works that go in

place before large-scale turbines are installed and commissioned.

For some time, this solution has also been deployed by OEMs as a primary power generation solution in developing nations like ours.

However, in response to the unique demand for fast power solution in developing countries, we came up with the SGT-A45 which apart from its mobility also boasts of high efficiency, producing close to 40MW of electricity, and a unique shape and size which allows the entire turbine and it’s auxiliary infrastructure sit on just 3 trailers and run within two weeks of arrival on site.

Nigeria currently has a limited number of hybrid and renewable energy power solutions. What is Siemens doing to support the provision of renewable energy solutions in Nigeria?

Siemens Hybrid Power Solutions are one-stop turnkey solutions for independent hybrid power plants in remote locations. One of our notable hybrid solutions SIESTART combines the capabilities of fossil and renewable power generation by integrating our unique Battery Energy Storage Solution (BESS) and providing instant, reliable and sustainable energy.

For renewable energy, we have several steam turbine power solu-

tions which can work as a standalone solution or in combination with existing gas power solution in a Combined Cycle approach which yields more power output.

As an alternative to steam tailing solutions with steam turbines, we also offer ORC Turbine Technology which can be used to recover the waste heat from gas power generation in the Small Gas Turbine range (SGT-400 and below) using readily available organic compounds like cyclopentane, thereby eliminating the need for water required for steam turbines.

Also, our industrial steam turbines as a standalone, offers our customers biomass fuel powered solutions which can turn waste matter such as sugarcane residue (bagasse) into energy. This solution will be very beneficial in Nigeria where we have a large amount of agricultural waste being produced annually.

To that end we’re currently seeking partners especially within the manufacturing sector in Nigeria to implement our solutions as we’ve done in other parts of the world in countries such as Sweden, Thailand, Denmark with remarkable success.

We also offer a variety of onshore and offshore wind power solutions and a comprehensive small hydro power solution of up to 30MW. We believe these solutions will be a

great addition to Nigeria’s renewable energy base, once successfully deployed.

The power sector faces a problem of poor infrastructural maintenance caused by scarce skills in Nigeria.

What form of support does Siemens provide to customers in the power generation sector?

As a company, we take local partnerships very seriously and this is evident in our power projects where we offer training and skills transfer programmes. We also partner with qualified indigenous firms to execute site works and other related activities in the installation and commissioning of our power equipment to facilitate knowledge transfer between our in-house experts and our partners on site.

For long-term operation and maintenance support, we have our own maintenance hub in Port-Harcourt where our support engineers and technicians are Nigerians who we employ and provide with the requisite in-house training and onfield site experience.

Siemens has been in Nigeria for almost 50 years. What are some of the impactful projects it has worked on in Nigeria as regards power

How soon do you see the country’s power sector be free of issues like unstable power supply and irregularities in the metering system and what role is Siemens playing to help achieve this?

Steady power supply is definitely achievable in Nigeria’s nearest future.

With the signing of the implementation agreement between Siemens and the Federal Government, on the Presidential Power Initiative, we are already playing a role by engaging the government and other stakeholders to address issues in the power sector.

This project has been mapped into three phases.

Phase one is addressing the most critical issues by ensuring that what is being generated currently reaches the consumers. The second phase is to increase our capacity from 3,500MW to 11,000MW which would most definitely boost our power supply. Phase three will then ramp up our power supply capacity to 25,000MW. With the uniqueness of this agreement, all phases of the project can be pursued simultaneously with the final goal in mind.

As regards the metering system, we have an advanced metering system which is a digitalized system that communicates with the consumers thereby allowing them to track their consumption and charges. This system also enables DISCOs to remotely monitor the activities of their meters.

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

Garden City Business Digest Eroton E&P says peace in Okrika helped in execution of GMoU projects • Unveils 1500-capacity town-hall centre in Okochiri, while shore protection project, fish pond, etc ongoing Ignatius Chukwu

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elative peace and stability in the Okrika area of Rivers State in recent times is said to have boosted execution of community development projects in the area. This was said by the management of Eroton E&P, an indigenous oil company which now owns OML 18 including the Cawthorne Channel in Kalabari as well as the Alakiri and Orubiri oil fields of Okirika.

The Eroton E&P managing director, Ebiaho Emafo, who spoke through the CSO, Peter Abere, expressed delight in the high level of cooperation the company has so far received in Okrika which he said led to bounteous development projects such as a mega town hall centre that sits 1500 persons in its twin halls.

Eroton is in a joint venture with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in the operation of Oil Mining License (OML 18) which until 2014 belonged to SPDC in the Cawthorne Channels and areas around Asari -Toru local

Tolufolupe Derin-Adefuwa of NNPC commissioning projects in Okrika

council area.

Eroton E&P on January 17, 2020, thus showcased the sustainable development projects it has so far executed in Okrika local council area of Rivers State. The projects include the multi-million naira ultramodern town-hall centre at Okochiri declared as mother of all projects by the Wakrike cluster board.

Others include the construction and equipping of Comprehensive Secondary School, Ibaka, Science Laboratory; renovation of six class-

room block at Okrika National Secondary School; a solarpowered water project at Community Secondary School, Okochiri; and the construction of ICT Centre and Library with renovation of school hall at Ibaka town.

Others mentioned by the cluster officials include renovation and completion of Ofiomina Ama Public Health Centre; construction of four concrete fish ponds at Okochiri; construction of Ofiomina Ama Concrete Walkway Bridge; purchase and instal-

lation of 38 desktop computers, computer workstations & swivel chairs at Ibaka.

There is a shore protection project at Offiomina Ama Community said to be ongoing. Already, there has been distribution of textbooks to secondary schools in Okrika as well as supply of 1000 desks to secondary schools in the local council area plus supply of chairs for students and teachers in Okrika, according to the secretary of the WCDB, a private legal practitioner, Benebo Tamunosisi Alayineka, who took officials round. He confirmed that the board gets N45m per year in the past six years to execute projects under the global memorandum of understanding (GMOU) model inherited from SPDC. Eroton E&P executed the projects in partnership with the Nigeria National Petroleum Development Corporation (NNPC), which is a joint venture (JV) arrangement. The projects were handled by the Wakrike Cluster Development Board (WCDB) with about N270m in the past six years since the divestment of SPDC in Oil Mining Lease 11 (OML 11) which covers the Alakiri

and Orubiri fields.

In his address, the Wakrike Cluster Development Board chairman, Dean Sandy Tonyesika, a chief, said: “The citing of this building here was divinely ordained and we thank God for bringing this project to a successful completion. When the project was conceived in 2011 as a legacy project by SPDC, Okochiri was chosen as the best place for its location and today, it stands as a symbol of beauty and authority in this kingdom.

“The town-hall started as a pre-GMOU legacy project by SPDC and was subsequently handed over to a formal GMOU arrangement between NNPC/SPDC JV financing and carefully managed by the Wakrike Cluster Development Board (WCDB. However, when SPDC divested from some of its assets in 2014/15, Eroton (E&P) Company Limited took over operations in OML 18 which covers Alakiri and Orubiri fields in Okrika. By this arrangement, the new JV and Cluster Board worked hard to deliver this project.

“We thus thank both NNPC and Eroton E&P for their commitment at ensuring that this

project is completed. When I say completed, I mean both in structure and equipment. The hall is ready for use and can sit 1500 persons in two conducive halls. There is none like it in Rivers State for now.

“I recall how the king occasionally toured this environment to see the progress of work all this while. Thus, your encouragement and advice were key factors that spurred the board with purpose and commitment to accomplish this. This town hall with facilities in and out of it is self-sustaining. Your Majesty, it is my request that the proper management of this facility should be your interest so that this kingdom derives maximum benefit from it. There are many other projects beyond this that would interest everybody and show how hard the board has worked so far.”

The NNPC GMD, Mele Koko Kyari, represented by Tolulope Derin-Adefuwa of the Public Affairs Department, explained why the NNPC is the main owner of JV CSR projects, saying the corporation brings 55 per cent of project costs which the JV operations partners execute.

I want my husband back As late Chima’s traumatized wife sobs at world press conference Port Harcourt

by Boat

IGNATIUS CHUKWU

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daugo, pregnant wife of the Port Harcourt mechanic, Chima Ikwunado, who died in police custody at Mile One in the hands of the Commissioner of police’s Eagle Crack squad (E-Crack), says all she wants is for her husband to walk back home.

This was all she screamed at a world pres conference organized this Monday the coalition of civil society organizations. Adaugo is a special name for queenly ladies in Igboland, but there seems nothing queenly anymore for this newly widowed woman. Ada is a special name reserved for first daughters especially if they were special to their fathers; but her father died and left her high and dry. She now calls herself an orphan.

Ugo is name for fair-complexioned babies that are extremely beautiful. They are treated with reverence and royalty, but the man that would have restored her ‘Ugoness’ has been murdered by the state. There seems to be nothing ‘Ugo’ in her life anymore, or so she thinks, except God intervened.

Beauty or not, royalty or not, all Adaugo says she wants now is for her husband to walk back home. This dream may sound like something only God can do, because the police who knew how Chima died said he died of too much sugar in his body, but the wife says they both did sugar test in January 2019 before they agreed to marry and that there was no such trace. Those who saw Chima and the Ikokwu 4 last in police detention that were allegedly arrested for driving one-way said they were hanged upside down like Libyan prisoners. The survivors are said to carry deathly wounds that have exposed their bones. This is why the father and wife of Chima insist he was tortured to death, especially as the wife said the husband was a very quiet character who always came back home early to rest, never even a night crawler. He must be the kind of character that could not endure as much as his boys (apprentices). Some are said to have opted to confess to whatever the E-Cracked cracked them into.

Adaugo however later amended her request when personally interviewed by some press people, asking for the corpse of her husband.

While she makes her own demands, the civil society coalition led in Rivers State by Enefaa Georgewill has made its own demands. First, the human rights activists gave the background, saying; “Nigerians woke up to a heroic feat

by Erepamo Eradiri and Chinedu Ezenwaliri when they raised alarm about the plight of their auto mechanic named late Chima Ikwunado ,Victor Ogbonna, Osaze Friday, Ifeanyi Osuji and Ifaenyi Onyekwere. The Police authorities acknowledged the detention of these lads with their Eagle Crack Squad led by Superintendent

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of Police Benson Adetuyi domiciled in their Mile 1 Police station and later informed the public that late Chima Ikwunado the primary suspect had died.” These actions of the Police are clearly designed to mutilate the primary source(s) of evidence and criminal in nature.

Their own demands: “It is in the public domain that upright policemen who cannot make returns are not allowed to head units, if in doubt investigate the antecedence of managers of all such units. Maybe it will interest the police high command to know about the indirect taxation on commercial drivers that brazenly happen in front of their police stations by 7am and 6pm during shifts. It is common knowledge that the police in Nigeria have lost faith in the judicial system and best practice of intelligence, investigation, arrest, prosecution and conviction but have perfected the ‘shortcut’ of obtaining

Adaugo, wife of late chima Ikwunado (middle) who died in the police

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evidence under duress by housing expert torture teams and elaborate torture architecture.

“We hear that the arrogance of the Rivers police command is fueled by some name dropping officers who claim to be very close to the presidency thus we call upon the moribund Provost Marshall of the Police, the Inspector General of the Police, the Minister of Internal Affairs and the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to wade into this matter and save the lives of the injured victims in prison, relieve the management of the Rivers State command of its duties until investigations are concluded and appropriate sanctions are applied and enforced.

“The Rivers State Government under the management of a lawyer, Nyesome Wike, should address the state and chose the high road of equity and apologize to her citizens and give a clear road map for the prevention of such evil in the state again, particularly a response team for whistle blowing against acts of injustice.

The Governor should wade into the matter and direct the Attorney General of the state to cause those boys to be freed and the Commissioner of health to ensure they are given the best medical treatment that money can provide.

“The Governor should also direct the Attorney General to do the needful and call for an inquest into the circumstances that led to the death of Chima Ikwunado and its attendant institutional abuses: a judicial panel of enquiry will be most welcome. If those poor boys are not released by Wednesday, a series of civil actions would begin. The Ohanaeze group, doctors, lawyers, international bodies are lining up for action. It may soon be an epic battle.

@Businessdayng

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

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Investing in Rivers State Finance option for off-grid development in Niger Delta • All-On powers Nextier group in power dialogue series to spike the oil region Ignatius Chukwu

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Introduction: ll-On which has continued to finance and nurture alternative energy systems especially offgrid power alternatives has supported Nextier group to host a series of power dialogues on offgrid opportunities, awareness and financial windows with huge focus on the Niger Delta region.

Last week Thursday, January 21, 2020, Nextier hosted another one at Novotel Hotel in Port Harcourt with financing options as major target.

The moderator, Emeka Okpukpara, mentioned the objectives as highlight financial constraints limiting the acceleration of off-grid projects; evaluate available finance options for off-grid developers in the Niger Delta and beyond; discuss strategies to improve the bankability of off-grid developments in the Niger Delta; discuss ways to increase local financing options and evaluate how they help de-risk off-grid projects; and analyse methods to improve consumer financing and over all offgrid affordability. He said this was about mini-grids in the power industry with focus on the Niger Delta which he said seemed left behind. “It seeks financing to help those he that perpetually live in darkness.”

He reminded Nigerians about what the World Bank says about Nigeria having about 100 million persons who do not have access to electricity. “Grid extensions cost money and time, which are not there in the first place. The solution is in mini-grids, solar inverters, and son on.”

Nextier lined up panelists made up of those deeply involved in offgrid development, financing, mentorship and management. Topmost was a Nigerian who has played in this sector abroad for over a decade who is now back to Imo State to pioneer off-grid and gas revolution in rural areas, Albert Okorogu (PhD), Director-General/Chief Executive, Imo State Power & Rural Electrification Agency (I-POREA). He also lined up Uchechukwu Ogochukwu: CoFounder/Head of Business, Green-

Emeka Okpukpara, Nextier, Modetator

Albert Okorogu (PhD), DG of I-POREA; bent on off-grid revolution in Imo

Uchechukwu, Greenage Technologies: found key and fortune in inverter tech

Olasimbo Sojinrin; Solar Sister Nigeria

age Technologies, a young man who discovered off-grid mechanism through inverter techs while in the university. There was Olasimbo Sojinrin, Country Director, Solar Sister Nigeria, who are helping women entrepreneurs find their economic feet through inverters and solar systems.

Then, there was All-On’s Investment Manager, Afolabi Akinrogunde.

Albert Okorogu (PhD), DG of I-POREA; bent on off-grid revolution in Imo DG/CEO of the Imo State Power & Rural Electrification Agency (IPOREA) This expert seems unlucky each time he is invited back home to rescue Nigeria in the off-grid and alternative energy revolution. The first was when then president, Goodluck Jonathan, invited him to work on the off-grid sector. He said he met a set of scattered actions but no policy framework to guide the activities. He began action that produced instant results, but this was cut short by the exit of Jonathan. He went back to Europe. Now, he was recently invited

by Emeka Ihedioha to come do for Imo that which he could not do for Nigeria. He thus set up I-POREA as lynch-pad to a gas revolution in offgrid power supply starting from the rural areas. His Midas touch seemed to excite the sector. The Supreme Court has struck but Okorogu says he does not speak to politics but to expertise and technology.

He said: What I met was exactly like what I met at the national level when first I came. I also met over 600 communities without light and not connected to electricity. Some

had not seen electricity before. Some were sentenced to sniffing fume through other methods of fires for cooking. We found that even at the state secretariat where policies were articulated, there was no light, but generator noise everywhere. It was chaos.

I acted and we established an independent power agency with clear objective. We picked the low hanging fruits. The state secretariat is now electrified. We are to explore hidden renewable energy resources.

We have an emergency electrification plan. Gas is huge in Imo, so we articulated a plan to leverage on this for the purpose.

We must classify our energy centres as urban, semi-urban and deep rural areas. We know that investors want returns on investment and so do not push deep into the rural areas where between 70 and 90 per cent of the people reside. Wise governments push into the rural areas with electricity to push them out of deep poverty. We urge development agencies and entrepreneurs to endeavour to partner with state governments to change the energy story of Nigeria. At the moment, attention is only in the urban areas.

Solar is a huge asset in Nigeria and Africa. Even in the deep south (southernmost Nigeria), sunshine accounts for 4.7 kilowatts per meter square for up to 20 hours. Germany that is keen on use of solar energy only has 2.4kw. We want to bring power to our people and spur investors. We plan to turn gas flares to useful energy and compressed gas to electricity. Imo State is broke in terms of money so we

intend to bring developers at no cost.

The willing buyer/willing seller policy will help in this. They take your gas and give you 24-hour power supply.

You have to rise up and develop yourself. I tell it to their face in Nigeria that the solution we seek is in the rural areas (states). Solution: Individuals can come together to fund mini-grids and nano-grids. Many people are tired without action. There is something everybody can do. Few persons can light up their village.

Cooperative processes exist whereby some people can build ‘i-pass-myneighbour’ mini-grid or inverters.

Uchechukwu, Greenage Technologies: found key and fortune in inverter tech I started the effort in my 3rd year in the university, just in trying to solve our major problem on campus, light. We knew students’ problem was money and so could not afford to spend on expensive power components. The problem was how to prolong the life of a battery inverter.

Inverter is central in any energy system.

We tried to find out why solar panels were quick to spoilt and found it is because of the zinc which gets hot and causes wire issues.

Solution is finding a way to make the battery (in the inverter) to last longer. We found that if the battery is made to drain only by 30 to 50 per cent instead of 100 per cent before recharging, it would last far more than double of before.

We confirmed this when we worked for a bishop in Enugu in the estate where over N5m had been sunk into a solar project. We found

the trick; to save draining rate from 100 per cent to 50 per cent. This made the inverter to last to four years instead of just one year. That is how we found a business module.

We thus began as a student company and did our first job with the bishop. We realized that without power, nothing will work in this country. We stepped in and solved it and that opened doors for us. We started with bootstrapping, then to debt system (you give us money to build for you), then equity system (investors now came in).

On partnering with government: By our own experience, states do not care about power. We have sent messages to state governments on how we can help them stop use of diesel to run their plants but they do not even reply our letters.

Olasimbo Sojinrin; Solar Sister Nigeria: We source grants to support women We got $4m grant to support renewal energy projects. We found that lack of knowledge was the issue. Banks did not understand the off-grid economy and so were not treating the loan applications which they of course did not understand at all. We tried to close this gap by training the bankers. Today, 10 banks (instead of one) are lending to off-grid projects. We decided to use commercial strategy to pursue power. We got women to change behaviour. Today, we have 1500 women in 26 states in the project.

There is a lot of money in the sector of foreign direct investments (FDIs) trying to give grants. We also do the entrepreneurship bit of it.

All-On opens $100,000 package for each qualified developer

A

ll-On, which says Niger Delta takes 60 per cent of its activities, has unveiled a funding window worth $100,000 (about N36m) for each qualified off-grid developer helping to provide power supply in the region and beyond.

This is as the firm which is supported by Shell has urged state governments to court funding from the World Bank, the US, EU, and other international development agencies willing to fund offgrid projects in rural Africa.

The company said it is doing this in partnership with a foreign

agency which brings $50,000 and All-On brings $50,000 making it $100,000 to give to a successfully screened developer.

So far, about 17 developers may have benefited from the scheme since one year and 20 may benefit in 2020.

It was gathered that not many indigenous funding agencies are funding off-grid developers at the moment but the funding window may be dominated by foreign agencies.

According to Afolabi Akinrogunde, investment manager at All-On on the panel, it is more www.businessday.ng

profitable for state governors who are always in Abuja for one political meeting or the other to make

Afolabi Akinrogunde, investment manager at All-On

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time to explore huge opportunities for states at the offices of international agencies and development partners.

Akinrogunde said such governors would learn how to tailor their policies and programmes to suit such funding conditionalities and draw funds to help in several areas of their activities especially pro-poor programmes and grassroots economic activities.

