Two former members of the Federal Executive Council who claimed to have witnessed the heavy exchange of gunfire at the State Security Service Headquarters, Abuja, on Sunday, have disagreed with the Presidency and the SSS over the scale of the attack.
A former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode; and erstwhile Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nasir el-Rufai, said the security breach on the SSS headquarters situated behind the Presidential Villa, was more than an attempted jailbreak.
The Presidency and the SSS had explained that the incident was a failed jailbreak which was promptly brought under control.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, who took to Twitter to calm frayed nerves had said, “What happened at the SSS headquarters this morning (Sunday) was an attempted jailbreak which has been effectively foiled. There is no cause for alarm.”
But sharing their experience on Twitter while the attack was said to have been on-going, they both gave vivid descriptions of the situation on the ground, describing it as a battle that ensued between security operatives and the attackers.
Fani-Kayode, who lives just a few meters away from the SSS headquarters, said the attack was “a full-scale battle” and dismissed the Presidency’s position as an after-thought.
While lamenting the security situation in the country, Fani-Kayode said the “battle” which he witnessed was a stand-off that took the security operatives about four hours to quell.
He added that it was laughable that Nigerians were made to believe that the incident started with a gun hijack when a suspect in handcuff disarmed a train security operative.
Fani-Kayode said, “I’m very close by and I can see it all. I live 50 metres away from the SSS headquarters and the Villa and what I witnessed with my eyes and heard this morning (Sunday) was a full-scale battle. I know what I saw and heard. If you are dumb enough to believe their lies, that is your problem and not mine.
“One Boko Haram gunman in a cell and in handcuffs held the Nigerian Army and SSS off for four hours in sustained and heavy gunfire! Please, if you believe that crap, you will believe anything!”
El-Rufai, who also claimed that the incident happened “in my neighbourhood,” said helicopter gunships had to be deployed before the situation was brought under control.
Arguing that the onslaught on the SSS headquarters was more serious than what Nigerians were made to believe, el-Rufai rained curses on those he branded as “planners of genocide.”
He wrote, “Exchange of gunfire with helicopter gunship hovering over the Aso Drive neighbourhood of Maitama adjoining the SSS Headquarters.
“Whatever this is, it appears more serious than an attempted jailbreak claimed by the SSS. May God protect the innocent and destroy the murderers, kidnappers and planners of genocide. Amen.”
Meanwhile, a concerned Nigerian Abubakar Usman, has warned that it was time the President stopped trading blames with state governors on who was responsible for the spread of terrorist activities in the country.
“What happened around Aso Rock today (Sunday) is enough for everybody to ask questions. How can some Boko Haram militants detained at the SSS facility in Abuja disarm SSS operatives for hours? We need answers.
“Should Jonathan, governors, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party and the opposition All Progressives Congress continue to trade blames on who is sponsoring Boko Haram until we are all consumed?” he queried on Twitter.
Also, political blogger, Babatunde Rosanwo, said he was taken aback that suspected criminals such as Boko Haram members, could be detained at a facility close to the Presidential Villa.
According to Rosanwo, any gun attack close to where the President resides is a security breach, a development which he said should be handled with all sense of seriousness.
“Why keep high-value suspects at SSS HQ which is close to the President’s residence? I’m just curious. I hope there are no deliberate attempts to make the President panic and make security blunders. RIP to the men who bit the dust at the SSS HQ while on duty. Hopefully, the State will compensate their next of kin,” he added.
An online activist, Onye Nkuzi, described the incident as a “very serious crisis.” Expressing his fears, he added, “The SSS jail break story doesn’t sound too logical to me. How did it happen? Where did they get weapons from? This is a very serious crisis.”
Monday, 31 March 2014
Sunday, 30 March 2014
CONFAB RESUMES PLENARY SESSION TODAY •DELEGATES TO VOTE ON RULES OF PROCEEDINGS
THE plenary session of the ongoing National Conference will resume today, even though on a rather sad note following the sudden death of a delegate.
A delegate from Bauchi State, and former Assistant Inspector General of Police, Hamma Misau, died on Thursday, March 27, a day after the plenary session was adjourned to today.
Before his demise, Misau was a delegate to the National Conference appointed on the platform of Association of Retired Police Officers of Nigeria (ARPON).