He foresees most state governors creating five off-grid hubs attracting up to $5m each to boost industrialistion and forget month@Businessdayng

ly allocation.

“All-On is in impact-investment. We make both social and commercial impacts and we dare say that lack of energy is main problem of the Nigerian economy.

It is not just money that we put in the Niger Delta but ideas, solutions, advice and advocacy. In advocacy, we try to reduce friction and we support governments with information, knowledge and other ways.”

He says All-On does not charge as high as the banks do. “Making impact is as important as making profit”.

32

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

Sports

Weekend Review: Madrid derby, exciting EPL games beckon Anthony Nlebem

A

fierce football rivalry will be rekindled on Saturday in LaLiga when Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid clash in the Madrid Derby at Estadio Santiago Bernabau.

The game will be the 166th encounter between both teams in LaLiga.

The two giants come faceto-face for the second time in the league this season after the 0-0 result in the reverse fixture at the Wanda Metropolitano stadium.

Real Madrid will be aiming to consolidate their grip atop the league table after they leapfrogged their archrivals, Barcelona, courtesy of a 1-0 win against Real Valladolid.

Los Blancos will miss its injured star winger, Eden Hazard, but manager Zinedine Zidane will be able to call on in-form goalscorer, Karim Benzema, the midfield trio of Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Casemiro, and defender and captain Sergio Ramos to march the team to victory.

Atletico, meanwhile, will want to use this fixture to

avenge their loss to their city rivals in the final of the Spanish Super Cup held earlier this month. But Los Rojiblancos are having a difficult season, as they are struggling and are currently fifth on the log.

However, manager Diego Simeone has a galaxy of stars he can call on to deliver the needed result against their rivals and invigorate their campaign, including attackers Joao Felix and Alvaro Morata;

midfielders Thomas Partey and Saul Niguez and defender Stefan Savic.

Also on Saturday, Premier League leaders, Liverpool, will host Southampton at Anfield.

Liverpool extended their 16-point lead atop the table after they overcame a difficult Wolverhampton Wanderers last week. The Reds look set to dethrone Manchester City as league champions and break their 30-year wait for a

league title.

Although the club may be without the injured Sadio Mane, manager Jurgen Klopp will be counting on attackers Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino, midfielder, defender Virgil Van Dijk and influential full-backs, Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold, to maintain their unbeaten run.

They will, however, face a resurgent Southampton side,

2020 Lagos City Marathon: ValueJet joins the marathon family Anthony Nlebem

T

he Central Car Park of the Teslim Balogun Stadium Surulere came alive on Monday 27th of January as the Expo for the 2020 edition of the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon begins.

Similarly, in faraway Dubai, United Arab Emir-

ates, the Project Consultant for the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon Bukola Olopade and Head of Business and Programme, ValueJet, Temitope Ajibola met during the 2020 Dubai Marathon.

At the end of their meeting, the two brands agreed to enter into a partnership.

In a statement released

by Access Bank Lagos City Marathon Head of Commu-

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nications and Media Olukayode Thomas, Ajibola said he is highly impressed by the phenomenal rise of Access Bank Lagos City Marathon to a global brand within five years and is looking forward to an enduring relationship between the two brands.

Thomas revealed that ValueJet and other sponsors and partners of the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon will be

at the Marathon Expo which begins on Monday.

Thomas urged runners who have registered for either the full marathon or the 10km fun run to pick up their running kits at the Expo.

He also urged those that have not registered for the 2020 race to do so during the Expo as officials of the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon will gladly register interested runners.

“The 2020 Marathon Expo will be fun. Apart from intending runners picking up their kits, it will be an entertaining and fun place to be.

One of the best DJs in Lagos State, DJ Kelvinator will be on the ground from 9.00 am till 6.00 pm to entertain visitors at the Expo. Our sponsors and partners have concluded to give out gifts and products to visitors and runners after they answer simple questions. Runners and visitors will equally have the opportunity to interact with our celebrity runners and elite runners from Nigeria and other parts of the world’’ said Thomas.

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which has moved away from the brink of relegation and enjoyed a dramatic ascent to the top half of the table. The Saints have won three of their last five games and manager Ralph Hasenhüttl will hope that his squad, which includes their leading goalscorer, Danny Ings; James Ward-Prowse and captain Pierre-Emile Hojberg, continue their winning run.

Football fans can look forward to seeing one of Africa’s top footballing sons, Thomas Partey, looking to make his mark in LaLiga this weekend when his Atletico Madrid take on derby rivals Real Madrid.

One man who could inspire Atletico to raise their game is all-action midfielder and Ghana international (also known as the Black Stars) Thomas Partey. While the club itself is struggling to live up to its own high standards, Partey has been one of the Rojiblancos’ most consistent and impressive performers.

In what has arguably been the Black Stars’ best season at the Spanish heavyweights, the 26-year-old has also taken up something of a leadership role for Atletico and is calling

on the team to put their recent disappointments behind them and push hard for the remainder of the season.

“We have not had confidence and that is what we lack.

We have to be ourselves,” said the Ghanaian international.

“You have to forget, there is no other option. Work hard and hopefully good things come out. What we need most is the support of the fans.”

Sunday’s game sees Arsenal travel to the Turf Moor to face Burnley.

Arsenal will be hoping for the continuation of their revival under new manager, Mikel Arteta.

The Gunners have drawn three and won one of their last five games. Captain PierreEmerick Aubameyang will be available to lead the attack line after serving a threematch ban.

He has a reliable supporting cast with the likes of Alexander Lacazette, midfield maestro, Mesut Ozil; and Nicholas Pepe. Burnley, on the other hand, have struggled to maintain consistency this season but will be confident going into this encounter after their win against Manchester United last week.

Liverpool, Chelsea clash as FA Cup enters fifth round

L

iverpool are on a collision course with Chelsea in the FA Cup fifth round, while holders Manchester City will travel to Sheffield Wednesday following the draw.

There is also the potential of a reunion for Wayne Rooney with Manchester United, as the former England striker’s new club Derby County will host the Red Devils if they get through their fourth-round replay against Northampton Town.

Liverpool, who have been fielding a second-string side in the competition, also have a replay with Shrewsbury Town at Anfield with the winners visiting Frank Lampard’s Chelsea.

There will definitely be an all-Premier League tie as either Southampton or Tottenham Hotspur host Norwich City, while Leicester City will meet Coventry City or Birmingham City in another Midlands derby.

Holders Manchester City travel to Championship outfit Sheffield Wednesday, and Sheffield United will also face second- tier opposition in the form of Reading or Cardiff City.

Record 13-times FA Cup winners Arsenal, who won 2-1 at Bournemouth later on Monday, will visit third-tier @Businessdayng

Portsmouth.

The ties will be played in the week commencing March 3.

FA Cup fifth round Draw: Sheffield Wednesday vs Manchester City Reading/Cardiff City v Sheffield United Chelsea v Shrewsbury Town/Liverpool West Bromwich Albion v Newcastle United/Oxford United Leicester City v Coventry City/Birmingham City No r t h a m p t o n To w n / Derby County v Manchester United Southampton/Tottenham Hotspur v Norwich City Portsmouth v Arsenal

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

33

Hotels

Africa sustains rapid hotel growth OBINNA EMELIKE

W

ith her investment potential, Africa is today seen as one of the most promising regions for hotel developers. Aside from small chains and independents, four global hotel groups dominate signings and openings on the continent.

Over the last four rolling quarters, as of September 2019, Accor, Hilton, Marriott International and Radisson Hotel Group have opened 2,800 rooms and signed deals for 6,600 rooms. Across Africa, hotel development remains important in most advanced economies, such as Morocco and South Africa; and projects are multiplying in East Africa, especially in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. In West Africa, Nigeria is back on the development scene and thanks to emerging regional destinations beyond Abuja and Lagos.

Francophone Africa is also moving fast. The Ministry of Tourism of Ivory Coast has launched Sublime Cote d’Ivoire; an ambitious national plan for tourism development, and already announced over US$1 billion investment in the sector. Senegal is the other regional star, with local programmes such as Diamnadio, Lac Rose near Dakar and Pointe Sarene. Other countries showing active hotel development include; Benin, Cameroon, Guinea, Niger, and Togo.

Philippe Doizelet, managing partner, Hotels, Horwath HTL, West Africa’s leading hospitality consultant, and Forum de l’Investissement Hôtelier Africain (FIHA), the premier hotel investment conference in Francophone Africa, are impressed with the development.

According to Doizelet, air connectivity, better economic growth, currency and demographics are four fundamental factors, which are fuelling an increasing flow of investment into the hospitality sector in West Africa.

In the past few years, additional flight connections have transformed travel to and from West Africa, which, in the words of Doizelet, has been a game changer. “It used to be that the main hubs for flying between West African countries were Paris and Casablanca”, he said. “However, thanks to the rapid growth of Ethiopian Airlines and other carriers, such as Emirates, Kenya Airways and Turkish, the situation has changed; and new routes are offered to travellers. For example, it is now possible to fly direct from New York to Abidjan, where the African Development Bank is located, and to Lomé, where the Central Bank of West African States (BOAD) is situated.

With I ncreased travel comes increased commerce and demand for accommodation.”

According to the UNWTO, international tourist arrivals in Africa grew by 7 percent in 2018, one of the fastest growth rates in the world, together with East Asia and the Pacific.

The flight data analyst, ForwardKeys, recently confirmed that trend continuing. In 2019, African aviation experienced 7.5 percent growth and it is the stand-out growth market for Q1 2020. As at January 1, 2020 international outbound bookings were ahead 12.5 percent, 10.0 percent to other African countries and ahead 13.5 percent to the rest of the world. As a destination, Africa is also set to do well, as bookings from other continents are currently ahead by 12.9 percent.

The second factor is the superior economic growth of many West African countries,

which are expanding substantially faster than many of the world’s most advanced economies. According to World Bank data for 2018, West African countries, such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Senegal are growing at 6 percent per annum or better, more than double the world average, 3 percent. That is a potent attraction to international investors. However, that is not all; as prosperity grows domestically, so too does the local financial services industry. It then looks to invest client monies; and a good proportion of that capital gravitates towards real estate projects and, in turn, new domestic infrastructure. As those projects come to fruition, more prosperity is generated and so a virtuous cycle is stimulated, which acts as a catalyst for further economic development.

Currency is the third factor.

Later this year, the CFA franc, which is pegged to the euro, is planned to be dropped and 15 countries in West Africa (ECOWAS) will adopt the Eco, a new, free-floating, common currency, designed to reduce the cost of doing business between them and so increase trade. However, while there is great enthusiasm for the Eco, it is somewhat qualified because the economies of participating countries are at different stages of development and governments may find it difficult to adhere to agreed guidelines for managing their economies.

The fourth factor is demographics. The population is young and the fastest growing of any major world region. Ac-

cording to Philippe Doizelet, it is also characterised by a hunger to learn and confidence about the future. “People are seeing their standards of living improve and they are keen to seize opportunities. We are seeing that mindset reflected throughout the hospitality industry; it’s incredibly refreshing and it’s attracting business.”

He said.

However, the picture is not all rosy. Horwath HTL also identifies four factors, which threaten economic progress; they are security issues, political agenda, governance and increasing public debt. Although Africa today experiences much less conflict than it did three or four decades ago, when most African countries experienced war, some parts of the Sahel are still subject to security threats.

On the political front, although democracy is continuing to spread, it is not yet the general rule everywhere, especially when come the times of major elections. The third concern is governance. Philippe Doizelet said: “When people are poor and the state is weak, there will be corruption, but I’m not convinced that it is much worse than in other parts of the world.” The fourth concern is rising public debt, much of which has been incurred as long-term loans from the Chinese to build infrastructure.

That said, the debt to GDP ratio of many West African states is still less than many highly developed nations.

Matthew Weihs, managing director, Bench Events, which organises FIHA, concluded: “Africa is not the easiest place to do business, but it is an incredibly exciting place because the opportunities substantially outweigh the threats. Every time we organise a hotel investment forum, I see more hotel openings being announced and I meet new players keen to enter the market. The FIHA delegates are literally constructing the future of Africa in front of our eyes and anyone who attends the conference has the opportunity to join in.” FIHA takes place at the Sofitel Abidjan Hotel Ivoire in Abidjan, March 23-25, 2020.

Southern Sun Ikoyi unveils refurbished rooms to commemoration 10th anniversary

I

n commemoration of its 10th Anniversary, Southern Sun Ikoyi has recently unveiled its refurbished 181 guestrooms, meeting rooms and boardrooms for the heightened experience of guests looking to enjoy wholesome experience of business and leisure at the hotel.

Renowned for its signature comfortable rooms for mini-breaks and long stays, superior business amenities for engagements and excellent culinary services, the recent upgrade by the hotel further showcases Southern Sun Ikoyi’s commitment to delivering excellent hospitality to

its valued long-term partners and new guests.

Speaking on the refurbished new look of the hotel, Mark Loxley, the general manager of the hotel expressed excitement on the upgrade of the facilities within the hotel, as it is a necessity for every industry player within the hospitality sector to engage in periodic

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facelift of their establishment in ensuring that every experience by guests is constantly renewed with every visit.

Loxley stated that, being a premium and internationally branded 4-star hotel within the Lagos business community, it is imperative to consistently deliver excellent services that would drive for renewed customer patronage, guest referral and loyalty. Such experience is one not alien to Southern Sun Ikoyi and has earned it accolades and recognitions from premium travel and hospitality sites, local industry award platforms and renowned guests in its over

ten years of operation.

“At Southern Sun Ikoyi, we spare no expense in getting the best resources available in upgrading our guestrooms, meeting and boardrooms, WiFi infrastructure, security surveillance amongst other resources in consistently improving our services and ensuring that our esteemed guests have a complete hospitality experience within a soothing ambience. This will further heighten their nostalgia for repeated visits of the signature services received exclusively at the hotel compared to none”, the general manager concluded.

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Top BusinessDay Partner Hotels Four Points by Sheraton Hotel (Oniru Chiefatancy Estate,Lekki) Tel: +234 1 448 9444

Transcorp Hilton Abuja 1 Aguiyi Ironsi Street Maitama, Abuja Tel: +234-708-060-3000

The Wheatbaker #4 Onitolo(Lawrence Road), Ikoyi, Lagos.

Tel: 01 277 3560

Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Abuja 1 Uke St, Garki, Abuja.

Tel: +234 9 4603900, +234 805 7522500

Lagos Continental Hotel Plot 52, Kofo Abayomi St, Lagos Tel: 01 236 6666

Radisson Blu Hotel Ikeja #38/40 Isaac John St, Ikeja GRA100271, Ikeja Tel: +234-908-780 5555

206 Exclusive Hotel Plot 206 Oladipo Diya Road Opposite Olympia Estate

By Games Village Second Gate Durumi2 Abuja

Novotel Port Harcourt Address: 3 Stadium Road Rumuomasi, Port Harcourt Rivers State, Tel: 0809 713 5734

Radisson Lagos Ikeja #42-44 Isaac John Street, GRA Ikeja, Lagos

Southern Sun IkoyI Hotel Address: 47 Alfred Rewane Road, Ikoyi, Lagos Tel: +234 1 280 5200 / +234 1 280 0630 Email: ssikoyi.reservations@ tsogosun.com

Radisson Blu Anchorage Hotel 1A,Ozumba Mbadiwe,Victoria Island.

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34

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

Live @ The Exchanges Market Statistics as at Thursday 30 January 2020

Top Gainers/Losers as at Thursday 30 January 2020 LOSERS

GAINERS Company

Company

Opening

Closing

Change

N16.95

N15.75

-1.2

N10

N9

-1

BUACEMENT

N37.6

N36.75

-0.85

0.05

PZ

N5.85

N5.65

-0.2

0.04

UBA

N8.2

N8.05

-0.15

Opening

Closing

Change

N30.1

N31

0.9

WAPCO

N22.25

N22.5

0.25

UACN

N2.2

N2.4

0.2

CORNERST

N0.54

N0.59

UNITYBNK

N0.6

N0.64

GUARANTY JBERGER NEM

ASI (Points) DEALS (Numbers) VOLUME (Numbers) VALUE (N billion) MARKET CAP (N Trn)

29,030.93 4,411.00 274,465,838.00 9.095

Global market indicators FTSE 100 Index 7,381.96GBP -101.61-1.36%

Nikkei 225 22,977.75JPY -401.65-1.72%

S&P 500 Index 3,253.92USD -19.48-0.60%

Deutsche Boerse AG German Stock Index DAX 13,157.12EUR -187.88-1.41%

Generic 1st ‘DM’ Future 28,539.00USD -171.00-0.60%

Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index 2,976.53CNY -84.23-2.75%

14.953

Stock market sheds N37bn as Lafarge, UACN, BUA Cement, others lose

Interswitch to list N30bn bond on Nigerian Stock Exchange

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Stories by Iheanyi Nwachukwu

N

igeria equities m a r k e t lost about N37billion at the end of trading session on Thursday January 30, 2020.

Investors on Custom Street are reducing their stakes in equities despite full-year 2019 results seen trickling in at the local Bourse.

The market capitalisation of listed equities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) decreased to N14.953trillion from N 1 4 . 9 9 0 t r i l l i o n , l o s i ng N37billion.

FBNQuest research a na l y s t s ha d e x p e c t e d the market to maintain preceding day’s negative trading pattern in today session.

T h e Ni g e r i a n S t o c k Exchange (NSE) All Share In d e x ( A S I ) d e c re a s e d further by 0.27percent, moving from 29,103.21 points to 29,030.93 points.

The year-to-date (ytd) positive return decreased t o + 8 . 1 5 p e rc e nt, w h i l e week-to-date (WtD), the market has recorded negative return of about -2.02percent.

35

Lafarge Africa Plc recorded the highest decline from N16.95 to N15.75, losing N1.2 or 7.08percent.

UACN also dipped from N10 to N9, shedding N1 or 10percent, while BUA Cement dropped from N37.6 to N36.75, losing 85kobo or 2.26percent.

The share price of PZ Cussons also decreased from N5.85 to N5.65, losing 20kobo or 3.42percent, while

Access Bank Plc dropped from a preceding day high of N9.8 to N9.65, losing 15kobo or 1.53percent.

GTBank advanced most, after its share price moved from N30.1 to N31, adding 90kobo or 2.99percent.

Julius B erg er follow e d after rising from N22.25 to N22.5 , gaining 25kobo or 1.12percent.

NEM Insurance share price went up from N2.2

to N2.4, gaining 20kobo or 9.09percent. Cornerstone Insurance increased from 54kobo to 59kobo, adding 5kobo or 9.26percent. Unity Bank increased from 60kobo to 64kobo, gaining 4kobo or 6.67percent. In 4,411 deals, equity dealers exchanged 274,465,838 units valued at N9.095billion. GTBank, MTNN, UBA, Zenith Bank and Unilever were actively traded stocks.

h e Ma n a g e m e n t team of Interswitch will today visit the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to list its N30 billion Bond on the Exchange.

They will be honoured with a closing gong ceremony.

Following the registration of a N30 billion debt issuance programme with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria (SEC), Interswitch Limited, a leading technology-driven company focused on the digitisation of payments in Nigeria and other African countries, last year (October 2019) successfully concluded a N23 billion Series 1 Fixed Rate Senior Unsecured Callable Bonds issue via a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), Interswitch Africa One Plc (the Issuer).

The Series 1 Issue priced at 15percent was 2.6x subscribed. The 7-year Bonds, embedding a call option that can only be exercised from the second year, are payable in full at maturity. Investor participation was restricted to qualified institutional investors as defined by the SEC in Nigeria, with a proposed Bonds allocation of 64percent to pension fund managers, 7percent to asset managers and 22percent to commercial banks pending SEC approval. The strong level of over subscription

demonstrated investor confidence in the Interswitch brand, business model and long-ter m strategy, supported by strong domestic ratings from both Agusto & Co. Limited (Agusto) and Moody’s Investor Service (Moody’s).

The Issuer was assigned “A a 3 ” n a t i o n a l s c a l e programme rating (stable)

by Moody’s and “Aa” (stable) national scale rating by A g u s t o, o n t h e b a c k o f positive secular industry s h i f t s, a s t ro n g m a r k e t position and a good liquidity profile. The Sponsor was also assigned “Aa” (stable) rating by Agusto.

FBNQuest Merchant Bank and Stanbic IBTC Capital acted as Lead Financial Advisors/Issuing Houses and ABSA Capital Markets Ni g e r i a , F C M B C a p i t a l Markets, Quantum Zenith Capital & Investments and Rand Merchant Bank Nigeria, as Joint Issuing Houses.

impressive results this quarter, with the food business now moving towards expected projections. Gains in the sector can be attributed to a combination of ongoing brand loyalty and refined regional strategies that are designed to increase market penetration. These strategies have been boosted by recent improvements in the domestic market as a result of gains from the boarder closure.

The management’s strategy

on increasing the efficiency of its balance sheet and improving working capital continues to yield the desired result, with finance cost recording a steady decline. The Group also plans to issue corporate bonds in Q4.

Commenting on the result, Paul Gbededo, the Group Managing Director, said: “I am pleased with our Quarter 3 results. We have recorded impressive growth in our volumes, and profit before tax increased by 23percent.

Flour Mills grows Q3 pre-tax profit by 23% …shares outperform Nigerian Bourse broad index

F

lour Mills of Nigeria Plc on Thursday released its third-quarter (Q3) results for the year 2019/2020 showing impressive growth. The Nigeria’s leading integrated food business and agro-allied Group recorded Profit Before Tax (PBT) increase by 23percent to N3.7 billion in Q3, and by 9percent to N12.3 billion nine months period.

The group continues to make progress in its purpose of

‘feeding the nation, everyday’.

At N22.35, the share price of Flour Mills has gained 13.5percent this year and has outperformed the NSE benchmark Index.

Key Highlights The Group’s revenue in Q3 2019/20 was N152.7 billion, compared to N130.9 billion in Q3 2018/19 (17percent - YoY growth). For the nine months ended 31st December 2019, Group revenue was N423.5 billion representing a 6percent www.businessday.ng

increase compared to same period last year. Gross profit increased by 11percent in Q3 and by 3percent yearto-date (YtD) Gross Profit is N47.8billion, compared to N46.6billion last year.

Finance cost reduced to N4.3 billion, a significant drop (20percent) compared to N5.3 billion in Q3 2018/19 (21percent year-on-year (YoY) decline). Profit Before Tax increased by 23percent to N3.7 billion in Q3 and by 9percent

to N12.3 billion YTD. Net cash generated YTD was N7.9 billion, compared to N7.2 billion in the prior year.

A review of Q3 2019/20 results shows impressive performance across key segments of the business. The Group recorded remarkable growth in its volumes from 6percent during first- half to 8percent in the period under review.

The agro-allied, sugar and food value chains all had

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BUSINESS DAY

37

sponsored by

Efo riro a glory dish from Western Nigeria

O

ne of the many things I love about living in Nigeria, is the diversity of the food. For a foodie like me Nigerian cuisine is an opportunity to discover new food and cultures.

This diversity is what inspired the recipe edition of Culinary Delights.

One of my go to meals when I’m invited to someone’s house or at a party is Efo riro. The dish is very simple yet simultaneously rich and is native to the Yoruba tribe of Western Nigeria. This is considered to be one of the glory dishes of Yoruba cuisine.

The vegetables that can be used to cook this soup are Efo Shoko or Efo Tete (Green Amaranth). If these are not readily available where you live, leafy or frozen spinach is a very good substitute.

It’s super easy to make and highly nutritious. So please follow the recipe and let me know how it turns out.

Ingrdients for Efo Riro: Assorted meat and fish. use a combination of the following: • Beef • Shaki (cow tripe) • Smoked fish • Dry fish • Stock fish • 20 cl palm oil • 500g Efo Shoki • 5 tatashe peppers

@lehlelalalumiere Lehle Balde works at BusinessDay in the department of Strategy Innovation and Partnerships, she is also a financial inclusion advocate and impact investing radio anchor.

Originally from Senegal Lehle has a passion for culinary experiences.

Follow @bdculinarydelights on Instagram.

• 2 Maggi cubes • 2 tablespoons ground crayfish • 2 red onions • 2 small stock cubes • 2 tablespoons locust beans (iru)

• Salt & Habanero / Scotch Bonnet peppers (to taste) Before you cook Efo Riro • If you are using the hard stock fish, soak it for a few hours. Soak the dry fish till soft and debone.

• Cut the leafy vegetables • Deseed the tatashe and grind till coarse.

• Prepare other ingredients: pound/blitz the pepper, dice the onions and grind the crayfish.

Instructions 1, Start cooking the shaki first with as little water as

possible (see video below) as it is the toughest meat in the bunch. This soup should have as little water as possible so add small amounts of water at a time and top it up as you cook.

2. When the shaki starts to curl, add the dry fish and stockfish.

3. When the shaki is almost done, add beef, stock cubes and some of the onions and cook till all the meat and fish are well done.

Set these aside.

4. In another pot, pour the palm oil and heat it up. Once hot, add the remaining onions.

5. Fry the tatashe peppers till there’s no more water in

To make recipe recommendations or for collaborations please send an email to lehle.balde@businessday.ng

it. This should take about 15 minutes.

6. Add the locust beans, crayfish, and stir very well.

7. Add the cooked meat and fish, stir very well.

8. Add the vegetables stir very well, cover and once it heats up again, add salt to taste and take the pot off the stove.

There you have it, your Efo riro is ready to be served. You can Serve Efo Riro with Semolina, Amala, Pounded Yam, Eba or any other fufu meal. It also goes well with boiled white rice.

Please try it at home and let us know how it goes! Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @bdculinarydelights and @maggi_nigeria and use the hashtags #magginigeria #myculinaryrecipe to show us your Efo riro and stand a chance to win some special prizes.

@maggi_nigeria

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

news Union Bank turns gaze on women with...

Continued from page 1

indeed the world would be a better place if enough was done to clear the barriers women face,” Emuwa said.

Union Bank is today a major player in the SME space because it took the decision to venture long before the Central Bank’s recent push to get banks to lend more to the economy.

Speaking to BusinessDay in Davos, Emuwa said the path the bank chose to expand lending to small business has been “an interesting learning process”.

The bank says “Alpher

President Muhammadu Buahri (r), with Goodluck Jonathan, former president, after their meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, yesterday.

NAN

Nigerian ports record worst congestion...

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MTN plans IPO to sell 14% of Nigerian...

Continued from page 1

of the Telco firm and make

its shares more liquid and engineer better price discovery.

MTN Nigeria (MTNN) closed trading flat at N120 per share on Thursday, giving it a market capitalisation of N2.4 trillion, while the Group’s shares on the Johannesburg exchange gained for the third straight day as investors cheered the company’s plans.

MTNN which listed its shares by introduction at around N90 per share may see its share price trend lower as a flood of supply is set to hit the markets.

“There is still a cloud of worry given MTN’s experience in Nigeria,” an analyst told BusinessDay. “The tax case is not completely off but has been referred to appropriate quarters.”

MTN is raising money to pay down debt and simplify a portfolio of telecom businesses that spreads across Africa and the Middle East.

The company is also focusing investment on its main

markets – including $1.6 billion for Nigeria announced on Wednesday – and is “seriously investigating” the prospect of taking part in a planned privatization of Ethiopia’s phone monopoly, according to a spokeswoman.

On Thursday, the Federal High Court in Lagos struck out an N3bn fundamental rights enforcement suit by MTN against Abubakar Malami, the AGF. “MTN Nigeria is definitely doing well when you look at the company’s financial scorecard but regulatory risks remain a major concern,” said another analyst that spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Investors typically adopt a wait-and-see approach in times like this.”

Africa’s biggest mobilephone company has generated about 14 billion rand since kicking off a strategy to offload non-essential businesses in March, and is ready to step up the process, MTN said on Thursday. IHS Holdings Ltd., the continent’s largest operator of wireless towers, is on the

Nigeria’s refineries moribund despite...

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the teeming unemployed youths and therefore resolved that they would probe the deplorable state of the refineries vis-a-vis the huge resources has invested in revamping them.

“Despite the huge spending on turn-around maintenance of refineries, NNPC recently announced a cumulative loss of N123.25 billion in 10 months (January to October 2019), putting the total revenue of facilities at N68.82 billion, while total expenses incurred was N192.1 billion within the same period,” Yusuf said.

Data from NNPC showed the country’s ail-

was created to enable women to be the best versions of themselves”.

“We aim to help women on their respective journeys of greatness whether your aim is to start or expand your business, meet new people, build new partnerships or develop capacity for growth ; alpher is here to enable your success,” Union Bank said in a brief on its website.

Last night’s launch featured a number of successful female business owners who told the story of their foray into business management.

ing refineries had an operating deficit of N123.2 billion between January 2019 and October 2019.

Further analysis showed throughout 2019, the deficit in Nigeria’s refineries has moved at a geometric rate. In January 2019, the refineries recorded a deficit of N8.6 billion which skyrocketed to N18.89 billion in February.

In March, the refineries recorded a much higher deficit of N34.9 billion which increased further to N59.9 billion in May.

By June 2019, Nigeria’s refineries recorded an operating deficit of N77.4 billion which ballooned to N104.4 billion in August.

In September and October, www.businessday.ng

list and the Johannesburgbased company valued its stake in the firm at 23 billion rand in June, a spokeswoman said.

IHS is reviving plans for an initial public offering, people with knowledge of the situation said last year, after scrapping a US share sale in 2018.

The Mauritius-based company declined to comment.

MTN has sold minority stakes in two tower joint ventures for $523 million, redeemed preference shares in Nigeria and offloaded ecommerce businesses such as booking site Travelstart since starting the sale program last year.

MTN had on Tuesday committed to investing the sum of $1.6 billion in its operations Nigeria to strengthen its network and systems.

“We are fully aligned with the strategic agenda of the government and are committed to strengthening the digital economy of the country,” said Mcebisi Jonas, MTN chairman, during a visit to President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja.

The MTN Group chairman

said he was visiting along with top executives of the telecoms company to show appreciation to President Buhari “because most of the issues we raised during your visit to South Africa have been addressed, and there is progress on the remaining ones.”

Buhari assured the group of the Federal Government’s commitments to providing an enabling environment for businesses to succeed in the country.

“Partnerships between the public and private sectors remain the most viable means of bringing prosperity to the masses,” he said.

President Buhari also applauded MTN Group’s proposed rural telephony project, which he said: “will surely complement our economic diversification and financial inclusion programmes by connecting the producers based in rural areas to consumers located in our major towns and cities.”

“I am pleased to hear of the progress you are making in Nigeria, especially in supporting our digital inclusion programmes,” he said.

the refineries had losses of N111.5 billion and N123.2 billion, respectively.

“Billions of dollars have been spent on turna ro u n d m a i n t e n a n c e (TAM) of these refineries since inception with nothing to show and nobody to be held accountable,” Charles Akinbobola, a Lagos-based energy analyst, said.

To carry out the investigation, the Senate has mandated its Petroleum – Upstream/Down Stream and Gas Committees to oversight the refineries and the relevant government agencies involved and report back to it for further legislative action.

The position of the Senate was sequel to a motion

relied on orders 42 and 52 of the Senate Rules sponsored by Yusuf.

“Oil should be a blessing to us but in Nigeria, it makes a lot of establishments lazy. We should be concerned about it.

The refineries are bad and people are now taking the crude outside the country and bringing back refined products to the country at exorbitant prices,” said Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun Central).

Meanwhile, S enate President Ahmad Lawan noted that if the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is finally passed, it would address the challenges faced by the oil sector. He assured that work on the bill would commence in February.

https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

trict, or to eastern ports, in the event that all terminals in Lagos cannot discharge any vessels within four days.

Nicol said there was nothing wrong with diverting vessels from Lagos to Warri or Port Harcourt Port but that the industry operators were concerned about the economic implication. He said the cost of transportation would be heavy on shippers, especially importers who bring in about 400 to 500 units of containers every week.

“The question is how the shipper will cater for the cost of moving the cargo back to his base in Lagos. When such number of containers are taken to eastern ports, it becomes the shipper’s headache as to how to move them back to his destination,” he said.

He further noted that it’s very expensive to clear goods in Port Harcourt, estimating the cost to be double the cost in Lagos ports.

“Nigeria conceptualised the idea of establishing a deep seaport in order to become West African hub, but that vision is yet to be actualised many years down the line.

We have also failed to understand the role of multimodal transport system as well as good road network in ensuring effective cargo movement as well as decongesting Apapa,” said Boniface Aniebonam, founder, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF).

He said if government had appreciated the relevance of eastern ports, the current congestion problem would not have occurred.

FG seeks collaboration with states, LGs...

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the issues are looked at. It requires everybody to work together,” he said.

Monguno was, however, silent on the calls for the declaration of state of emergency on security as well as the calls on the president to sack the service chiefs.

“Those issues were not part of what we discussed,” he stated.

President Muhammadu Buhari has not removed any of his service chiefs since they were first appointed in 2015, despite the fact that their tenure first expired in 2018.

The president had on July 13, 2019 extended by another six months the tenure of office of the current service chiefs, including the chief of the defence staff, Gabriel Olonisakin, chief of army staff, Tukur Buratai, chief of air staff, Sadique Abubakar, and chief of naval staff, Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas.

The service chiefs, with the exception of Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu, have served out their mandatory 35 years.

“The meeting basically @Businessdayng

made an appraisal of the current security situation in the country and took a look at the possibilities and the opportunities available to government in addressing most of the recent challenges,” Monguno said.

“There were discussions and at the end of the day, the most important thing that we came up with is the need for collaboration both between governmental agencies and the larger Nigerian society because of the type of the insurgencies we are faced with, the complexities, the multiplicity of all kind of issues.

“There is a need for both parties – governmental agencies on one hand and the larger society – to collaborate more vigorously.

There is a need for us to deal with these problems in a comprehensive manner.

“Therefore, council has decided to take a closer look at issues that will help us not just at the federal level or at the state level, but right down to the local government level. But this is going to be done after due consultations with the relevant stakeholders,” he said.

Friday 31 January 2020

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news

Imo governor says committed to creating enabling environment for manufacturers, industrialists … urges them to attract investors for optimal development Iheanyi Nwachukwu

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L-R: Peter Kaindl of Kronospan; Onajite Okoloko, group managing director/GCEO, Notore; Niyi Adebayo, minister of industry, trade and investment, and Umana Okon Umana, managing director/CEO, Oil & Gas Free Zones Authority, during a recent visit to the Notore Free Zone in Onne, Rivers State.

Coronavirus: Lagos primary concern has been the return of Chinese – Abayomi …as Senate seeks additional funding for NCDC …Chinese government collaborating against spread ANTHONIA OBOKOH & Solomon Ayado, Abuja

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ommissioner of health, Lagos State, Akin Abayomi, says the state primary concern has been the return of Chinese citizens to Lagos in a few days’ time, saying the Chinese government through her embassy in Nigeria is working with Lagos State government to prevent the entry of coronavirus into the state.

Abayomi, who disclosed this on Wednesday, while giving update on the state government’s level of preparedness to prevent or contain any possible entry of the disease as well as other infectious diseases into Lagos.

According to Abayomi, the areas of cooperation include the issuing of advisory on travel between China and Lagos, and self-quarantine of persons coming in from China and other endemic countries, especially from South-East Asia to Lagos.

“The Chinese government has sent notification to her citizens to remain in China until there is clarity about the spread of the infection adding that the

Chinese government has also instructed that their citizens who choose to return to Nigeria should be self-quarantined for 10 to 14 days,” he said.

Abayomi, while outlining strategies and plans that have been put in place by the state to prevent or contain possible outbreak, said Lagos was particularly vulnerable and susceptible to an entry of the virus because of the large trading population between Nigeria and China, large number of Nigerians travelling back and forth on the Lagos-China trading route and the large number of Chinese citizens living in Lagos or using the state as a point of entry.

He noted also that the peculiar nature of the state due to its very high dense population, many high density residential locations and a significant number of slums also make it become particularly vulnerable to outbreak and spread of infectious diseases.

“Lagos is also particularly vulnerable because of its peculiar nature; it is the largest megacity in Africa, it has a very

high dense population and it has many high density residential locations and a significant number of slums and therefore it becomes particularly vulnerable to outbreak spread and it our duty to ensure that we put all strategies in place to try and prevent the entry or the spread of the virus in our communities,” the commissioner said.

Moreover, the Senate on Thursday urged the Federal Government to appropriate additional funds to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to stem the outbreak of the coronavirus.

The funds, it said would be used to purchase latest equipment for research and diagnosis of not just coronavirus but other tropical diseases that threaten human existence.

Also, the Senate urged the Nigerian public desirous of travelling to Asia, especially China to heed the Federal Government travel advisory on China and put their travel arrangements on hold till further notice, and until the outbreak of the virus was vanquished from the face of the earth.

The Senate’s requests followed a motion during plenary, sponsored by chairman Senate Committee on Primary Health Care and Communicable Diseases, Chukwuka Utazi (Enugu North).

Titled “Coronavirus Outbreak and Preventive Response Toward Stopping the Scourge in Nigeria,” Utazi said the disease is not carefully handled, it will cause a lot of death.

“Senate also urges the Federal Ministry of Aviation to ensure that all persons arriving from China especially the Chinese citizens of Nigeria that traveled home for the Chinese Lunar New Year festivities or from any country that has the major disease outbreak to self-isolate.

“This is by staying indoors in their homes for at least two weeks before mixing with the Nigerian public.”

Leading the debate, Utazi said that according to medical definition, coronavirus was a type of common virus that infested humans typically leading to upper respiratory infection.

This is why Zamfara is growing IGR faster than others BUNMI BAILEY

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amfara State has recorded the fastest growth in Internal Generated Revenue (IGR), thanks to the effective implementation of its Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS).

According to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Zamfara’s IGR grew year-on-year by 137.9 percent to N10.6 billion in the first nine months of 2019 from N4.5 billion in the same period of 2018.

An anonymous official from the Zamfara State Internal Revenue Service (ZIRS) attributes the improvement to the ITAS, while other minor factors are

good management, electronic collection of taxes and creating awareness for tax compliance in the state.

“The ITAS has helped us to reduce loopholes in our tax collection process and help to grow our IGR to the level we are now.

The whole administration of the revenue authority is automated from the beginning to the end.

From the payment part, we integrated with the banks.

“When a tax payer goes to the bank, he can access any of the electronic platforms such as Reminta, E-transact, etc., to make payment. So that payment is paid directly into the IGR account, no intermediary or any human intervention or manual process is there. From www.businessday.ng

there, the person gets his or her receipt, which is automatically generated,” the official further says.

In 2013, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) introduced ITAS to improve tax administration in Nigeria and transform the tax compliance process away from the current manual system, which was tedious and bureaucratic.

Under the ITAS, all monthly and annual tax returns, along with support documentation can be filed electronically. It is also convenient as taxpayers can also make payments and obtain their receipts online.

Other top states with the fastest IGR include Ekiti, Osun, Kebbi and Benue, which grew

by 109.1 percent, 88.5 percent , 86.8 percent and 78.0 percent, respectively.

While the lowest are Kano, Enugu, Ogun, Bayelsa, and FCT with 0.63 percent, - 9.5 percent, -16.2 percent, -16.9 percent, and -92.9 percent Also from the NBS report, 36 states and FCT IGR figure hits N986.3 billion in the first nine months compared to N692.5 billion recorded in the first half of 2019. Similarly, the third quarter 2019 states and FCT IGR figure hits N293.8 billion compared to N392.4 billion recorded in the second quarter of 2019.