Confab’s Assistant Secretary, Media and Communication, Mr Akpandem James, confirmed that top on the list of issues expected by all delegates and observers would be a report of the outcome of the consultative meeting between the principal officers of the conference and selected delegates.
The conference chairman, based on a collective decision of the delegates, had last Wednesday appointed 50 representatives of the 492 delegates for crucial meeting on how to resolve the question of voting pattern.
Delegates are also expected to vote on the rules of proceedings to be adopted by the conference.
Sitting was adjourned on Wednesday last week to give the selected delegates sufficient time to discuss and agree on the issue which had earlier attracted heated debate among delegates.
Akpandem James also said continuation of the adoption of the National Conference Rules of Procedure earlier suspended last week also forms part of the issues slated for Monday when the conference resumes.
Although debates on the standing orders had almost been completed last week, delegates had insisted on sighting the clean copy of the rules before formally adopting it for the regulation of the affairs of the conference.
It was also gathered that the conference would also begin from today to discuss and adopt its Work Plan, proposed committee structure and group classification. Delegates are also expected to identify committees they want to serve.
The conference assistance secretary disclosed that: “The conference will call for submission of papers on thematic issues highlighted under the various committees to be announced. The papers are to be submitted before close of business on Thursday, April 3, 2014; or earlier.
Conference delegates are also expected to commence debate on the speech presented by President Goodluck Jonathan on March 17, 2014 when he formally inaugurated the conference at the National Judicial Institute.
A delegate from Bauchi State, and former Assistant Inspector General of Police, Hamma Misau, died on Thursday, March 27, a day after the plenary session was adjourned to today.
Before his demise, Misau was a delegate to the National Conference appointed on the platform of Association of Retired Police Officers of Nigeria (ARPON).
Confab’s Assistant Secretary, Media and Communication, Mr Akpandem James, confirmed that top on the list of issues expected by all delegates and observers would be a report of the outcome of the consultative meeting between the principal officers of the conference and selected delegates.
The conference chairman, based on a collective decision of the delegates, had last Wednesday appointed 50 representatives of the 492 delegates for crucial meeting on how to resolve the question of voting pattern.
Delegates are also expected to vote on the rules of proceedings to be adopted by the conference.
Sitting was adjourned on Wednesday last week to give the selected delegates sufficient time to discuss and agree on the issue which had earlier attracted heated debate among delegates.
Akpandem James also said continuation of the adoption of the National Conference Rules of Procedure earlier suspended last week also forms part of the issues slated for Monday when the conference resumes.
Although debates on the standing orders had almost been completed last week, delegates had insisted on sighting the clean copy of the rules before formally adopting it for the regulation of the affairs of the conference.
It was also gathered that the conference would also begin from today to discuss and adopt its Work Plan, proposed committee structure and group classification. Delegates are also expected to identify committees they want to serve.
The conference assistance secretary disclosed that: “The conference will call for submission of papers on thematic issues highlighted under the various committees to be announced. The papers are to be submitted before close of business on Thursday, April 3, 2014; or earlier.
Conference delegates are also expected to commence debate on the speech presented by President Goodluck Jonathan on March 17, 2014 when he formally inaugurated the conference at the National Judicial Institute.
Saturday, 29 March 2014
The Extravagance Of The African Billionaire
When hopping on a plane it is understandable that you might carry a few personal belongings with you: a toothbrush or some bed socks, a little cash for incidentals in the airport or in-flight, duty-free shopping. So one can only imagine Christo Wiese’s surprise when he was stopped by customs at Heathrow Airport for carrying what he considered “small change”. Customs confiscated over $1 million in cash, the South African billionaire had bundled into rolls with elastic bands and nestled in his carry-on. A man with a personal fortune worth over $3 billion, complete with a wine estate, five-star hotel and private game reserve, considered this kind of cash “peanuts” – small change indeed.
Africa, a continent home to 80 percent of the world’s population living in poverty, is also the home of some of the world’s wealthiest people. Like their international brethren, despite the struggles of their poor neighbours, the region’s rich have no compunction about flashing their fancy cars, fleets of private jets, tickets to outer space, lavish weddings and exclusive and extravagant real estate.