This indicates a negative growth of 25.1 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

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mo State governor, Hope Uzodimma, has committed to creating an enabling environment for manufacturers and industrialists in the state.

The governor spoke on Wednesday when he received the Imo State chapter of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) at the Government House in Owerri. He challenged them to attract investors to the state.

According to Governor Uzodinma, he is aware of the challenges facing them, assuring that his administration is keen on the revival of industries in the state.

The governor said: “I am not unaware of your challenges. We are committed to ensure that our state is industrialised and employment created for our youths.”

The governor promised that he would visit the industrial layout along Onitsha road after which a Joint Technical Committee would be set up to come up with a blue-

print on how to resuscitate the industrial layout.

While warning that government will not hesitate to revoke Certificates of Occupancy (C-of-O) issued to unserious allottees, the governor advised the manufacturers to attract investors into the state for optimal development.

Speaking earlier, President of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Chuma Eluma thanked Governor Uzodimma for thinking outside the box in his quest to make the state a manufacturing hub in the South East.

Eluma disclosed that the high cost of production in the state is associated with the deplorable state of roads at the industrial layout, inadequate power supply and constant extortion from security personnel.

He called for the intervention of the State Government to arrest some of these problems and promised that they will do their best to improve the manufacturing sector in the state for the betterment of Imo people.

NADDC to factor in motorcycle, bicycle policy as it plans re-presenting ‘automotive policy’ bill …higher import tariffs of up to 100% for FBUs, 125% on used cars to be reviewed HARRISON EDEH, Abuja

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ational Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) will be factoring on the submission of the motorcycle, tricycle and bicycle officials as it commences discussion with stakeholders on areas of concerns on automotive policy, as it plans re-presentation of the bill as an Executive Bill to the President.

The government says it needed the policy to come alive to ensure investment commitment on the automotive sector has legal backing to sustain investors’ confidence, while driving wealth creation.

Speaking on Thursday in Abuja during the government stakeholders dialogue session on the draft automotive bill, Niyi Adebayo, minister of industry, trade and investment, said the discussion with stakeholders was focused on ensuring Nigeria reap the huge economic benefits from the automotive sector like other countries of the world, considering its market size.

The draft automotive bill was passed by the National Assembly in 2018 to the President for consideration and assent. However, due to several concerns and issues flagged by several key stakeholders, the policy was returned to the NADDC for further review and amendment, Adebayo said.

He noted that the Nigerian market and growing population of the middle class had proven to be the focal attraction for investors with enormous opportunities inherent within the automotive sector, @Businessdayng

adding that it had become imperative for key government stakeholders to discuss legal framework that would grow investment into the sector and create employment.

Giving further insights on possible areas of review, Farouk Umar, director of Planning and Policy at the NADDC, said the proposed amendment would look at proper definitions of what constituted Semi Knocked Down (SKD) and Complete Knocked Down (CKD).

The review, he noted, would further look at development of a basis for determining and measuring local content contribution that would be based on value addition and labour fractions; and also a system for yearly evaluation of same.

The director assured that the proposed review should make all the necessary provision for bicycle, motorcycle and tricycle assembly plants to thrive.

Higher import tariffs up to 100 percent for fully built tariff cars and 125% on used cars would also be reviewed, he said.

Also speaking at the event, Osita Izunaso, who is the chairman of the governing boards of the NADDC, at the review meeting, expressed optimism that the input by most private sector stakeholders at the event would ensure a solid document that would give a legal backing to the automotive sector in the country.

It would be noted that the Nigerian Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP 2014-2024) was designed to ensure growth and sustained development of the auto industry in Nigeria.

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

Business SOUTH-SOUTH

COMPLETE COVERAGE OF SOUTH-SOUTH / SOUTH-EAST

Enugu set to raise IGR to limit over-dependence on federal allocation REGIS ANUKWUOJI, Enugu

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nugu State government says it is set to utilize its improved internally generated revenue (IGR) to boost its economy, so that it would depend less and less on the federal allocations.

G overnor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi also said that the state government has set in motion programs that would further lessen hardships faced by investors in the state.

The state has relaunched the revised Enugu State Business Agenda (SBA), an initiative of the Enugu Coalition of Business and Professional Association (ECOBPA).

The governor said that his administration had implemented reforms to increase the state’s IGR; pointing out that the impression that the state was a core civil service domain had been changed to include a state that is renowned for business.

Ugwuanyi represented by secretary to the state government (SSG), Simon Ortuanya, said that the state was only behind Lagos State in IGR recoup; saying that his administration had blocked all revenue leakages.

“Our state is currently the

Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, governor, Enugu State

only one in the country that survive without Federal Allocations. We pay our workers and pensioners as and when due,” he said.

The governor stated that he had the desire to make investors comfortable in the state by providing the enabling environment. He said he has also addressed the incidences of multiple taxation in the state.

According to him, the state government was not unmindful of some touts that go about extorting money from business owners. He warned that

such people do not have the mandate of the state government to do that. And would be dealt with by the law. governor Ugwuanyi said that the state government has put in place a unified accounting system with a central revenue account; adding that the government has also taken the security of lives and property to the next level to ensure that businesses thrived in the state.

Matthew Kalu, a consultant with the Centre for International Private Enterprises (CIPE), while presenting a

brief, said, there were great need for economic reforms in the state. He decried the high taxes rates and rents in the state; saying that revenue generation needed not to be at the expense of businesses.

The consultant said that the issue had impugned on the development and growth of businesses in the state.

He said that granted that the state had made progress in the World Bank’s Index of Ease of Doing Business; but a lot still needed to be done. He called for the adoption of a business

agenda for important reforms.

“There should be an institutionalised system or forum where the public and private sector players will dialogue and look at issues that are negatively affecting businesses,” Kalu said.

Earlier, the chairman of ECOBPA and president of Enugu Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, Emeka Udeze, said that the organisation comprised of over 30 different businesses and professional bodies. He said that the commitment of the association was to partner with the state government to create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.

Udeze said that the maiden edition of SBA dealt with eight priority issues that were affecting businesses in the state; saying that it was gratifying to note that three of such issues had recorded some levels of improvement since the discourse.

“Interestingly, the 2018 World Bank Ease of Doing Business Report ranked Enugu State the second best in the country. There is no doubt that the implementation of the recommendations of this revised SBA would expand the state economy by attracting more investors,” he said.

Dep. minority leader ESHA set to change economic status of constituency REGIS ANUKWUOJI, Enugu

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he member representing Awgu, Aniniri and Oji River federal constituency of Enugu State, Toby Okechukwu has promised to take more youths from his constituency out of job seeking, and make them employers of labour.

Okechukwu, who is the deputy minority leader in the House of Representatives, disclosed this during a youth empowerment summit organized by the Awgu Youth Alliance (AYA) at Awgu, with the theme: “Youth Empowerment, Panacea to Sustainable Development of Awgu.” Over 3,000 youths attended the event.

The federal lawmaker said he had in 2019 empowered more than 200 youths from Awgu local government area of the state that went on skill acquisition training at the Scientific

Equipment Development Institute (SEDI), Enugu and the Metallurgical Institute, Onitsha in Anambra State.

Okechukwu, who was represented at the event by former state commissioner for information Godwin Udeuhele, said, that greater number of youths had already been shortlisted for another round of skill acquisition training in the 2020 empowerment program.

“I am impressed with the organisers of this program, which is meant to redirect the thinking of youths in Awgu local government, to think out of the box, to ensure they build themselves in different fields of endeavour, and become employers of labour in those chosen areas. The turnout in this summit is highly encouraging, unlike before.

I will redouble my efforts in making sure the empowerment programs are driven by the youth,” the federal

lawmaker said.

T h e d e p u t y m i n o rity leader HOR asked the youths to follow all the business tips and talks given to them by the resource persons to improve on whatever they are doing; and become employers of labour and trainers of people in various business of their interests. He added that if they do so, the sky would be their limit, provided their targets and focus are on selfdevelopment, he said.

The lawmaker promised to partner with AYA and other skill acquisition training agencies and organizations to ensure that youths of the constituency were empowered for self-actualization.

He called on the AYA and other youth associations to draw a master plan to key into the program, as over 50 percent of his 2020 empowerment program would be cantered on youths.

In his keynote address,

Akachukwu Chichebe from the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Abuja, who spoke on a topic: “Awgu Youth empowerment: Synergizing the Barber, the Clipper and the Subject,” described the relationship between the human and material resources in Awgu and the tools available at the disposal to harness the opportunities that existed.

He advised that the youths should go for products that have comparative advantages, particularly in agriculture, where he said Awgu local government was a known entity in the agric fortunes of Enugu State.

Other resource persons at the summit that spoke, encouraged the youths on the need for skill acquisition and self-reliance, in view of dwindling white-collar jobs in the country. They were: S.N. Ndubuisi, the MD/CEO of SEDI; Greg Anyaegbudike,

team lead, UK Department for International Development/Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (DFID/ PERL) Abuja. They all stressed that there are so many federal and state agencies as well as private and international organisations which provide opportunities for training and empowerment of youths in different fields of human endeavour; and enjoined the youths to take advantage of such opportunities to better their lives.

Earlier, the president of Awgu Youth Alliance, Francis Akpa stated that the aim of organising the summit was to provoke industrial revolution and power up Awgu youths, having identified the challenges facing the youths and the development of Awgu. The summit, he said would, beside other areas, identify with the development of education, sports, entertainment and agriculture.

US based medical expert tasks FG, states on PHC services SABY ELEMBA, Owerri

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US based Nigerian medical doctor and humanitarian, Patience Onuoha has urged both the Federal Government and the state to initiate qualitative health care delivery services. Onuoha who is also the proprietor of Patchin Enterprises Limited, noted that sustainable free medical services at the grassroots would spare the masses from the hazardous effects of infectious diseases such as yellow fever, dysentery, malaria, diarrhoea and other infectious diseases.

The medical expert, an indigene of Ihiagwa clan in the Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, stated this at a ceremony marking the 2019 annual Ihiagwa day celebration during which she was conferred with a chieftaincy title by the traditional rulers of the two communities that make up the clan.

Famous for her penchant to alleviate the plight of the masses, Patience assured that she would continue to use her resources and connections within and outside the country to accelerate the pace of transformation of both the Ihiagwa ancient kingdom and the Dindi Ihiagwa communities.

In their separate remarks, the chairman of the Ihiagwa Town Management Committee (ITMC) and that of the event, Emeka Udokporo and Festus Ekechi (Akaekpuchi Onwa I of Dindi), described the day as sacred to the people. He said that it was organized to celebrate their common ancestry, the peace, love and unity of their clan.

Udokporo who particularly enumerated the achievements of Patience Onuoha in the community disclosed that the Mezie Ihiagwa (USA) had promised to construct the foundation and roof the civic centre project which would be properly equipped with among other things, the history of the Ihiagwa, its culture and festivals.

The traditional rulers of Dindi Ihiagwa Ancient kingdom, Eze Kingsley Odu and Eze Lucky Ajoku in their various remarks extolled Chief Patience Onuoha as a unique woman who has contributed immensely towards the development of the area.

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Sahara Group backs gender equality at OECD summit in Paris Segun Adams

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nsuring equal access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender is essential for promoting sustainable development across the globe, Pearl Uzokwe, director, Governance and Sustainability, Sahara Group, has said.

Uzokwe, who spoke in Paris at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Private Finance for Sustainable Development Conference, which held from January 28 - 30, said galvanising private finance alongside other sources of finance for gender equality was not only urgent but critical for sustained wealth creation, especially in developing countries.

Uzokwe said Sahara Group had consistently led the cause of equal access and opportunities in the private sector through support for genderrelated projects and policies that support employment and growth within the organisation, which is free of any gender-based considerations.

“Sahara Group is passionate about the issue of gender equality and we continue to promote and invest in projects that empower men and wom-

en to pursue economic prosperity. We are also entrenching gender diversity at the board level of the organization in line with global trends in corporate governance,” she said.

Noting the need for women empowerment as a precursor to achieving gender equality, Uzokwe said governments and businesses need to be “more deliberate and committed” in their support for activities that will connect girls and women to transformative economic opportunities. She said strengthening the private sector and ensuring well-defined and unbiased entry pathways are available at all levels.

“Sahara Group aligns with the position that empowering women and eliminating the hurdles to success for women in both the formal and informal sectors has the potential to set the tone for attaining several sustainable development goals, with special emphasis on goal 5 that speaks to gender equality,” she affirmed.

The OECD conference noted that a collaborative approach involving the government, business, civil society, and development agencies will be required to achieve the task of raising private finance towards promoting gender equality.

Big threats, opportunities await Nigeria on back of continental trade treaty - IPAN STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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nstitute of Public Analysts (IPAN) sees both threats and opportunities arising from Africa’s most populous country signing up for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.

The AfCFTA seeks to establish a single market for goods and services across 54 countries, allow the free movement of business travellers and investments, and create a continental customs union to streamline trade - and attract long-term investment. Clinching Nigeria’s agreement and moving into the operational phase in July 2019 was a significant step.

IPAN, a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Health, is a professional regulatory

body of public analysts. Public analysts ensure the safety and correct description of food by testing for compliance with legislation.

At the second edition of its Business Network Breakfast Series (IBNBS), the institute brought in other quality assurance regulators to explore how Nigeria can benefit from the continent-wide trade treaty.

“This is the most auspicious time to organise our business breakfast network on the trade treaty given that most companies are having strategy sessions now to plan for the year. We intend our deliberations today on this continent-wide trade agreement to help companies better position themselves to take advantage of showing the role of conformity assessments and laboratory tests in mak-

ing goods competitive,” Aliyu Abdullahi Angara, registrar/ CEO of IPAN said.

Officials from the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), who honoured the event with their presence acknowledged that the sheer size of the Nigerian market meant many businesses across the continent would want to have a piece of the pie.

This is also a big opportunity for made in Nigeria goods and services, if Nigerian businesses adhered strictly to the quality standards required by the African Organisation of Standardisation (ARSO).

“Quality assurance for made in Nigeria goods is critical if the country is to profitably participate in the conti-

nental trade agreement. As a country, we need to take our membership of the African Organisation of Standardisation (ARSO) seriously by ensuring strict compliance assessment standards. Quality sells,” said Osita Aboloma, director-general, SON, represented by Mojisola Kehinde, director, Laboratory Services at the SON. To achieve accurate laboratory testing of products, experts say laboratories must have the necessary equipment to undertake the test it is required to carry out. Personnel must have adequate skills and competencies, and laboratory equipment must be calibrated regularly. Laboratories are also encouraged to undertake inter-laboratory tests and proficiency testing.

‘Succession management is crucial for business continuity’ Daniel Obi

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ithout careful management of the leadership succession process, microfinance banks (MFBs) could face challenges such as power tussles with its consequences, costs of abrupt hiring, uncertainty, chaos, damage to company’s culture, reduced performance and may witness business failure in an extreme case.

These were made expressed

by Foyinsola Akinjayeju, associate partner at Phillips Consulting Limited, while making a presentation titled ‘Steps for Effective Succession Management’ at a recent conference organised by the Lagos State chapter of the National Association of Microfinance Banks.

In her presentation, Akinjayeju in a statement said: “Preparing the next generation of leaders has become more imperative than ever. Some companies meticulously follow procedures of ‘next-in-line’ for leadership roles yet their new leaders are ill-prepared for the role and end up as corporate placeholders, at the centre of chaos.”

She advised business leaders not to plan for the present alone, but rather to ask themselves if their people were the best talent for the future, a situation that could be influenced through effective succession management.

She went on to distinguish between succession management and more common practices of succession planning and replacement planning, citing their areas of differences around Focus; Successors, and

Time Investment required.

While replacement planning focuses only on managerial positions and identifying talent to replace individuals who leave such positions, succession management, on the other hand, is concerned with corporate-critical positions across grades, profiling the talent (mix of job skills and unique competencies) required for such positions, identification of the suitable talent, deliberate development of the identified talent, and regular monitoring of the process to measure its effectiveness in respect of the strategic objectives of the organisation.

Organisations who seek long-term sustainability must adopt a robust succession management system while focusing on talents who demonstrate high potential.

Rob Taiwo, managing director of Phillips Consulting, also shared on his experience taking over the management of the company from the founder. He highlighted the importance of character, which he indicated as a better determinant of performance over competence when hiring a leader.

In his words, “Challenges often arise in the seemingly small areas like stakeholder engagement, culture, or perception and the one thing leaders need to keep going is grit.” He also stated the need for a shared purpose between the CEO, the chairman, and the Board.

He stressed the importance of appropriate timing and extolled authentic leadership as a key success ingredient, admonishing CEOs to give guidelines only and not impose their methods on their successors. www.businessday.ng

L-R: Fayo Williams, council member, Lagos State Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Muda Yusuf, director-general, Lagos State Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Margaret Ukegbu, South West zonal director, National Commission for Refuge Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, and Saskia Kok, head, unit migration protection and assistance, United Nation, at the private sector partnership in providing sustainable reintegration and protection for Nigerian returned migrants, organised by (LSCCI) in Lagos.

Huawei: UK’s evidence-based decision good for more advanced, secure telecoms infrastructure BUNMI BAILEY

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uawei is reassured by the UK government’s confirmation to allow it to participate in the country’s 5G roll-out.

According to Victor Zhang, vice-president, Huawei, in a statement, “This evidencebased decision will result in a more advanced, more secure and more cost-effective telecoms infrastructure that is fit for the future. It gives the UK access to world-leading technology and ensures a competitive market.”

The British government said Tuesday it would allow Huawei to build the country’s next generation of super-fast wireless networks, despite US’ threatening that permitting Huawei equipment could undermine trade and intelligence ties with the US. Zhang says Huawei has strong track record of supplying cutting-edge technology to telecoms operators in the UK for more than 15 years, and it

will continue with “supporting customers as they invest in their 5G networks, boosting economic growth and helping the UK continue to compete globally.”

The clear cyber security record of Huawei has been recognised by two parliamentary committees in UK, a country with the toughest oversight of the telecoms industry in the world, and the views of preeminent intelligence officials, all of whom agree there is no technical reason for excluding Huawei from the UK’s 5G network.

British government has full access to evaluate Huawei product ranges through Cyber Security and Evaluation Centre, opened in the country in 2010. The oversight board of the facility is chaired by the CEO of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre with members from government including Government Communications Headquarters, as well as the UK telecoms sector.

Responding to the decision

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on excluding Huawei from core network, the spokesperson says Huawei has not been invited to bid for any of the core network contracts for the 5G networks in the UK, saying, “Our focus remains the supply of world leading radio products where we have an established position in the UK market.”

Zhang notes that Huawei agrees a diverse vendor market and fair competition are essential for network reliability and innovation, as well as ensuring consumers have access to the best possible technology.

Many share the sentiment that cutting competition by a reduction to just two vendor choices, cannot be good for the market and consumers, neither helpful to strengthening resilience of telecoms networks that UK government describes as “of paramount importance”.

Dexter Thillien, a senior TMT analyst at Fitch Solutions, told CNBC, “Three is better than two,” he said, “If @Businessdayng

you ban Huawei, you have a choice between Ericsson and Nokia. You lack competition.”

A study by Mobile UK shows that excluding Huawei would cost the UK economy £7 billion and result in more expensive 5G networks, raising prices for anyone with a mobile device.

Across the EU, no government has yet imposed an outright ban on Huawei.

Operators warn that banning Huawei may add years of delays and billions in costs to European countries’ 5G network launch.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week, “Diversification is crucial to ensuring a country’s security in the roll-out of 5G mobile technology and shunning one supplier altogether risks being counterproductive.”

Huawei’s focus will remain “supplying our customers with secure, reliable equipment so we maintain their support and continue to help create jobs and prosperity in the UK,” Zhang states.

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news

NCDMB, Rungas start cylinder factory in Bayelsa Olusola Bello

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etermined to ensure Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) penetration in the Nigerian market and improved the health of the locals, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) announces that it has partnered Rungas Prime Industries Limited in the establishment of a 400,000 per annum Type 3 LPG Composite Cylinder Manufacturing Plant in Polaku, Bayelsa State.

Making the announcement in Yenagoa at a town hall meeting with chiefs and representatives of the Polaku Community, Simbi Kesiye Wabote, executive secretary of NCDMB, confirmed that Rungas had been allocated two hectares of land at Polaku for the establishment of the factory.

He said NCDMB had purchased 10.6 hectares of land at Polaku in June 2013 for the purpose of establishing a pipe mill but discussions with Yulong Pipemill of China and other investors did not yield expected results, leaving the land to lie fallow for almost seven years.

According to Wabote, the ground-breaking ceremony for the cooking gas cylinders manufacturing facility will be performed in a few weeks by the minister of state for petroleum resources, Timipre Sylva, adding that NCDMB was keen for

the project to start immediately because it would create employment opportunities for youths from the state and environs.

He indicated that another strong motivation for the facility was the direct linkage to one of the minister’s operational priorities, which is the penetration and utilisation of liquefied petroleum (cooking) gas by Nigerians.

The executive secretary expressed hope that the project would generate up to 200 direct and indirect jobs during construction phase, and about 350 direct and indirect jobs during the full operations phase, in addition to other induced employment and economic activities.

He also confirmed that NCDMB had allotted another hectare of the Polaku land to a gas distribution company for the construction of a Pressure Reduction and Metering Station. “This is meant to supply gas to upcoming industries in Polaku, Gbarain, and other surrounding areas to the distribution of domestic gas for power generation and for other industrial uses,” he said.

He explained that the Board changed its strategy after experiencing long delays in getting investors for the planned pipe mill. The new strategy will ensure utilisation of the site and bring manufacturing outfits to the area for creation of jobs and increase in economic activities,

he said.

He said NCDMB was also in discussion with other investors to take up the remaining portions of the Polaku land, adding, “We will allocate the land to as many companies as possible for setting-up of viable businesses until the land is fully allocated.”

He maintained that NCDMB’s partnerships with investors were in line with its vision to serve as a catalyst for the industrialization of the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

Identifying reasons why Yulong Pipemill did not continue with the pipe mill project, he said the company had concerns about security, cooperation from the host community and return on their investment, especially after the crash of crude oil prices in the international market. He noted that the company moved to Lekki Free Zone in Lagos and set up the pipe mill within six months in 2016.

He charged the Polaku chiefs and leaders to support the new investment because it will place their community on the map of oil and gas manufacturing activities and provide job opportunities for their children.

“Your roles should include checkmating any individual or group that wants to derail this wonderful opportunity from coming into fruition in your community,” he advised.

Over 100m Nigerians at risk of Neglected Tropical Diseases - minister Godsgift Onyedinefu, Abuja

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t least, 120 million Nigerians nationwide are at risk of one or more of the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) due to poverty, poor access to basic health facilities and amenities, the minister of health, Osagie Ehanire, has said.

The minister, who made this known at a press briefing to mark the first World NTDs Day with the theme ‘Beat NTDs for good; for all’ on Thursday, said Nigeria’s large population made it a prominent endemic country for NTDs in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ehanire expressed concern that people afflicted by these diseases, which are over 20 in number, were usually poor, vulnerable and left on their own to face the consequences.

According to Ehanire, the diseases can result in blindness, deafness and various forms of physical disability and disfigurement.

He said child NTDs sufferers often shy away from attending school and end up growing without skills and therefore trapped in a cycle of disease and poverty.

The minister also noted that NTDs and poverty were interlinked, fighting NTDs had direct benefit on productivity and ability of citizens to contribute to the nation’s GDP, “therefore NTD elimination also eliminates poverty.”

He defined NTDs as a diverse group of communicable diseases that prevail in tropical and subtropical conditions, and they include: Leprosy, Lymphatic Filariasis, Onchocerciasis (river blindness),

Schistosomiasis, Soil Transmitted Helminths, Buruli Ulcers, Leishmaniasis, Dengue, Guinea Worm Disease, Trachoma, Rabies, Noma, Yaws, and Macetoma.

To this end, he reiterated the need for more awareness on the diseases because of the adverse impact they have and their relative obscurity as well as the availability of tools to combat them.

The minister noted that the Federal Government and its development partners were working together to tackle the scourge of NTDs in line with the 2013-2020 plan.

“With the dawn of a new decade, we shall continue to strengthen our health system, pursue opportunities for mainstreaming NTD control using several programmes with the aim to provide UHC to citizens.

Unemployment: NECA to liaise with foreign employers for Nigerian graduates JOSHUA BASSEY

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igeriaEmployers’ConsultativeAssociation(NECA) plans to engage some foreign employers of labour with the aim to securing placements for unemployed Nigerian youths with prerequisite competencies.

Atthehomefront,theemployers’ organisation is already strategising with some big names like DangoteGroup,Nestle,Guinness, 7Up Bottling Company, Shell, Chi Limited, Jobberman, Trust Fund Pension, among others, to create opportunities for young graduates, some of whom have roamed the streets for years.

Timothy Olawale, directorgeneral of NECA, spoke at the first job fair organised by NECA,

in Lagos on Thursday, with the theme “Promoting Employability for National Development.”

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s unemployment rate stood at 23.1 percent in third quarter of 2018, up from 18.1 percent in 2017. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), similarly estimated youth unemployment in Nigeria in 2018 to be at 20 percent.

Olawale said the organisation of the job fair, with some 24 employer organisations interfacing with hundreds of unemployed youths, was another initiative by NECA towards mitigating the alarming unemployment rate in Africa’s biggest economy.

“We started the technical job www.businessday.ng

scheme in partnership with Industrial Training Fund (ITF). We also started the online modules onhowtobecomeentrepreneurs, and now the job fair,” he said.

He added that NECA would also be opening discussions with employer organisation counterparts during the 2020 ILO international conference in Geneva, Switzerland, for job international job opportunities for Nigerian youths.

Taiwo Adeniyi, acting president of NECA, noted that the job fair was also created to enable the unemployed interact with companies to acquire employability skills. He pointed out that in some cases, jobs were actually available, butthegraduatesnotemployable. https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

@Businessdayng

Friday 31 January 2020

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news

Obaseki’s tech reforms: Edo wins Rosatom Atoms for Africa competition

IMO 2020 fuel rule increases demand for very large container vessels - report

... as Innovation Hub-bred innovators visit world’s first nuclear plant in Russia

AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE with agency report

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n what is yet another validation of the focus of the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration on innovation and technology, a team groomed at the Edo Innovation Hub, Benin City, has won the Rosatom Atoms for Africa competition, defeating over 65 participants from across Africa.

Speaking with journalists in Government House, Benin City, after a closed-door session with Governor Obaseki, founder of Xigma, Derick Nwasor, thanked the Edo State government, EdoJobs and Edo Innovation Hub for creating the platform for entrepreneurs to succeed in the state.

According to Nwasor, “We came to inform the Governor that we won the first prize in the Rosatom Atoms for Africa Competition, which created an opportunity for us to visit the world first Nuclear Power Plant in Obninsk Russia.

“The competition is about nuclear technology. We built a device that uses water to pro-

duce electricity, breaking water to hydrogen. We decided to step it up further into atomic particles. We applied for the Africawide Competition and came out first and went to Russia to see the world’s first power plant.

“We thank Governor Obaseki for creating the enabling environment for start-ups and people that have ideas to excel.

The state government designed an Innovation Hub which enables people with start-up ideas to set up and operate companies with stable electricity supply, internet facilities and adequate security,” Nwasor said.

He said the focus of his startup is to provide the technology for use by Edo people, noting “We call on youths to take advantage of the opportunities created by the Governor Obasekiled administration to transform their lives for the better.”

The managing director, Edo State Skills Development Agency, Ukinebo Dare, expressed gratitude to governor for creating

a platform like EdoJobs, which has led to the success of Edo youths in the Rosatom Atoms for Africa Competition.

She urged Edo youths to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Obaseki-led administration through EdoJobs and Edo Innovation Hub to improve their lives.

“I am calling on all Edo youths to embrace the system as there are many other opportunities for start-ups provided by the Obaseki- led administration.

All these are for the benefit of Edo people.”

Manager, South-South Innovation Hub, Osayi Omokaro commended the governor for the platform created for youths to excel, adding, “They have made Edo State and Nigeria proud as they represented us well in Africa and the World. We are hopeful that in the shortest time, their innovative device will create jobs for the youths in Edo State, Nigeria and the world at large.”

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ollowing the implementation of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) 2020 low sulphur cap on fuel used by ships, more ocean liners are beginning to request for very large container carriers that are in the category of postPanamax container ships.

Container News’ check with various brokers shows that at least eight container ships, with capacities ranging from 6,000 twenty equivalent unit (TEUs) to 9,000 TEU, have changed hands.

“In the week that ended 26 January, Diana Shipping was said to have sold the 2008-built 6,494 TEU Rotterdam to Chartworld for $18.5 million. If this transaction is confirmed, Diana Shipping would have profited from the sale, having acquired the vessel for $17.35 million in

October 2017,” Container News’ report said.

The report further stated that Yang Ming Marine Transport, a Taiwanese operator reportedly sold 2008-built 8,236TEU ‘YM Utopia’ to Greece’s Danaos Corporation for $29 million, a price close to market valuation, during the same week.

Concurrently, YM Utopia has been fixed to Nile Dutch Line for $28,000/day for two years.

Also, in the previous week, Tsakos Container Navigation was said to have sold the 2007-built 6,039 TEU ‘Irenes Warwick’ to Asiatic Lloyd Shipping for $16 million.

As a reflection of how much asset values have appreciated, the 2013-built 9,336 TEU ‘APL Vancouver’ was valued at $46.44 million in April 2017, and was now assessed at $55.38 million, according to VesselsValue.com

NECO partners DSS to check exam malpractice Godsgift Onyedinefu, Abuja

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ational Examinations Council (NECO) has sought a for a strengthened collaboration with the Department of State Services (DSS) to check malpractices in the conduct of the Council’s examination.

Chairman, Governing Board of NECO, Abubakar Saddique, who led the acting registrar and other management team on a courtesy visit to the director-general of DSS in Abuja, said the collaboration would ensure the credibility of the Council’s examination.

Saddique explained that the Council had put in place measures aimed at checking examination malpractice, but noted that without adequate security architecture, such measures would not yield the desired results.

He stated that among the measures introduced is the

biometric capturing of candidates to check impersonation at examination centres.

The chairman therefore appealed to the personnel of DSS to strengthen their collaboration with NECO to prevent any form of malpractice before, during and after the conduct of the Council examination.

The acting registrar/chief executive, Abubakar Gana, in his remarks, also sought for the collaboration of DSS in building an intractable open and secure filing system for the Council to prevent possible incidence of tempering with staff records, especially in the face of the on-going Staff Certificate verification exercise.

Gana appealed to the director-general to ensure that fraudsters who attempt to compromise NECO examinations are not only arrested and investigated, but prosecuted to serve as deterrent

to others.

The acting registrar further enumerated some reforms introduced under his leadership in the Council to include the development of an intractable, robust, secure and user-friendly corporate website, introduction of fullscale biometric capturing of candidates at examination centres, procurement of additional 20 pick-up Hilux Vans for examination logistics and full payment of Duty Tour Allowance to staff, among others.

Gana noted NECO had enjoyed the full support and cooperation of DSS through the provision of covert operations which had helped in reducing incidence of examination malpractice.

He opined, “The world is experiencing rapid changes resulting from rapid development, these changes revolve around two major phenomena of emerging Technology and Globalisation.”

Oyebanjo joins Upfield as head, corporate affairs for Africa

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pfield, the largest p l a n t- b a s e d c o n sumer goods com-

Oyebanjo

pany in the world, has appointed Omotola Oyebanjo as the head, corporate affairs and communications for Africa.

Omotola is the immediate past head of corporate communications at Lafarge Africa. She has accrued close to two decades of experience in Corporate, D e v e l o p m e nt a n d Ma rketing Communications across FMCG, extractive, marketing and financial industries.

She was the head, Strategic Communications and Media at Union Bank of Nigeria; Communications Consultant at Aerialview Marketing Communications Africa and head, Corwww.businessday.ng

porate Communications at British Council. She also worked in a managerial capacity in the Internal Communications department at Unilever Nigeria.

As a consultant she has managed accounts such as the Australian Trade Commission, International Breweries, Kia Motors, Haansbro Confectioneries, NISSAN Motors, United Kingdom Education Advisory Services, Edinburgh Napier University Scotland, BPP University and Sheffield Hallam University UK. She has also been involved in several empowerment programmes for women and young people in Nigeria. https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

@Businessdayng

Brokers told Container News that the healthy demand for post-Panamax container vessels was down to lower slot costs when burning low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO).

LSFO prices are around $600/ton and the increase between this fuel and marine gas oil is around $100/ton.

A broker, whose name was not printed, said that bunker prices are so much higher that the slot costs and this makes the larger vessels more economic than the feeder units.

“There are not many postPanamax container ships available for chartering, because a number of ships are having scrubbers installed. The prolonged Chinese New Year holiday resulting from the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak has delayed processes as the shipyards take longer time to resume work,” the broker stated.

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Friday 31 January 2020

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INSIGHT

Zainab Ahmed: An honour well deserved

Faith, however minutely, and the expected result are indistinguishably synonymous. Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, makes a notable figure that must have had a good measure of that all too important asset- Faith in the Nigerian economic development. Her foray into the pursuit of the Nigerian economic management and its revival bristles and resonates through institutions and market places with recognition and honours for her efforts, demonstrating clearly that indeed as always, faith does not fail, more so with work. Writes Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi fort. We all are proud of you.” This is how members of family and committee of friends of Mama, as she is fondly called, succinctly put it, in a congratulatory message to her, considering the milestones that she has recorded. When she was faced with the herculean task of seeing the country out of recession not long ago, it was her determination to undertake measures for the basic restructuring of the economic base of the country, resolving to adopt a far-reaching national approach. Nigeria exited the recession, through a collective strategy that she was able to pursue effectively.

After the resignation of former Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, in 2018, to fill the space, President Muhammadu Buhari swiftly appointed Ahmed to take over. In 2019, the President reappointed Ahmed Minister but with an added portfolio and responsibility to also oversee the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.

This was a clear testament of her capability and the trust the President has had in her. Ever since her appointment, she is one of the very

few female ministers who have proved their mettle, performing excellently well, most especially in the area of finance, economy and fiscal policies, also confirming the notion that she was to be number one hard-nosed realist in that the economy needed a watershed – a speedy, credible workout for the elimination deadbeats.

No wonder, therefore, that the members of her family and committee of friends are wont to add: “You have been picked from the big crowd because in the last couple of years, you have worked as hard as your body could carry you and your best effort has paid off.” With this honour on one hand appearing as a no lark in the sky unsoiled by the mud of human plodding or a happy-go-lucky achiever who perpetually churns out optimistic policies to restore the Nigerian economy, she has shared with the finery of this institution, among others, which has recognised her quiet severity and passionate intensity with which she manages the affairs of the country’s economy. On the other hand the university has by

“

It is not out of place for Ahmed to be honoured and acknowledged, and not just for her sake, but because a university’s recognition of its outstanding performers provides the building blocks for the enhancement of its stature https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

“

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this honour proven its value, for it would have been a great miss indeed, if, for want of presence of mind and promptitude, it failed to honour her.

The Honorary Doctorate Degree is a token of support by which the university has also highlighted the increasing impact it is making in the Nigerian management sphere through past students, especially on the economic management stage with its grooming. Though, it is not out of place for Ahmed to be honoured and acknowledged, and not just for her sake, but because a university’s recognition of its outstanding performers provides the building blocks for the enhancement of its stature.

The Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor Ganiyu Olatunde, would readily disclose that: “The Minister is a good ambassador of the institution and has also contributed immensely to the development of the country. The choice by the Academic Board to confer on her the Honorary Doctorate Degree (Honoris Causa) is to further cement her commitment to pushing beyond boundaries and further committing herself to the challenging task ahead in repositioning the country’s finance and economy.”

The honour has attracted commendations to an Amazon who does not believe in perfunctory disposition, irrespective of the pressure of ensuring the country takes her pride of place in the comity of nations. “We are proud of your contributions and accomplishment in the service of our great country. This is a personal recognition which we all cherish.

Congratulations on your Grand Success, Mama!,” a message put out by members of management and staff of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning reads.

She, who prefers traditional food, loves to spend quality time with her family and to have good chats with her close friends. She also likes to exercise when she is able to as an all-round fellow; she tries to equally @Businessdayng

juggle her responsibilities for quality impact wherever she finds herself. To her children, her role is three fold; she is a mother, a friend and a mentor: She likes attending to every interest her grandchildren express, and engages them in such a way that changes their taught process for good. She is very compassionate and caring, giving of her time and of course always making sacrifices for them. Outside of the office,

Mama loves intellectual discussions and spending quality time with her grandchildren. Her ideal vacation is to be at home with her loved ones around her, especially the grandchildren.

If Mama had ever dreamt of becoming an accountant, living a quiet but active life, and being fascinated with books on self-development, productivity, leadership and management, economics and investment, she had rather been hard

pressed to live her life in such an exemplary manner that holds a great practical lesson for those who aspire to success in their own lives, more so transcending international boundaries. Essentially, her role in the management of the Nigerian economy obviously makes her a key player in the lobby for technology transfer nay other important fields through the encouragement of foreign investor wishing to invest in various areas of relevance to the nation’s economic development. It is indeed ‘hurray to an achiever’ for the milestone. Aside the hard life of a technocrat, she, with no pet, loves a flock of pigeons that have made home on a tree in her house and she ensures the birds are always provided with food and water.

For the little period, she as the Finance Minister has thus worked and pursued the path of full diversified economic development. No wonder: “As you reach this milestone, we the members of family and committee of friends use this great opportunity to congratulate you on this big achievement.

She daily has been stressing the desirability of economic revolution of sort for the country in which all stakeholders must be fully involved. According to her, the relationship between economic development and standard of living cannot be denied; there must be economic growth through strong capital formation and the use of such capital formation for productive activities.

In her words: “Productive activities define economic growth, and economic growth would in turn manifest in improved standard of living.” She notes that productive activities entail four sectors: the industrial, the agricultural, the extractive and the service sectors. Her position is that government is working to www.businessday.ng

ensure favourable environment for productive activities through policies, regulations and monetary and fiscal measures, in the overall interest of the country.

The spirit of achievement has been driving her towards success; she, whose level of persistence and tenacity to getting important assignments successfully completed is extremely high, has been trained to help the economy stay in good shape. The ingredients of her success are solid leadership, optimal strategic utilisation of resources, sound economic management, and strong sense of diversification. These are all attributes which Mama possesses. Her strategic diversification focuses on agriculture, tourism, encouraging adding value to production and exports. She ensures government supports the informal sector of the economy through financial help for micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and improving the overall Nigerian business environment.

Ahmed’s sound economic management and strong sense of diversification underscores the need for true diversification with its objective given paramount importance. She is to always emphasise private sector investment, particularly in the non-oil sector, promoting local or domestic enterprise, job creation, poverty alleviation, preserving fiscal discipline, and human capital development. She, a manager with a clear focus, who would not want to compromise the desire for Nigeria’s infrastructural development, seriously encourages inward foreign direct investment (FDI), undertaking to largely combat corruption, pluck leakages, ensure low tax rates, ease of doing business, and stable macroeconomic environment.

In preparation for Budget 2020,

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economists, politicians, activists, and the generality of Nigerians and interested foreigners had begun to assess the performance of the economy during year 2019 as a prelude for articulating the proper direction of policies and programmes for Budget 2020.