In late 2008, South African luxury retail magnate, Johann Rupert, was quick to swear that his 22-year-old son Anton was not a “spoilt brat”, despite the young man having just smashed his father’s $1.2-million Ferrari F50 – one of only 349 in the world. Publicly, at least, the billionaire blamed only himself for his son’s error. The car – one of 400 sitting in the billionaire’s private-collection-cum-vintage-car-museum – did need driving to remain in mint condition, Johann Rupert said. “Cars that are not driven regularly suffer irreparable damage,” the tycoon remarked at the time. “The museum cars are therefore driven often.” Rupert senior brushed off his son’s ill-fated joy ride, saying: “I did far worse things at Anton’s age, often involving an Alfa Romeo Giulia Super.” Who knows whether the boy would have received more than a slap on the wrist had he taken out dad’s 2003 supercar Ferrari Enzo or the rare 1931 Austro-Daimler Bergmeister.
While Rupert seems fairly nonchalant about his jam-packed garage, Nigerian self-made businessman, Aliko Dangote, worth a whopping $20.2 billion, might be a bit more territorial about his latest purchase: a $43-million custom-made luxury yacht. The richest man in Africa for the second year running and widely reported as the 43rd highest-grossing billionaire in the world, Dangote paved the way to his billions through his publicly traded cement company, Dangote Cement, which operates in 14 countries on the continent. The yacht, named Mariya after his mother, can often be seen moored alongside Nigerian oil tycoon, Femi Otedola’s almost identical boat – in his case, named Nana after his wife.
AFRICA’S MONOPOLY “MAYFAIR”
If you are on the lookout for Africa’s superrich, Nigeria is the place to start. The capital Abuja is considered the most expensive city in Africa. A four-bedroom duplex in the upscale Maitama district, for example, runs to about $4 million. Nigeria’s vast oil resources and poor infrastructure raise the cost of living in this inland city but so do the tastes of some of its residents. Ferraris, McLarens and Lamborghinis have been seen on its roads, with local bloggers also claiming to have spotted a Bugatti Veyron (the world’s most expensive car at $2.4 million apiece), with a mystery driver behind the wheel.
Recently, well-heeled politicians and senior civil servants have been snapping up real estate in the city’s Goodluck Jonathan District, newly named after the Nigerian president, amid talk that the district will house governmental heavyweights like the Senate president and the speaker of the House of Representatives. Developers have scaled up prices accordingly: a 2,800-square-metre residential plot – undeveloped – now goes for upwards of $5 million.
Not far away on the coast near Lagos, the residents of the Banana Island district, a sliver of reclaimed land aptly named for its shape, enjoy first-world luxuries that elude many Nigerians and then some.
While a four-bedroom apartment can cost as much as $21 million, residents pay for benefits including a 24-hour electricity supply – a privilege found in only one other place in Nigeria: the presidential residence. Other rare conveniences include freshly paved roads and a central sewage system, not to mention a mosque, two watch towers and a banquet hall with seating capacity for 200 guests. The extravagantly landscaped grounds are decorated with statues of frolicking deer and a bull. In 2012, the rare luxury of its premises earned Banana Island the coveted “Mayfair” spot on Lagos’s first Monopoly board.
Among the residents of Banana Island is Mike Adenuga, Nigeria’s newest billionaire, who counts a gilded duplex in the development among seven homes he owns. This is not the only kind of real estate Adenuga has been buying. He recently spent $1.24 million on a burial plot in the Vaults and Gardens cemetery in Ikoyi, Lagos. The sum is typical of the cemetery, where vaults and plots costing millions wait for their super-rich occupants. Adenuga, who built his fortune in banking, oil and telecommunications, reportedly paid the same amount for his sister to be buried here after she passed away in 2009.
Eccentric as this may seem, Adenuga and the other buyers in Vaults and Gardens aren’t the only wealthy Africans to choose an exclusive resting place. Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, the former owner of Harrods, once announced that he wanted to be mummified and entombed on the roof of the department store when the time came. “There’s a glass studio on the top floor in his private suite,” a long-time friend reputedly said. “It has a glass dome and he said he wanted to be placed beneath that.” The Qatari royal family, which bought the place in 2010 for £1.5 billion, may have other ideas.
HOW WEALTHY WOMEN PREFER TO DO IT
In the coming years, according to the United Nations, most African countries are expected to achieve growth higher than the global average, and the continent’s billionaires are reaping the rewards of this upward trend. The combined fortune of Africa’s 55 billionaires is $143.88 billion. There are three female billionaires in Africa.
Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the president of Angola, enjoys a net worth of $2.4 billion. Her 2003 wedding to wealthy Congolese art collector, Sindika Dokolo, reportedly cost $4 million. African presidents mingled among the 100 guests, a choir was flown from Belgium and two charter planes full of food made the journey from France. Her 10-year wedding anniversary party this year was no less extravagant. The invitation to celebrate a “decade of passion, a decade of friendship, a decade worth a hundred years” meant three days of extravagance for hundreds of lucky local and European guests, who partied in Luanda and brunched on the swanky Mussulo peninsula.
New luxury apartments owned by dos Santos in the Angolan capital of Luanda, which the Mercer Group this year ranked the world’s most expensive city in which to live, currently stand empty. With rent costing upward of $3,000 a month, most Angolans would struggle to step foot in such a place.
Let’s not forget Folorunsho Alakija, who got her start in the early 1980s when she quit her job as a secretary at a bank to study fashion design in England. The ambitious Nigerian returned home to Africa to set up Supreme Stitches. She picked up an exclusive clientele, made friends in high society and enticed the wives to wear her designer threads. Her brand soon became a household name.
In 1993, Alakija began to dabble in oil exploration, despite having no experience in the industry. Her oil riches today have helped amass her a net worth of $7.3 billion. She gets around in a $46-million private jet and owns a reported five apartments in one of the world’s most expensive apartment blocks, One Hyde Park in London, where penthouses sell for up to $9,350 per square foot.
This story was written by David Nicholson and was first published on Ventures Africa magazine’s Richlist issue
Africa, a continent home to 80 percent of the world’s population living in poverty, is also the home of some of the world’s wealthiest people. Like their international brethren, despite the struggles of their poor neighbours, the region’s rich have no compunction about flashing their fancy cars, fleets of private jets, tickets to outer space, lavish weddings and exclusive and extravagant real estate.
In late 2008, South African luxury retail magnate, Johann Rupert, was quick to swear that his 22-year-old son Anton was not a “spoilt brat”, despite the young man having just smashed his father’s $1.2-million Ferrari F50 – one of only 349 in the world. Publicly, at least, the billionaire blamed only himself for his son’s error. The car – one of 400 sitting in the billionaire’s private-collection-cum-vintage-car-museum – did need driving to remain in mint condition, Johann Rupert said. “Cars that are not driven regularly suffer irreparable damage,” the tycoon remarked at the time. “The museum cars are therefore driven often.” Rupert senior brushed off his son’s ill-fated joy ride, saying: “I did far worse things at Anton’s age, often involving an Alfa Romeo Giulia Super.” Who knows whether the boy would have received more than a slap on the wrist had he taken out dad’s 2003 supercar Ferrari Enzo or the rare 1931 Austro-Daimler Bergmeister.
While Rupert seems fairly nonchalant about his jam-packed garage, Nigerian self-made businessman, Aliko Dangote, worth a whopping $20.2 billion, might be a bit more territorial about his latest purchase: a $43-million custom-made luxury yacht. The richest man in Africa for the second year running and widely reported as the 43rd highest-grossing billionaire in the world, Dangote paved the way to his billions through his publicly traded cement company, Dangote Cement, which operates in 14 countries on the continent. The yacht, named Mariya after his mother, can often be seen moored alongside Nigerian oil tycoon, Femi Otedola’s almost identical boat – in his case, named Nana after his wife.
AFRICA’S MONOPOLY “MAYFAIR”
If you are on the lookout for Africa’s superrich, Nigeria is the place to start. The capital Abuja is considered the most expensive city in Africa. A four-bedroom duplex in the upscale Maitama district, for example, runs to about $4 million. Nigeria’s vast oil resources and poor infrastructure raise the cost of living in this inland city but so do the tastes of some of its residents. Ferraris, McLarens and Lamborghinis have been seen on its roads, with local bloggers also claiming to have spotted a Bugatti Veyron (the world’s most expensive car at $2.4 million apiece), with a mystery driver behind the wheel.
Recently, well-heeled politicians and senior civil servants have been snapping up real estate in the city’s Goodluck Jonathan District, newly named after the Nigerian president, amid talk that the district will house governmental heavyweights like the Senate president and the speaker of the House of Representatives. Developers have scaled up prices accordingly: a 2,800-square-metre residential plot – undeveloped – now goes for upwards of $5 million.
Not far away on the coast near Lagos, the residents of the Banana Island district, a sliver of reclaimed land aptly named for its shape, enjoy first-world luxuries that elude many Nigerians and then some.