Some people and organisations have indeed prepared an action agenda for the government, which goes beyond the span of a budget year. The Ministry under Ahmed, in collaboration with some stakeholders, has also done its homework regarding how well it has so far faired in the management of the economy. The 2020 Budget, through much of her effort which resulted in returning

are in politics and plays it. Her best moments are when she engages in challenging tasks, be it at the office, home or with professional friends. She enjoys her private life of objectivity such that nobody can get her to say hurtful things about anyone. She would always address issues and not people, and as a wonderful team leader, she has room for everyone, the experts and those who may need subtle scaffolding for themselves for growth.

Mama, extremely generous only with what belongs to her, knows her limits and would not forget that things entrusted in her care are only available for the purpose they are meant. Having believed so much in giving, she

“

She is to always emphasise private sector investment, particularly in the non-oil sector, promoting local or domestic enterprise, job creation, poverty alleviation, preserving fiscal discipline, and human capital development

“

F

rom the outset it has, for Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, Honourable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, been exacting her mandate to bravely launch out her first order of business as an immensely important project: fixing Nigeria’s economy. She, who appears to have divinely been made for the job, had taken a periscopic view of the economy, knowing from the beginning that it was going to be a promise to strictly keep the workouts and to ensure that the process does not only move on but yields the expected result.

Then there were skeptics but now there is the toga for conviction in this administration, even at the International Monetary Fund/World bank, and in the financial world that everything arguably looks to comparatively be in order, given Ahmed’s grand faith in the revival and the growth of the Nigerian economy and the many economic initiatives taken up in company of her colleagues to see the economy afloat. Since her appointment, the country has been able to point significantly to the promising satisfactory index of general well-being in the last one and half years of her being in the saddle as the Honourable Minister of Finance.

So far, there are clear signs of result that deserve to be described as ‘remarkable’ which has already attracted honours to her from different institutions. “We are very happy about the news of your conferment of an Honorary Doctorate Degree (Honoris Causa) in Accounting from the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State.

Your carriage and mien, teamwork, dedication, friendly and people-centeredness, have always shone immense light on your ef-

the national budget fiscal cycle to January - December, has been passed and signed into law. The assessment of the performance of key macro parameters/indicators is to reveal great economic upbeat with government scoring high in the area of policy stability and in the initiation of programmes to enhance transparency in governance which Ahmed takes very seriously.

Not a politician though, she admires and respects those who @Businessdayng

has sponsored even her personal aides and many others to become academic graduates thereby empowering them and depopulating the poor group. She, who has also taught her children to engage in the manner of giving, would extend her generosity to the less privileged. Mama, who would trust people first until they disappoint her, forgives quickly, but keeps a distance from those who have woefully erred. She, however, finds something good in everyone.

46

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

INSIGHT What does the grammy nomination mean for Burna Boy? For Afrobeats and Africa in general?

Sam Onyemelukwe

T

o be fair, several African artists and even Nigerians have been nominated and won Grammy’s before. Angelique Kidjo (who is half Nigerian) has now won 4 times and been nominated another 2 times.

Sikiru Adepoju, who was in Ebenezer Obey’s Inter-Reformers band in the 80s won a Grammy as part of a group called Plant Drum. Both Femi and Seun Kuti have been nominated as well as Timaya and Wizkid.

But this time is a little different...

Burna Boy, whose real name is Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu has skyrocketed to superstardom, matching or exceeding Davido and Wizkid with his level of fame and acceptance at home in Nigeria and internationally. Davido and Wizkid have reigned for years and despite friendship and collaborations with “International” artists such as Drake and Chris Brown have remained primarily Nigerian artists.

For years, the Nigerian entertainment industry has been obsessed with going “international” or “global”. This obsession is understandable because “International” artists make much more money than Nigerian artists, although to many, the desire to be global is really about the glamour and prestige.

First of all, let’s be clear, this ambiguous concept of going “global” means having a hit song and becoming famous in America, then in turn break out as a global superstar on the same level of Beyonce or Rihanna. Hmm, that’s really the top, top level, what about Cardi B? Ok, let’s manage with the same level as Shakira.

The global entertainment scene is dominated by America. Out of 18 of history’s biggest selling contemporary pop artists, 9 out of 13 are American and the others such as Drake and Justin Beiber are listed as Canadian but became super stars in America first* There’s the Latin invasion of the 90’s that produced Ricky Martin and J-Lo and has become a fixture of the American and by extension, the global music industry. Reggae and Ragga became international starting before, but propelled by, Bob Marley and paved the way for artists like Sean Paul and Shaggy.

Many are hoping that Afrobeats might be the next to make this leap and Burna’s nomination, although not the first, is another sign of this becoming reality.

The blockbuster movies and hit songs that truly go “global” do so

Burna Boy

through a finely tuned machinery of promotion and distribution.

Major pop music stars have recording budgets in the hundreds of thousands and low millions even though most of them record in home studios. Promotion budgets can be as high as 3-4 million for one song. This is spent on payola at Radio stations, music video production and promotion as well as placement and promotion on

Spotify, Apple Music and Youtube.

Think about it, when a Hollywood movie comes out, there is an underlying assumption that it will be a blockbuster, is usually only fails when the movie is really bad but that’s rare. When Jay-Z or Drake release new music, there’s almost no question whether it will be a hit or not, the question is, how big of a hit will it be?

Almost every country on the

‘

Even though Burna did not win the Grammy, his nomination and shout out from Angelique Kidjo on stage while she accepted her award means that black American artists may start to take Afrobeats more seriously www.businessday.ng

https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

planet has stars and music movements that are not relevant on the “international scene” but are loved by millions and earn buckets of money. In the developed world, the earnings can be astronomical; this is mostly due to organized and regulated entertainment industries and solid economies. Meaning royalties are paid (i.e. they get paid for every time their song plays on radio and TV as well as in bars, malls and clubs), artists get paid properly when their songs are used in movies and commercials and the public can afford to buy their music, pay for concert tickets and merchandise.

There is a Japanese duo called B’z (pronounced Bizu) who have certified album sales over 86 million albums compared to Beyonce’s 95 million and Brittany Spears’ 84.5 million. B’z generates around $49 million in revenue annually and each of the two stars have built up a net worth well above $100 million in their long career.* Grammy winners do not get cash from the organizers. But according to Forbes, performers and producers see a “Grammy @Businessdayng

Bounce’ in the ballpark of 55% for concert ticket sales and producer fees during the year following a “Grammy win” American rapper and record producer, David Banner disclosed to Forbes that his producer fee increased from $50,000 to $100,000 after his work on Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, which earned him a Grammy. Bruno Mars average show gross increased by 55% after winning his first Grammy in 2011.

Even though Burna did not win the Grammy, his nomination and shout out from Angelique Kidjo on stage while she accepted her award means that black American artists may start to take Afrobeats more seriously. The American music industry may actually create and record with African artists which means that if one of those songs becomes a hit, the African artist would stand to earn $8-10 Million for that one song! Right now, the biggest Nigerian artists, Burna, Davido etc. are lucky if they make over $4 in one year! So, Burna’s Grammy nomination could have a direct impact on the economics of the entertainment industry, raising his fees and the fortunes of many artists and the wider ecosystem of producers and writers to come after him.

It’s also worth noting that all of these are for the World Music category which in and of itself is controversial and has even been called racist but that’s a topic for another day.

According to the PWC entertainment and media outlook 20152019, Media and Entertainment generated $4 Billion in 2014. This includes 11 industry sub-segments including film and music. Approximately 70% of that revenue from Internet access, TV advertising and subscriptions.

To set a baseline and ease of treating FX rates, I use the exchange rate of 350 Naira to the dollar which is double the rate used in the 2015-2019 PWC report.

Sam Onyemelukwe is a media and entertainment industry expert and is Managing Director of Trace Anglophone West Africa.

Friday 31 January 2020

FT

BUSINESS DAY

47

FINANCIAL TIMES

World Business Newspaper

Henry Foy, Christian Shepherd, Kathrin Hille and Mercedes Ruehl

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ussia has ordered the closure of its huge land border with China, as Moscow scrambles to prevent the deadly coronavirus infection spreading from its southern neighbour.

There have been no confirmed cases of the respiratory illness in Russia but Vladimir Putin’s government is anxious to prevent the virus from crossing a land border that stretches for more than 4,000km. Moscow has already blocked Chinese tour groups from entering the country.

The growing disruption to the world’s second-largest economy came as China said 170 people had died and nearly 7,800 cases had been confirmed worldwide.

The number infected with the coronavirus was also set to overtake the worldwide total of those who contracted the similar Sars infection 17 years ago. Just over 8,000 people were infected in the Sars outbreak in 2003 that killed 774 people.

In addition to the 7,711 coronavirus cases in China, about 100 infections have been confirmed outside the Chinese mainland, with cases in Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand and Singapore all reaching double digits.

World Health Organization experts were due to meet on Thursday in Geneva to consider declaring the outbreak an international emergency.

The spread of the virus rippled through global markets with China’s currency weakening past a key level and global stocks under pressure.

The offshore renminbi, which

Russia closes China land border to prevent spread of coronavirus Outbreak wreaks havoc on global tech supply chain as infection rate continues to rise

People in protective clothes disinfect an area in Wuhan, China © Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty

trades in major hubs outside mainland China, dropped below Rmb7 to the US dollar for the first time this year. It has tumbled more than 2 per cent since January 20.

Asian shares sold off around the region, led by a nearly 5 per cent fall for Taiwan’s Taiex index as traders returned from holiday.

Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, fell 10 per cent, its largest one-day drop in 20 years.

However, falls in Europe were less steep with the main indices down around 0.7 per cent and

futures trading indicated Wall Street would open down by a similar amount.

As the economic ramifications of the coronavirus outbreak became clearer, Pantheon Macroeconomic said reduced tourist spending could knock 0.1 per cent off China’s GDP in the first half of the year. China’s economy grew at its slowest pace for almost three decades last year.

Capital Economics suggested China’s neighbours could be forced to cut interest rates as a result. “Sri Lanka’s central bank today cut interest rates in part

due to fears over the spread of the virus, and we expect the central banks of Thailand and the Philippines to cut rates at their scheduled meetings next week,” Capital Economics said.

In Russia, new prime minister Mikhail Mishustin said the decision to “close the border in the Far East and other measures taken by the government” would be included in a new directive signed on Thursday. “We must do everything to protect our people,” he said.

Russia’s foreign ministry also said it had suspended the issuance

of electronic visas for Chinese citizens, who were previously able to use the permits to enter the country in St Petersburg, Kaliningrad and at multiple south Asia crossing points.

Companies operating within China’s borders were bracing for severe disruption as large parts of the country extended the holiday break into next week.

British Airways has suspended flights to and from mainland China, and Starbucks and Uniqlo have temporarily closed their stores in the country. Ikea China said it had closed all its stores until further notice. Honda, Nissan, PSA and Renault have started flying out non-Chinese workers.

“The coronavirus creates a more uncertain environment than the trade war . . . and the scale of the impact is bigger than Sars,” said Gary Cheung, a director at Haitong Securities in Hong Kong specialising in industrial technology.

In the technology sector, analysts said the most immediate impact would be felt by a cluster of flat-panel display producers in Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak, where fabrication plants owned by China Star, Tianma and BOE were estimated to account for up to 9 per cent of global capacity. The Chinese government has quarantined Wuhan and much of Hubei, the province surrounding it.

Facebook’s new normal: where will its growth come from?

Scientists race to understand respiratory disease that has infected thousands in weeks Hannah Murphy

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acebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg took the opportunity during Wednesday’s earnings call with analysts to lay out an ambitious new vision for his company’s relationship with its critics.

“My goal for this next decade isn’t to be liked, but to be understood. In order to be trusted, people need to know what you stand for,” he said.

But for analysts, the founder’s new objective could not distract from hints of a paradigm shift in the company’s earnings: the last quarter marked the social media network’s weakest growth in the seven years since it went public, as the company begins to mature and races to find new revenue streams.

“That was so depressing,” said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at LightShed, following the call.

“There is obviously no new nearterm growth accelerant, and the company is still spending very aggressively given the need to be very self-aware vis-à-vis the election and fixing a past lack of controls,” he added. “Where is the next big [growth] catalyst coming

from?”

Taking its latest quarterly earnings in isolation, Facebook posted bumper results: record revenues of $21.1bn and record net income of $7.3bn, both of which topped Wall Street forecasts.

But investors were spooked when the pace of revenue growth, while high at 25 per cent, slowed compared with previous quarters and failed to achieve as strong an analyst beat as some had anticipated.

‘The market can only be so big’ On the news of slowed growth, Facebook shares fell 7 per cent in after-hours trading to $207.70, abruptly halting a rally this year that had seen the company join Silicon Valley rivals Apple and Alphabet in reaching all-time stock price highs.

David Wehner, Facebook’s chief financial officer, said he expected the growth rate to decelerate further in the forthcoming quarter, citing, among other things, “the maturity of our business”.

For some analysts, the slowdown is a natural transition by Facebook to a “new normal”. The heady 70 per cent growth rates of its start-up years are no longer sustainable for a company with 2.9bn users across its so-called “family of apps”, which also www.businessday.ng

includes Instagram and WhatsApp. “It’s suggesting saturation, it has to decelerate,” said Brian Wieser, global head of business intelligence at advertising media company GroupM. “The market can only be so big.”

Brent Thill, an analyst at Jefferies, said: “It’s the law of large numbers rather than any major fundamental disappointment. Investors simply wanted more upside.”

But others were more unnerved by executives’ suggestion that new privacy regulation is making it more difficult for Facebook to target advertising, particularly at a time when the company faces further scrutiny from global watchdogs over its data security and competitive practices.

Meanwhile, costs are soaring, up 34 per cent to $12.2bn in the quarter — including a $550m settlement for a biometric privacy class action lawsuit brought by users in Illinois, in what is thought to be the largest all-cash privacy class action settlement to date.

The case, which Facebook agreed to settle on Wednesday, alleges that the company violated the law when it used facial recognition technology to gather and store users’ pictures

https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

without their permission, in order to help with the automatic “tagging” of people in photos.

All this comes before the group has fully implemented a new privacy programme to better protect user data, as part of its $5bn settlement with the Federal Trade Commission following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Indeed, Facebook revealed it now had 1,000 engineers working on privacy initiatives, such as the rollout this week of the so-called “offFacebook activity” tool that grants users more control over how Facebook and other third parties use their data.

The slowing of Facebook’s growth was most pronounced in developed markets, particularly the US and Canada: sales growth stood at 22 per cent year-on-year, the slowest rate to date in that region, while average revenue per user rose 19 per cent year on year, versus a 30 per cent growth rate in the same quarter the previous year.

The search for fresh revenue The question for Facebook is whether it can easily offset this by growing elsewhere, such as in less developed markets — a prospect that has been met with scepticism by analysts. @Businessdayng

“Can [average revenue per user] in other markets match the US? That ignores that other economies have differing intensities of advertising in terms of the structures of their economies, and that advertising can only grow so quickly,” Mr Wieser said.

Instead, the company may have to focus on developing additional revenue streams. On the earnings call, Mr Zuckerberg outlined his vision for enabling more commerce on the platform, by allowing direct shopping online on Instagram and payments via WhatsApp. Despite having highlighted both of these goals on an earnings call a year ago, the former is still in pilot phase, while the latter has yet to be rolled out in any region. However, Mr Zuckerberg said the company was working on bringing peer-topeer WhatsApp payments to India, Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia in coming months.

He also gave prominence to his hope that Facebook will develop “the next computing platform”, highlighting plans to develop more augmented and virtual reality capabilities and outlining a futuristic world in which people “hologram into work”.

48

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

FINANCIAL TIMES

COMPANIES & MARKETS

@ FINANCIAL TIMES LIMITED

Bank of England holds rates but cuts growth forecast Majority of rate-setters on MPC voted against easing monetary policy Chris Giles

T

he Bank of England on Thursday voted to keep interest rates on hold at 0.75 per cent as its Monetary Policy Committee decided the improvement in business sentiment since the general election made an immediate cut unnecessary.

But on the eve of Brexit, the central bank dealt a blow to Boris Johnson’s government by further downgrading its view of the underlying prospects for the economy to their lowest level since the second world war.

The MPC estimated Britain’s economy would be able to grow at only an average rate of 1.1 per cent over the next three years without sparking damaging inflationary pressure. This is less than half chancellor Sajid Javid’s ambition of boosting the growth rate towards 2.8 per cent.

Longer-term difficulties for the UK economy as it transitions away from the EU, however, did not dominate the MPC’s immediate decision on interest rates.

The nine-member committee voted seven to two in favour of holding rates at 0.75 per cent, which it expected would keep inflation rising gently up to its 2 per cent target within three years.

The majority of MPC members thought a stabilisation of the global economy since December, a reduction in global trade tensions and better UK survey data of households and companies “supported the fore-

The BoE estimated there was a 38% chance the economy is in recession

cast of a near-term recovery in growth”.

This view came despite the MPC — whose members had also voted seven to two to hold rates in December — remaining uncertain about whether the economy would avoid recession in the months ahead.

The BoE estimated there was a 38 per cent chance the economy is currently in recession, with output lower in the first quarter than a year earlier.

“The committee would monitor closely the extent to which these early indications of an improved outlook were sustained and followed through to the hard data on domestic activity in coming months,” said the minutes of the MPC meeting.

Mark Carney, BoE governor, said that following the election, there was still much uncertainty. “These are still early days,” he

added. “It’s less of the case, ‘so far so good’, than ‘so far, good enough.”

The two dissenting MPC members — Jonathan Haskel and Michael Saunders — argued that survey data were often unreliable and there were still significant dangers from the global economy and Brexit.

“Risk management considerations favoured a prompt response to downside risks at present in order to ensure a sustained return of inflation to the target,” they wrote in the minutes.

One other reason for caution among the majority of MPC members was that they were unable yet to factor into forecasts the additional public spending on infrastructure that Mr Javid has earmarked for his March Budget.

With weakness in demand

and supply, the MPC dropped language used since 2014 that it expected “limited and gradual” interest rates rises over coming years.

Instead of this, the MPC said merely that if the economy performed as well as it forecast, “some modest tightening of policy may be needed to maintain inflation sustainably at target”.

The largest changes to the BoE’s forecasts were to downgrade the longer-term prospects for the economy.

If the MPC’s fears are realised, it will be much harder for the government to raise living standards, keep the public finances healthy and improve the performance of weaker regions.

Part of the downgrade came from MPC members judging that the poor UK productivity

performance of the past decade was likely to continue, leaving the potential growth rate of the economy averaging just 1.1 per cent per annum over the next three years, although it would rise from about 1 per cent in 2020 to about 1.5 per cent in 2023.

This average estimate of sustainable growth for the next three years has halved since before the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Then, BoE officials thought the economy could sustain a growth rate of 2.2 per cent, although the central bank cautioned that not all of the latest downgrade was as a result of the vote to leave the EU. Never theless, the B oE squarely blamed the distraction of Brexit for part of this weakness, curbing business investment and forcing companies to plan for an EU departure that “is likely to have diverted time and effort away from other activities”.

The MPC also made a subtle change to its assumptions for Brexit, pencilling in a smooth move towards a free trade agreement between the UK and the EU at the end of 2020.

The pound climbed following the MPC decision to hold interest rates, trading 0.4 per cent higher at $1.3080 against the dollar.

UK government bonds fell, pushing the 10-year gilt yield 0.02 percentage points higher to 0.52 per cent.

Ahead of the decision, markets had been pricing in close to a 50 per cent chance of a rate cut, meaning many investors were positioned for looser monetary policy.

Aston Martin calls board meeting to decide on emergency fundraising

Chinese carmaker Geely and billionaire Lawrence Stroll both propose £200m investment Peter Campbell

A

ston Martin has called a board meeting for Thursday evening that may lead to it deciding between two potential investors in an emergency fundraising to help prop up the struggling luxury carmaker.

Chinese carmaker Geely and Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll are both proposing to invest about £200m for a fresh 20 per cent stake in the business and a place on Aston’s board.

The decision over which one will end up investing in Aston is likely to come down to what the new parties bring to the carmaker beyond their funding,

which in itself will be a lifeline for the business.

Geely wants a technical partnership with its other brands such as Lotus, while Mr Stroll is interested in the Formula 1 possibilities of an Aston relationship, two people said.

An announcement may come as soon as Friday morning, although it is possible the board discussions will run over into the weekend, delaying a result until next week, one person cautioned.

If Mr Stroll is successful, he will instigate a boardroom shake-up that will lead to the departure of Aston’s chairman Penny Hughes, who was appointed in the run-up to its illwww.businessday.ng

fated initial public offering two years ago.

Mrs Hughes, a former CocaCola executive, has been in the company since September 2018, a month before the company’s IPO. Shares have fallen by three quarters since the listing amid falling profits and a sales slowdown, forcing the company to raise fresh debt several times and seek a new outside investor.

Both potential investors are planning to structure any deal so that Aston receives a small amount of cash straight away — not the full investment amount — while the equity issue is completed, a process that may take several weeks, according to three people.

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A spokesman for Aston Martin declined to comment. Representatives for Geely and Mr Stroll did not respond to request for comment.

In a trading update earlier this month, Aston said it “remains in discussions with potential strategic investors, which may or may not involve an equity investment into the company”.

Aston has been forced to tap the debt markets at increasingly expensive borrowing levels in order to refinance the business amid a sharp fall in profits and higher investment levels.

Earlier this month Aston issued its second profits warning within a year, saying that earnings for 2019 will be £130m to @Businessdayng

£140m, a third lower than the £200m expected by analysts, while margins will be 12.5 per cent to 13.5 per cent, compared with already lowered expectations of 20 per cent.

The group has been seeking fresh investment for several months in an attempt to bring fresh capital into the business.

It raised $150m in debt last year, and plans to draw down an additional $100m, it announced earlier this month.

The company has pinned its hopes on the DBX, its first sport utility vehicle, which will take the brand into one of the fastest growing and most profitable segments in the global automotive industry.

Friday 31 January 2020

FT

BUSINESS DAY

49

ANALYSIS

Brexit: will Boris Johnson reverse Thatcherism?

After promising to revive ‘left behind’ areas, the prime minister is questioning the Tory party’s economic orthodoxy George Parker and Andy Bounds

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oris Johnson wants to banish the “B word” from British politics at 11pm on Friday. From that point onwards Mr Johnson, the architect of the UK’s departure from the EU, hopes the Brexit trauma of the past four years can be replaced by a new unifying national mission: “levelling up” a country whose jagged contours of inequality were exposed in the 2016 EU referendum.

While Brexit supporters prepare for a festival of Union Jack-waving in London’s Trafalgar Square on Friday, Mr Johnson will convene a cabinet meeting at an undisclosed venue in the north of England — a region previously regarded as terra incognita to many Conservatives, but which now looks to the new prime minister to build a fairer, more prosperous post-Brexit Britain.

The symbolism is clear. Mr Johnson recognises that the Brexit vote was for many people in what has been dubbed “left behind Britain” not so much a shout of defiance against the EU as a cry for help. The day after he won an 80-seat House of Commons majority, Mr Johnson said: “What is this new government going to do? We are going to unite and level up, bringing together this incredible United Kingdom.”

When the prime minister sets out his plans in a speech early in February, the focus will be on the need to secure new trade deals — including one with the EU — and the push to spread growth across the country. “Brexit will not be mentioned, unless you count saying that we don’t want to talk about Brexit any more,” says one Johnson aide.

Mr Johnson is attempting to redefine his Conservative party and the country it governs. The party of Margaret Thatcher — whose 1980s reforms put rocket boosters under London and the financial services sector and spawned a global wave of privatisations that stretched from Latin America to Russia — is seen by many in the north, the midlands and Wales as ruthlessly in love with the free market but callous about its consequences.

Mr Johnson is trying to use Brexit to change that image by questioning the core ideas about state intervention in the economy and regional development which have been the party’s orthodoxy since the Thatcher years. He is promising to shift civil servants out of London, change Treasury rules to favour investment in the north, a £100bn boost to infrastructure and a nimbler state aid policy to help failing strategic industries. On Wednesday his government nationalised the Northern rail franchise after public anger over its poor performance.

But will it be enough? And will a party which still has its centre of gravity in the prosperous south be willing to accept the tough choices — and pick up the bill — so that the prime minister can make good on his promises?

Mr Johnson was propelled back to Downing Street on December 12 by voters in seats long held by the opposition Labour party such as Burnley, Stoke-on-Trent and Dudley, towns cut adrift from globalisation, crushed by market forces and ravaged by a decade of austerity. They voted for Brexit and, as Mr Johnson acknowledged, they “lent” their votes to the Conservatives. Now they expect payback.

Tory Eurosceptics have long argued that Brexit would be a great opportunity to “reboot” the British economy, but they have not always agreed how. Some argued that leaving the EU would help drive forward the Thatcher revolution, sweeping away Brussels’ regulations on everything from laws limiting working hours and some environmental rules.

In 2017 Mr Johnson and Michael Gove, a fellow Brexiter, used their positions in Theresa May’s cabinet to urge the then prime minister to pursue a robust Brexit, in which Britain could adopt “pro-competitive regulation” and tax “simplification”. Some Conservatives cited Singapore as the kind of free market idyll they envisaged after Brexit.

But Mr Johnson has always been ideologically nimble or, as the former Tory deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine calls him, “the most flexible politician in modern times”. Realising that his new voters have little enthusiasm for a small state and aggressive deregulation, the One Nation vision Mr Johnson now offers is one in which the state actively intervenes to promote economic recovery. He is offering higher spending, particularly on infrastructure, and has dropped a previous commitment to cut taxes for higher earners.

Although Mr Johnson insists on the “right to diverge” from EU regulations, his ministers say they will “not diverge for the sake of it”.

Indeed, the prime minister argues that he wants the right to set tougher regulations on workers’ rights and the environment than those agreed at a European level.

Brexit itself is only a relatively small part of Mr Johnson’s “levelling up” agenda. He wants to attract investment into about 10 free ports — zones outside normal tax and customs rules — in depressed parts of Britain, but most of his policy ideas have little or nothing to do with the act of leaving the EU. Indeed, free ports already exist in the EU. Nick Timothy, chief of staff under Mrs May and author of the book Remaking One Nation, says the real significance of the 2016 Brexit vote was that it forced politicians to confront the fact that something had gone badly wrong.

“It made politicians realise they had to do something differently,” he says, acknowledging that the May government did not do enough. But, he says, Mr Johnson will have to be bold: “People say this is a one-off chance, but this public policy challenge has existed for quite a long time.”

He notes that Labour governments between 1997 and 2010 tried to revive the

regions outside the booming south-east, rebuilding the country’s social infrastructure and devolving power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but failed to stop the riptide of globalisation draining life out of former industrial towns. “It’s hard,” Mr Timothy says, “it will require innovation and experimentation.”

Many economists say Brexit will make Mr Johnson’s task harder. Sajid Javid, chancellor, is keeping a tight grip on current public spending and aims to run a balanced budget on day-to-day spending by 2023. Yet the government’s own leaked analysis in 2018 suggested the Canada-style trade deal with the EU sought by Mr Johnson would cut Britain’s economic growth by up to 5 per cent over 15 years.

Leaving the EU single market will create friction and costs at the border for manufacturers with intricate supply chains — notably aerospace, automotive, chemicals and pharmaceuticals — which are largely based in the industrial areas Mr Johnson has wooed.

The prime minister has promised a £100bn increase in infrastructure spending over five years, funded by cheap borrowing, while the National Health Service, police and science are being prioritised for additional day-to-day cash. Other parts of the public realm, which have lost out during austerity, will continue to feel the squeeze.

Mary Creagh, a former Labour MP who lost her seat in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, to the Tories in December, says Mr Johnson is “throwing out chaff” — for example his aides have hinted at moving the House of Lords to the northern city of York — to disguise the fact that the government will not have the cash to transform the regions. “Brexit will make the country poorer forever and that means less money for infrastructure and other areas of public spending,” she says.

How far Mr Johnson will move away from the rigorous free market policies pursued by successive British governments, more or less continuously, since Thatcher came to power in 1979 remains unclear. She ended subsidies for struggling industries, such as steel and coal mining, and millions lost their jobs.

Many towns, which grew up around a single industry, lost their main source of income and identity.

Successive Labour governments tried to stem the tide with public spending on new schools, hospitals and community centres but had little success in attracting private sector investment to smaller towns. Economic activity in a globalised world favoured big, well connected hubs with access to skilled

workers in the south of the country such as London, Reading and Cambridge.

Mr Johnson is a full-throated champion of free enterprise, unlike Mrs May, who kept business at arm’s length during her three years in Downing Street. Some, like Tim Bale, a professor of politics at London’s Queen Mary University, question whether the prime minister can persuade his largely southern party to accept an agenda of higher public spending — and probably higher taxes.

“I’m pretty sceptical,” he says. “We have heard this from three Conservative governments under David Cameron, Theresa May and now Boris Johnson. This is basically a small state, low tax, low regulation party which will find it quite difficult to do serious stuff about the structural problems in this country.”

Patrick Minford, however, one of Thatcher’s favourite economists and a prominent Brexit supporter, says it is time for a change.

The government should borrow not just to build infrastructure but for day-to-day spending. Pushing growth up to Mr Javid’s ambitious target of 2.8 per cent would also allow room for tax cuts. “Monetary policy has run out of road,” he says. “We need fiscal policy.”

Prof Minford, of Cardiff Business School, says it is “common sense” for Mr Johnson’s government to rescue Flybe — a regional airline and early beneficiary of the new administration’s commitment to the country’s regions — because air travel between provincial cities is important but demand not strong enough to deliver commercially.

“Regional airlines have gone bust. But it is vital infrastructure.”

Jim O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs economist and Treasury minister who helped devise the Northern Powerhouse strategy under the Cameron government, also backed a new approach. “Economic liberalism is supposed to be the best way to deliver productivity gains and in the last decade it has not done that. Across the G7 countries since the financial crisis it has not worked.”

He believes the Treasury should loosen the straitjacket. Mr Javid is rewriting rules, the so-called Green Book, that currently discourage state investment in poorer places. Existing rules mean that areas such as London receive more money because they are more productive. Mr Javid told the FT in January that the rules “entrench” inequality.

Lord O’Neill argues that the govern-

Continues on page 50

50

Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

FT

NATIONAL NEWS

Donald Trump’s lawyer makes stark claim of executive authority Alan Dershowitz says nothing US president does to be re-elected can be impeachable Kadhim Shubber, Courtney Weaver and James Politi

A

lawyer for D onald Trump claimed the US president could not be impeached for actions taken to win re-election, as the White House rushed to secure crucial votes to block new witnesses in the Senate trial to remove him from office.

The comments by Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard professor who is part of the team representing Mr Trump, came ahead of a showdown set for Friday, when lawmakers will decide whether to allow testimony from key officials in the Ukraine scandal, such as John Bolton, the former national security adviser.

If a majority votes against allowing witnesses, the Republicancontrolled Senate could move towards a swift acquittal of the president. Mr Trump faces charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for allegedly withholding aid to Ukraine so Kyiv would announce an investigation of political rival Joe Biden, and then trying to block congressional scrutiny of the matter.

Speaking on the first of two days in which senators could submit questions in the trial, Mr Dershowitz on Wednesday made a stark claim of broad executive power — that actions to secure re-election were inherently in the public interest and therefore not impeachable.

“If a president does something that he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” he said.

Where that conclusion leads us is that a president can abuse his power

in any kind of way and there’s nothing you can do about it Adam Schiff, the House intelligence chairman, commenting on the Trump defence Beyond the substance of the case, the question of testimony from Mr Bolton has been hanging over the trial since the revelation that he had alleged in a forthcoming book that Mr Trump withheld the aide to Ukraine to secure an investigation into Mr Biden.

The White House on Wednesday warned that the Bolton book “may not be published” without the deletion of classified information.

“Under federal law and the nondisclosure agreements your client signed as a condition for gaining access to classified information, the manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information,” a White House official said in a letter to a lawyer for Mr Bolton that was disclosed on Wednesday.

Mr Bolton’s lawyer later disputed the White House claim that the book contained classified information, according to US media reports.

Democrats repeatedly referenced Mr Bolton in the Senate as they sought to press Republican senators to support calling him to testify. They also warned that the arguments by Mr Trump’s legal team had set a dangerous precedent.

Adam Schiff, the House intelligence chairman who is leading the Democratic impeachment effort, said Mr Dershowitz’s argument was a “fringe theory” that endorsed the idea that “the president can abuse his power with impunity”.

“Where that conclusion leads us is that a president can abuse his power in any kind of way and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he said.

Alan Dershowitz, a member of Donald Trump’s impeachment team, answered questions from senators during a new phase of the impeachment proceedings © AFP via Getty Images

Mr Schiff told the Senate if they had any doubt about whether Mr Trump’s motives in asking Ukraine to investigate Mr Biden were corrupt or not, they should call Mr Bolton as a witness.

“There is a witness a subpoena away who can answer that question,” he said.

Mr Trump’s defence team responded that the time to call witnesses was during the House investigation that led to his impeachment, warning senators to stand firm lest they encourage more frequent impeachment probes in the future.

“If you make it way too easy to impeach a president, then this chamber is going to be dealing with that all the time,” said Patrick Philbin, the deputy White House counsel.

Impeachment trial: the next phase Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, said on Wednesday that his side was facing an “uphill struggle” to secure witnesses in the trial, suggesting White House pressure was working.

Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, told reporters that if Mr Bolton were called as a witness, his side would call Hunter Biden, the former vice-president’s son who held a lucrative seat on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.

Mr Trump took aim at Mr Bolton on Twitter, saying Mr Bolton had “begged” him for a job in the White House and was making “nasty & untrue” allegations in his manuscript.

The US president later tweeted a clip of an interview by Mr Bolton on Ukraine, with the words “GAME

OVER!”.

The ex-adviser did not respond directly to the president’s accusations on Wednesday but liked a tweet that referred to Mr Trump as “a moron”.

Democrats need 51 of the 100 senators to vote to call more witnesses in a chamber where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority. To convict Mr Trump and remove him from office, Democrats would need 20 Republican votes — a highly unlikely outcome.

Nevertheless, the testimony of Mr Bolton could be potentially damaging to public perceptions of the White House. It would also mean that Mr Trump’s impeachment trial would probably still be going on when he delivers his annual State of the Union address next Tuesday.

would be. “This is not a term for use, even privately,” he counselled cabinet colleagues. “It is much too negative.”

The causes of the Toxteth riots in Liverpool and those in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol and London were manifold. Racial harassment of young black people by the police was the spark, but unemployment rates of as much as 50 per cent in some places had robbed many people of hope as well as money.

Thatcher blamed the poor. “We have a whole generation brought up on five hours a day of TV,” she told the cabinet on July 9. “We have poured money into big employments in Merseyside; a failure.”

As her government cut subsidies and sterling soared, allowing a flood of cheap imports, industry across the north of England and the Midlands collapsed. More than 1m manufacturing jobs were lost between 1979 and 1981. Almost one in five people in the north-east were jobless, compared with one in 10 in the south-east. Hundreds of

thousands of people moved south for work.

Michael Heseltine, the then environment secretary, accused his own government of “tactical retreat, a combination of economic erosion and encouraged evacuation”.

Three years later the fight moved from the cities to the coalfields. A plan to shut up to 75 pits over three years sparked a year-long strike across Yorkshire, Durham, Lancashire, South Wales and Scotland.

More than 160,000 coalfield jobs were lost in the decade after 1981. By 1996 Grimethorpe, once a thriving pit village in South Yorkshire, was the most deprived area in the UK. And some coalfield communities are still struggling to find a new purpose.

But with memories fading, these are some of the places that overturned 40 years of enmity to vote Conservative at December’s general election, while big cities in the north such as Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and central Leeds remain Tory-free zones.

Andy Bounds

Brexit: will Boris Johnson reverse...

Continued from page 49 ment’s new cost/benefit analysis should take into account one-off transformational gains that fundamentally improve the potential of an economy. But he fears that the new politics favour investing in towns — some now represented for the first time by Tory MPs — as opposed to big cities in the north.

Older, less racially diverse and pro-Brexit, these towns backed the Tories heavily even in areas devastated by industrial decline in the 1980s and austerity in the 2010s.

He argues that the economics suggest that building up cities such as Manchester and Leeds as alternative business locations to London will have the biggest impact, with improved public transport allowing peripheral towns to feed off the success of local centres.

Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, also warns against spreading “the worst kind of jam too thinly”. She questions whether the government has the necessary

commitment to close a north-south divide that on some measures was as wide as the one between the old East and West Germany.

She says Mr Javid’s £100bn infrastructure fund is too small. “It will take hundreds of billions,” she says. “We have not done this since the Victorian age.” Some could be borrowed but “we will have to pay more tax”, she adds.

Like the riots that ripped apart England’s inner cities in the early 1980s, the 2016 Brexit vote forced politicians to reappraise what is happening in their own country. The big test for Mr Johnson remains making good on his “levelling up” slogan.

He models his economic style on Lord Heseltine, who combined support for the free market with a belief that the state can help reverse decline. His role in reviving Liverpool’s redundant inner city docks after the 1981 riots in nearby Toxteth is still seen as a model for regeneration. But the peer says the prime minister has some way to go.

“He calls himself a Brexity Hezza,” Lord Heseltine says. “We www.businessday.ng

shall see.”

The passionate pro-European, now 86, has urged the prime minister to accelerate efforts to push more power and money out to regional mayors to allow local communities to help themselves. “It’s a mistake to say they just have to regenerate the north,” Lord Heseltine says. “They have to regenerate the whole economy.”

The north: from ‘managed decline’ to election victory In 1981 — after a summer of inner city riots — the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher considered abandoning parts of the north to what the then chancellor Geoffrey Howe described as “managed decline”.