While a four-bedroom apartment can cost as much as $21 million, residents pay for benefits including a 24-hour electricity supply – a privilege found in only one other place in Nigeria: the presidential residence. Other rare conveniences include freshly paved roads and a central sewage system, not to mention a mosque, two watch towers and a banquet hall with seating capacity for 200 guests. The extravagantly landscaped grounds are decorated with statues of frolicking deer and a bull. In 2012, the rare luxury of its premises earned Banana Island the coveted “Mayfair” spot on Lagos’s first Monopoly board.
Among the residents of Banana Island is Mike Adenuga, Nigeria’s newest billionaire, who counts a gilded duplex in the development among seven homes he owns. This is not the only kind of real estate Adenuga has been buying. He recently spent $1.24 million on a burial plot in the Vaults and Gardens cemetery in Ikoyi, Lagos. The sum is typical of the cemetery, where vaults and plots costing millions wait for their super-rich occupants. Adenuga, who built his fortune in banking, oil and telecommunications, reportedly paid the same amount for his sister to be buried here after she passed away in 2009.
Eccentric as this may seem, Adenuga and the other buyers in Vaults and Gardens aren’t the only wealthy Africans to choose an exclusive resting place. Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, the former owner of Harrods, once announced that he wanted to be mummified and entombed on the roof of the department store when the time came. “There’s a glass studio on the top floor in his private suite,” a long-time friend reputedly said. “It has a glass dome and he said he wanted to be placed beneath that.” The Qatari royal family, which bought the place in 2010 for £1.5 billion, may have other ideas.
HOW WEALTHY WOMEN PREFER TO DO IT
In the coming years, according to the United Nations, most African countries are expected to achieve growth higher than the global average, and the continent’s billionaires are reaping the rewards of this upward trend. The combined fortune of Africa’s 55 billionaires is $143.88 billion. There are three female billionaires in Africa.
Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the president of Angola, enjoys a net worth of $2.4 billion. Her 2003 wedding to wealthy Congolese art collector, Sindika Dokolo, reportedly cost $4 million. African presidents mingled among the 100 guests, a choir was flown from Belgium and two charter planes full of food made the journey from France. Her 10-year wedding anniversary party this year was no less extravagant. The invitation to celebrate a “decade of passion, a decade of friendship, a decade worth a hundred years” meant three days of extravagance for hundreds of lucky local and European guests, who partied in Luanda and brunched on the swanky Mussulo peninsula.
New luxury apartments owned by dos Santos in the Angolan capital of Luanda, which the Mercer Group this year ranked the world’s most expensive city in which to live, currently stand empty. With rent costing upward of $3,000 a month, most Angolans would struggle to step foot in such a place.
Let’s not forget Folorunsho Alakija, who got her start in the early 1980s when she quit her job as a secretary at a bank to study fashion design in England. The ambitious Nigerian returned home to Africa to set up Supreme Stitches. She picked up an exclusive clientele, made friends in high society and enticed the wives to wear her designer threads. Her brand soon became a household name.
In 1993, Alakija began to dabble in oil exploration, despite having no experience in the industry. Her oil riches today have helped amass her a net worth of $7.3 billion. She gets around in a $46-million private jet and owns a reported five apartments in one of the world’s most expensive apartment blocks, One Hyde Park in London, where penthouses sell for up to $9,350 per square foot.
This story was written by David Nicholson and was first published on Ventures Africa magazine’s Richlist issue
Friday, 28 March 2014
Solving problems : A tip for entrepreneurs
Making money is not about focusing on your-self, on your wants and needs. You must think about helping other people. Creating wealth is nothing more than creating a system that efficiently solves problems, provides values or saves time and money. You need to understand what people are willing to pay for and what you are willing and capable of providing.
Many have made money and built reputations by solving problems. Doctors cure the sufferings of illness, psychiatrists helps heal the troubled mind, lawyers protect names from being tarnished, consultants offer marketing advice and a dazzling array of products helps to remove any inconvenience you might possibly encounter in your daily life.
Many people are solving problems. They are all offering solutions to people who need them. Some are giving them away for free, others are selling them for a price. When problem and solution is a perfect fit, a relationship of trust is built between two parties. If this helps me now, it might help me again. If this solves my problem, it might solve my friend's problem too.
There is a connection. The problem solver becomes more popular as more problems are solved for more people. Every time you sold a problem in a way that is better than others, you add undeniable value to the person in need.
Most of the time problem-solvers are already engaging your target audience but that doesn't mean you should stay away. There is always room for another solution, especially when its one that addresses the problem with more elegance, force, precision and style.
Succeeding for the long-term at growing business isn't just about making money; its about making money the only way that promises you long-term success. Its about being an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is someone who solves problems for people @ a profit. Successful entrepreneurs help people. The more people you reach out to and gets the effect of your product and get helped, the richer you become.
This doesn't mean you need to be solving the greatest problems in people's lives. If you focus on making money, sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. But if you focus on helping people and stick to your passion, you always win.
Moro Accepts Responsibility, Parradang Denies Role in Recruitment Tragedy
The Minister of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro, Thursday took responsibility for the March 15 death of 16 people during the recruitment exercise held for the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), saying, “the buck stops at my table”.
However, the Comptroller General of the immigration service, Mr. David Parradang,has absolved himself of blame, stating that the minister took the decision on the recruitment exercise unilaterally.
While appearing at the opening of a two-day public hearing held by the Senate Committee on Interior on the exercise, Moro said he regretted that a well-intended exercise ended in tragedy.
“As the Minister of Interior, under whose purview this unfortunate exercise took place, I cannot abdicate my responsibility. The buck stops at my table,” he said.
He said the decision to conduct the recruitment through online applications was informed by his personal experiences with regards to the recruitment process into the paramilitary services under his supervision as Minister of Interior.
“On my assumption of office as minister, I took cognisance of the unprecedented challenges facing the recruitment processes, procedures and practices in the paramilitary services under the supervision of the ministry.
“Such experiences were characterised by incoherent procedures, favouritism, job racketeering and unequal opportunities, among others, and therefore needed immediate attention. “The noble task before me was to institute measures that would ease the application procedures, enthrone an open and transparent process, allow for equal opportunities, institute a process for the engagement of qualified and deserving persons and also to ensure the reflection of federal character, pursuant to the applicable federal laws.
“In December 2012, the immigration service approached me with a waiver for the recruitment of 4,556 personnel from the Office of the Head of Service of Nigeria. The conduct of that recruitment was marred by controversy and accusations of tribalism, nepotism, job racketeering and lopsidedness. The exercise was cancelled.
“The recruitment procedures into the service is as contained in the Act establishing the board and guidelines for appointment, promotions and discipline for use in the Civil Defence, Fire Service, Immigration and Prisons Services,” he explained.
Moro, who also blamed the devil for the failure of the exercise, said contrary to allegations against him that he unilaterally took the decision on the exercise, a board meeting was held in May last year on the matter, adding that another one was held in January.
He also said he opted for the e-recruitment exercise in view of its successes when employed by the navy, army and some other paramilitary agencies.
Earlier, the Federal Character Commission (FCC), Parradang, and the Board of Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prison Services, had accused Moro of unilaterally ordering the March 15 recruitment exercise.
In his submission, Paradang, who said he was not aware of the aptitude test until a meeting of the board held in January, said: “In all my years in the service, nobody had ever taken away from us the power to recruit officers from level one to six,” adding that there was no budget for the exercise.
Parradang, who also said he was warned by the Budget Office not to go ahead with the recruitment without a budget cover, made certain recommendations which included allowing the service and the board to conduct a recruitment exercise in the future, adding that only those shortlisted for such tests should be invited. He also suggested that the exercise should be phased.
He also said contrary to reports, the total number of people who died at the exercise was 16 and not 23, explaining that seven died in Abuja, five in Rivers State, two in Niger, one in Benin and one in Ekiti.
In its submission, FCC, which was represented by Mr. Uche Diogu, said it first received a letter from NIS asking for waiver for the recruitment to fill 1,750 vacancies to counter the Boko Haram threat in July 2011.
Subsequently, he said FCC called several meetings to ensure that due process was followed, adding that it raised a number of observations and suggested that the March 15 exercise should be postponed.
“But the minister disagreed saying he had already made commitment to the exercise before the National Assembly,” he said.
The commission also said it only heard of the exercise on March 12 and called a meeting on March 13, where it advised against holding it as scheduled.