In a letter dated September 4, and only released by the state archives in 2011, Mr Howe, a Cambridge-educated classicist, asked: “Should our aim be to stabilise the inner cities . . . or is this to pump water uphill? Should we rather go for ‘managed decline’?” He realised how controversial the approach

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Friday 31 January 2020

BUSINESS DAY

51

Live @ The STOCK Exchanges Prices for Securities Traded as of Thursday 30 January 2020 Company

Market cap(nm)

Price (N)

Change

Trades

Volume

Company

Market cap(nm)

Price (N)

Change

Trades

Volume

PRICES FOR MAIN BOARD SECURITIES (Equities) BANKING ACCESS BANK PLC. 343,011.43 9.65 -1.53 153 5,130,952 UNITED BANK FOR AFRICA PLC 275,305.34 8.05 -1.83 309 26,888,465 ZENITH BANK PLC 664,035.84 21.15 0.24 470 23,955,952 932 55,975,369 OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS FBN HOLDINGS PLC 249,472.28 6.95 -0.72 201 8,299,529 201 8,299,529 1,133 64,274,898 TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES MTN NIGERIA COMMUNICATIONS PLC 2,442,541.57 120.00 2.50 216 37,549,526 216 37,549,526 216 37,549,526 BUILDING MATERIALS DANGOTE CEMENT PLC 3,065,587.28 179.90 - 235 2,582,989 LAFARGE AFRICA PLC. 253,697.78 15.75 -7.08 181 2,867,201 416 5,450,190 416 5,450,190 EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION SEPLAT PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT COMPANY PLC 356,008.96 605.00 - 31 28,918 31 28,918 31 28,918 1,796 107,303,532 REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS (REITS) SKYE SHELTER FUND PLC 1,710.00 85.50 - 0 0 UNION HOMES REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST (REIT) 10,175.81 40.70 - 0 0 UPDC REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST 9,072.12 3.40 - 5 54,200 5 54,200 5 54,200 OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS NIGERIA ENERYGY SECTOR FUND 411.91 552.20 - 0 0 VALUEALLIANCE VALUE FUND 3,312.39 103.20 - 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 54,200 CROP PRODUCTION FTN COCOA PROCESSORS PLC 440.00 0.20 - 0 0 OKOMU OIL PALM PLC. 64,865.88 68.00 - 15 20,824 PRESCO PLC 52,250.00 52.25 - 17 318,320 32 339,144 FISHING/HUNTING/TRAPPING ELLAH LAKES PLC. 8,500.00 4.25 - 1 9 1 9 LIVESTOCK/ANIMAL SPECIALTIES LIVESTOCK FEEDS PLC. 1,560.00 0.52 -7.14 6 228,052 6 228,052 39 567,205 DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIES JOHN HOLT PLC. 217.92 0.56 - 3 6,167 1,903.99 2.93 - 0 0 S C O A NIG. PLC. TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION OF NIGERIA PLC 37,802.63 0.93 -8.82 85 7,958,873 U A C N PLC. 25,931.67 9.00 -10.00 205 8,273,000 293 16,238,040 293 16,238,040 BUILDING CONSTRUCTION ARBICO PLC. 469.26 3.16 - 0 0 0 0 INFRASTRUCTURE/HEAVY CONSTRUCTION JULIUS BERGER NIG. PLC. 29,700.00 22.50 1.12 142 1,737,762 165.00 6.60 - 0 0 ROADS NIG PLC. 142 1,737,762 REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT UACN PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT COMPANY PLC 2,468.48 0.95 1.05 18 889,394 18 889,394 160 2,627,156 AUTOMOBILES/AUTO PARTS DN TYRE & RUBBER PLC 954.53 0.20 - 0 0 0 0 BEVERAGES--BREWERS/DISTILLERS CHAMPION BREW. PLC. 7,124.84 0.91 - 8 335,200 GOLDEN GUINEA BREW. PLC. 220.45 0.81 - 0 0 GUINNESS NIG PLC 66,149.56 30.20 - 29 174,121 INTERNATIONAL BREWERIES PLC. 77,362.76 9.00 - 21 175,880 NIGERIAN BREW. PLC. 439,829.61 55.00 - 45 61,753 103 746,954 FOOD PRODUCTS DANGOTE SUGAR REFINERY PLC 165,600.00 13.80 - 89 325,043 FLOUR MILLS NIG. PLC. 91,643.48 22.35 - 49 250,998 HONEYWELL FLOUR MILL PLC 8,485.31 1.07 -0.93 28 972,493 MULTI-TREX INTEGRATED FOODS PLC 1,340.10 0.36 - 0 0 N NIG. FLOUR MILLS PLC. 766.26 4.30 - 1 40,000 NASCON ALLIED INDUSTRIES PLC 39,741.58 15.00 - 11 61,610 UNION DICON SALT PLC. 2,993.06 10.95 - 0 0 178 1,650,144 FOOD PRODUCTS--DIVERSIFIED CADBURY NIGERIA PLC. 20,190.67 10.75 - 30 320,168 NESTLE NIGERIA PLC. 1,093,865.63 1,380.00 - 83 240,062 113 560,230 HOUSEHOLD DURABLES NIGERIAN ENAMELWARE PLC. 1,680.31 22.10 - 1 50 VITAFOAM NIG PLC. 6,879.64 5.50 - 47 913,221 48 913,271 PERSONAL/HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS P Z CUSSONS NIGERIA PLC. 22,433.20 5.65 -3.42 54 1,026,566 UNILEVER NIGERIA PLC. 86,175.08 15.00 - 106 21,797,506 160 22,824,072 602 26,694,671 BANKING ECOBANK TRANSNATIONAL INCORPORATED 136,704.16 7.45 - 36 312,062 FIDELITY BANK PLC 61,136.82 2.11 0.47 79 4,689,407 GUARANTY TRUST BANK PLC. 912,366.56 31.00 2.99 418 75,729,678 JAIZ BANK PLC 19,446.40 0.66 - 4 3,450 STERLING BANK PLC. 52,974.37 1.84 -2.65 50 2,533,034 UNION BANK NIG.PLC. 174,724.52 6.00 - 44 382,376 UNITY BANK PLC 7,481.18 0.64 6.67 16 222,351 WEMA BANK PLC. 26,616.38 0.69 - 22 406,979 669 84,279,337 INSURANCE CARRIERS, BROKERS AND SERVICES AFRICAN ALLIANCE INSURANCE PLC 4,117.00 0.20 - 0 0 AIICO INSURANCE PLC. 5,544.16 0.80 -4.76 37 5,799,274 AXAMANSARD INSURANCE PLC 21,000.00 2.00 - 4 38,088 CONSOLIDATED HALLMARK INSURANCE PLC 3,170.70 0.39 8.33 4 170,545 CORNERSTONE INSURANCE PLC 8,690.41 0.59 9.26 2 200,000 GOLDLINK INSURANCE PLC 909.99 0.20 - 0 0 GUINEA INSURANCE PLC. 1,228.00 0.20 - 0 0 INTERNATIONAL ENERGY INSURANCE PLC 487.95 0.38 - 0 0 LASACO ASSURANCE PLC. 1,904.09 0.26 -7.14 10 390,000 LAW UNION AND ROCK INS. PLC. 3,050.39 0.71 4.41 49 4,035,026 LINKAGE ASSURANCE PLC 4,560.00 0.57 - 5 285,390 MUTUAL BENEFITS ASSURANCE PLC. 2,234.55 0.20 - 0 0 NEM INSURANCE PLC 12,673.21 2.40 9.09 35 1,042,834 NIGER INSURANCE PLC 1,547.90 0.20 - 2 100,005 PRESTIGE ASSURANCE PLC 2,906.58 0.54 - 0 0 REGENCY ASSURANCE PLC 1,333.75 0.20 - 2 142,038 SOVEREIGN TRUST INSURANCE PLC 2,386.54 0.21 5.00 3 685,000 STACO INSURANCE PLC 4,483.72 0.48 - 0 0 STANDARD ALLIANCE INSURANCE PLC. 2,582.21 0.20 - 0 0 SUNU ASSURANCES NIGERIA PLC. 2,800.00 0.20 - 2 45,464 UNIC DIVERSIFIED HOLDINGS PLC. 516.46 0.20 - 0 0 UNIVERSAL INSURANCE PLC 3,200.00 0.20 - 0 0 VERITAS KAPITAL ASSURANCE PLC 2,773.33 0.20 - 1 45,454 WAPIC INSURANCE PLC 4,416.30 0.33 -5.71 37 1,601,692 193 14,580,810 MICRO-FINANCE BANKS NPF MICROFINANCE BANK PLC 2,835.43 1.24 - 13 342,416 13 342,416

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MORTGAGE CARRIERS, BROKERS AND SERVICES ABBEY MORTGAGE BANK PLC 4,410.00 1.05 - 1 95,796 ASO SAVINGS AND LOANS PLC 7,370.87 0.50 - 0 0 INFINITY TRUST MORTGAGE BANK PLC 5,796.93 1.39 - 0 0 2,265.95 0.20 - 0 0 RESORT SAVINGS & LOANS PLC UNION HOMES SAVINGS AND LOANS PLC. 2,949.22 3.02 - 0 0 1 95,796 OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS AFRICA PRUDENTIAL PLC 9,400.00 4.70 0.64 33 377,850 35,291.19 6.00 - 6 233,663 CUSTODIAN INVESTMENT PLC DEAP CAPITAL MANAGEMENT & TRUST PLC 540.00 0.36 - 0 0 38,219.23 1.93 -1.03 54 7,363,571 FCMB GROUP PLC. ROYAL EXCHANGE PLC. 1,543.61 0.30 - 3 45,454 STANBIC IBTC HOLDINGS PLC 435,956.15 41.50 - 12 7,045 15,300.00 2.55 -1.92 71 2,391,128 UNITED CAPITAL PLC 179 10,418,711 1,055 109,717,070 HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS EKOCORP PLC. 2,592.72 5.20 - 0 0 710.63 0.20 -9.09 2 685,686 UNION DIAGNOSTIC & CLINICAL SERVICES PLC 2 685,686 MEDICAL SUPPLIES MORISON INDUSTRIES PLC. 494.58 0.50 - 8 5,398 8 5,398 PHARMACEUTICALS EVANS MEDICAL PLC. 366.17 0.50 - 0 0 5,424.54 2.60 - 9 135,200 FIDSON HEALTHCARE PLC GLAXO SMITHKLINE CONSUMER NIG. PLC. 6,517.53 5.45 - 20 318,576 MAY & BAKER NIGERIA PLC. 3,743.76 2.17 - 9 15,862 1,044.54 0.55 7.84 16 1,287,514 NEIMETH INTERNATIONAL PHARMACEUTICALS PLC NIGERIA-GERMAN CHEMICALS PLC. 556.71 3.62 - 0 0 325.23 1.50 - 1 100 PHARMA-DEKO PLC. 55 1,757,252 65 2,448,336 COMPUTER BASED SYSTEMS COURTEVILLE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS PLC 745.92 0.21 -4.55 4 1,341,500 4 1,341,500 COMPUTERS AND PERIPHERALS OMATEK VENTURES PLC 1,206.13 0.41 - 0 0 0 0 IT SERVICES CWG PLC 6,413.06 2.54 - 0 0 NCR (NIGERIA) PLC. 357.48 3.31 - 5 37,300 TRIPPLE GEE AND COMPANY PLC. 287.07 0.58 - 0 0 5 37,300 PROCESSING SYSTEMS CHAMS PLC 1,643.62 0.35 -2.86 5 266,250 E-TRANZACT INTERNATIONAL PLC 10,962.00 2.61 - 2 4,000 7 270,250 TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES AIRTEL AFRICA PLC 1,123,311.48 298.90 - 1 36 1 36 17 1,649,086 BUILDING MATERIALS BERGER PAINTS PLC 1,956.31 6.75 - 3 3,927 BUA CEMENT PLC 1,244,515.01 36.75 -2.26 51 780,081 CAP PLC 19,250.00 27.50 - 7 16,772 MEYER PLC. 244.37 0.46 - 1 265 PORTLAND PAINTS & PRODUCTS NIGERIA PLC 1,769.32 2.23 - 2 2,611 PREMIER PAINTS PLC. 1,156.20 9.40 - 0 0 64 803,656 ELECTRONIC AND ELECTRICAL PRODUCTS AUSTIN LAZ & COMPANY PLC 2,192.12 2.03 - 0 0 CUTIX PLC. 2,465.85 1.40 -1.41 10 191,319 10 191,319 PACKAGING/CONTAINERS BETA GLASS PLC. 34,998.04 70.00 - 3 9,726 GREIF NIGERIA PLC 388.02 9.10 - 0 0 3 9,726 AGRO-ALLIED & CHEMICALS NOTORE CHEMICAL IND PLC 100,754.14 62.50 - 0 0 0 0 77 1,004,701 CHEMICALS B.O.C. GASES PLC. 1,873.10 4.50 - 6 43,925 6 43,925 METALS ALUMINIUM EXTRUSION IND. PLC. 1,781.64 8.10 - 0 0 0 0 MINING SERVICES MULTIVERSE MINING AND EXPLORATION PLC 852.39 0.20 - 9 1,475,000 9 1,475,000 PAPER/FOREST PRODUCTS THOMAS WYATT NIG. PLC. 77.00 0.35 - 0 0 0 0 15 1,518,925 ENERGY EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES JAPAUL OIL & MARITIME SERVICES PLC 1,252.54 0.20 - 9 36,726 9 36,726 INTEGRATED OIL AND GAS SERVICES OANDO PLC 44,753.08 3.60 -3.74 57 1,283,033 57 1,283,033 PETROLEUM AND PETROLEUM PRODUCTS DISTRIBUTORS 11 PLC 53,332.04 147.90 - 12 2,802 CONOIL PLC 13,879.04 20.00 - 18 19,829 ETERNA PLC. 3,390.78 2.60 - 12 114,245 FORTE OIL PLC. 26,831.11 20.60 - 55 81,422 MRS OIL NIGERIA PLC. 4,663.23 15.30 - 6 8,509 TOTAL NIGERIA PLC. 36,328.84 107.00 - 24 51,946 127 278,753 193 1,598,512 ADVERTISING AFROMEDIA PLC 1,509.28 0.34 - 0 0 0 0 AIRLINES MEDVIEW AIRLINE PLC 15,796.05 1.62 - 0 0 0 0 AUTOMOBILE/AUTO PART RETAILERS R T BRISCOE PLC. 235.27 0.20 - 7 841 7 841 COURIER/FREIGHT/DELIVERY RED STAR EXPRESS PLC 2,623.26 4.45 - 6 130,445 TRANS-NATIONWIDE EXPRESS PLC. 421.96 0.90 - 0 0 6 130,445 HOSPITALITY TANTALIZERS PLC 642.33 0.20 - 0 0 0 0 HOTELS/LODGING CAPITAL HOTEL PLC 4,259.15 2.75 - 0 0 IKEJA HOTEL PLC 2,328.25 1.12 - 4 211,097 TOURIST COMPANY OF NIGERIA PLC. 7,076.28 3.15 - 0 0 TRANSCORP HOTELS PLC 33,821.80 4.45 - 0 0 4 211,097 MEDIA/ENTERTAINMENT DAAR COMMUNICATIONS PLC 4,320.00 0.36 - 0 0 0 0 PRINTING/PUBLISHING ACADEMY PRESS PLC. 223.78 0.37 - 0 0 LEARN AFRICA PLC 933.45 1.21 - 0 0 STUDIO PRESS (NIG) PLC. 1,183.82 1.99 - 1 300 UNIVERSITY PRESS PLC. 517.69 1.20 -4.00 16 650,181 17 650,481 ROAD TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATED BUS COMPANY PLC 563.62 0.34 -8.11 3 630,000 3 630,000 SPECIALTY INTERLINKED TECHNOLOGIES PLC 688.80 2.91 - 0 0 SECURE ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY PLC 1,126.31 0.20 - 0 0

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Women in Business

BUSINESS DAY Friday 31 January 2020

PEARL UZOKWE

Amy Jadesimi

Director for Governance and Sustainability at Sahara Group Limited

MD/CEO, LADOL

P

earl is a qualified solicitor and member of the Law Society of England & Wales. She graduated with a LLB (Hons.) from the University of Bristol and is also a Chartered Secretary (ICSA). She has since experienced a remarkable professional growth in the last fifteen years whilst building her legal career within UK and Nigerian corporate structures.

In 2002, she began working at the Crown Agents UK who provides specialist and multidisciplinary services in institutional development, international trade & procurement and finance. Her role in the legal department of the organisation, saw her provide legal advice and support to the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in the development and administration of a number of notable funds including the Private Infrastructure Development Group – set up to facilitate private investment in the infrastructure needed to help alleviate poverty in developing countries and the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIM) – a $4 billion investment facility designed to accelerate the availability of funds to be used for health and immunisation programs in 70 of the world’s poorest countries.

She built a strong working relationship with the donors which included country donors like the UK, French and South African governments and private NGOs like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

These two funds in addition to her work on the Emerging African Infrastructure Fund (EAIF) influenced her decision to seek employment primarily with organisations who combined their corporate pursuits with a clear and effective social purpose.

After a period with City of London firms Denton Wilde, Sapte LLP and Stephenson Harwood LLP working within their corporate departments, she relocated to Lagos, Nigeria in 2009 and joined the Legal team at Sahara Group as the third member of the then budding department. She threw herself enthusiastically into the team work that was necessary to grow and nurture the unit’s human capital and widen the remit of its function to the international energy

group as it spread inexorably across the energy value chain in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Pearl’s vast professional experience within the upstream, downstream and midstream sectors of the oil and gas industry, corporate law and international development culminated in her appointment as the Group’s Director for Governance and Sustainability - a role which her professional pursuits and private passions seemed to have been leading up to in the period before hand. She is married with a daughter.

Uzokwe is currently in Paris at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Private Finance for Sustainable Development Conference and has said that galvanizing private finance alongside other sources of finance for gender equality was not only urgent but critical for sustained wealth creation, especially in developing countries.

Uzokwe said Sahara Group had consistently led the cause of equal access and opportunities in the private sector through support for gender related projects and policies that supports employment and growth within the organisation which is free of any gender-based considerations.

“Sahara Group is passionate about the issue of gender equality and we continue to promote and invest in projects that empower men and women to pursue economic prosperity. We are also entrenching gender diversity at the board level of the organisation in line with global trends in corporate governance,” she said.

Noting the need for women empowerment as a precursor to achieving gender equality, Uzokwe said governments and businesses need to be “more deliberate and committed” in their support for activities that will connect girls and women to transformative economic opportunities.

“Sahara Group aligns with the position that empowering women and eliminating the hurdles to success for women in both the formal and informal sectors has the potential to set the tone for attaining several sustainable development goals, with special emphasis on goal 5 that speaks to gender equality,” she affirmed.

A

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By Kemi Ajumobi

my Jadesimi (born 1976) is a Nigerian businesswoman and the chief executive officer of the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Base (LADOL), a privately owned logistics and engineering facility in the Port of Lagos, Nigeria.

LADOL is a fully integrated, independent and secure base anchored around a 200m quay with a deep, 8.5m draft. The QUAY provides stevedoring and cargo handling with efficient discharge and loading of goods.

The BASE provides all logistical services, including warehousing, material handling equipment, fabrication and assembly yards, people management, catering, bunkering of fuel and water, facilities for the supply of bulk materials, a helicopter base, open and closed storage facilities, sewage and waste treatment, potable water and medical services.

She was born in Nigeria circa 1976. Her father is Oladipo Jadesimi, the executive chairman of LADOL. Jadesimi attended boarding school in the United Kingdom. She was admitted to the University of Oxford, first graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Physiological Sciences and later with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (BMBCh) degree, in 1999. Later, she graduated with a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

After medical school, she was recruited

by Goldman Sachs. She started work in the Investment Banking division of the firm, based in their offices in London, focusing on mergers, acquisitions and corporate finance. She worked there for three years.

Even though Jadesimi is better known as a businesswoman, she never intended to leave the medical field and pursue another career. She was offered a job by Goldman Sachs while working with a firm in Oxford. After working there for three years, she never went back to the hospital or her previous job and instead went on to pursue an MBA at Stanford.

Following graduation from Stanford University, she interned for one year at

Brait SE in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she worked in the private equity division, as a transaction executive. In 2004, she relocated back to her homeland and joined LADOL, the logistics firm that her father started in 2001. Over time, she rose through the ranks and in 2009, she was appointed by the board as the Chief Executive Officer of the business.

Through LADOL, Jadesimi joined the Venture Strategies for Health and Development (VSHD) organisation where she works with other Nigerian doctors and birth attendants to reduce the high rate of maternal mortality in Nigeria. Upon addressing the many cases, Jadesimi and other practitioners noticed that the drugs used to help reduce the maternal mortality were expensive; therefore, not many pregnant women could afford them.

The VSHD came up with a drug that was well suited for maternal mortality and was better for the market. Under Jadesimi’s supervision, the organisation partnered with a leading pharmaceutical company in Nigeria, Emzor Pharmaceuticals, to distribute the drugs through Nigeria. Beyond LADOL, she is on the Prince’s Trust International global advisory board, a founding commissioner of the Business and Sustainable Development and Commission and a Forbes contributor.

Featured as a guest panelist at the London Business School African summit, speaking on integration and growth on the continent, parallel to the events, Jadesimi took part initialing an art collaboration piece called Remember To Rise.

In 2012, Jadesimi was named an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow. In 2013, she was named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Also that year, she was given the title of Rising Talent by the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society. Forbes included her in the 2014 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa article. The Financial Times named her one of the top 25 Africans To Watch.

Amy is a founding member of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, announced in January 2016 at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

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