Also speaking, the Secretary of the Board of Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prison Services, Mr. Sylvanus Tapgun, who said Dextrel Technology, the consultants which handled the exercise, initially reported that 693,015 had applied for the job, he revealed that the company finally submitted the list of a total of 710,110 applicants when the application process was completed. He added that whereas 522,652 were eventually called for the aptitude test, the consultant was asked to provide funds for the exercise but declined, saying that was not its responsibility.
Tapgun also said the board, perceiving that the exercise might fail, proposed on February 20 that it should be staggered and be held from March 15 to 19, while the physical exercise should be shifted to March 29.
However, he said the minister refused to accept the board’s suggestion on the grounds that the pronouncement on it had already been made.
He said: “We drew the attention of the minister to the reality. We made our position clear that it might not succeed but he said we should work towards the date. We didn't have independent way of monitoring the exercise. We only relied on information from consultants.”
He also disclosed that on March 13, the consultant only released N45 million as against the N201 million it was asked to release for the funding of the exercise, claiming that it was not part of agreement that the consultant would fund the exercise.
Another member of the board, Mr. Mustapha Zakaria, who said the board, which was mandated by the Act establishing it to handle recruitment of officers from level seven and above, argued that agreement for the recruitment only took place between the minister and the consultant.
“The board was not carried along. We wrote a memo to the ministry that the agreement was in breach of the Act establishing the board because it exists as a separate entity. We said it constituted an infringement on functions of the board. “We also said it was inappropriate for applicants to apply online; that it was in conflict with the Act but we were ignored. We also disagreed with the arrangement that only one officer would be sent to each state to conduct the test. We said: ‘How could only one officer be sent to conduct a test?’ I have been on the board for six years but things had never been done in this manner,” he said.
In its testimony, a representative of Dextrel Technology, Theodore Maiyaki, said it signed the agreement with the Ministry of Interior to handle the recruitment process in April 2013 for the purpose of online registration in ministry and agencies.
He also said even though the company initially agreed with the ministry to charge each applicant N1,200, including bank charges, it eventually resolved to charge N1,000 after an interface with FCC.
He disclosed that the process held between September and October, during which he said a total of 710,110 applications were received out of which, he said, 522,652 were shortlisted. He admitted that the company received a letter from the board asking it to make a remittance of N201 million for the funding of the exercise.
“We didn't reply immediately but sought to meet with the board and drew attention of the board to Section 228 of contract agreement that the ministry would fund the exercise.
“We sent a letter that was dated March 7, in which we reiterated that our role was restricted to the digital quota. But we later agreed that since there was no funding provision for the exercise, the potential for rancour would heighten.
“After engagement, we found that the integrity of the exercise was critical to us, so the board approved N45 million. The decision was taken reluctantly but patriotically backed with a letter exonerating us from funding,” he said.
He also said in view of expansion of its infrastructure because of the influx of applications, the company experienced a breakdown of infrastructure three times, adding that the bank charged N250 per N1,000 deposited with it, amounting to N177 million. He also said the company spent N98 million as cost of execution.
Moro however, debunked Maiyaki's claim, saying the company was expected to fund the exercise.
The Head of Service, Alhaji Goni Aji, who was represented by the permanent secretary in his office, who simply identified himself as Yemi, said the head of service had no statutory power to recruit officers into any agency or ministry, noting that it is the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) that is vested with that power.
He pointed out that following the waiver requested for employment by NIS for the counter insurgency, it was granted after the agency met the conditions for the recruitment such as established vacancies, grade levels of those to be recruited, remuneration already fixed in the service, staff strength of the agency, financial implication and justification for the recruitment.
He argued that the NIS provided justification for the recruitment and was therefore granted the waiver to fill 4,556 jobs in 2012 after an initial waiver granted for recruitment in 2011
However, the Comptroller General of the immigration service, Mr. David Parradang,has absolved himself of blame, stating that the minister took the decision on the recruitment exercise unilaterally.
While appearing at the opening of a two-day public hearing held by the Senate Committee on Interior on the exercise, Moro said he regretted that a well-intended exercise ended in tragedy.
“As the Minister of Interior, under whose purview this unfortunate exercise took place, I cannot abdicate my responsibility. The buck stops at my table,” he said.
He said the decision to conduct the recruitment through online applications was informed by his personal experiences with regards to the recruitment process into the paramilitary services under his supervision as Minister of Interior.
“On my assumption of office as minister, I took cognisance of the unprecedented challenges facing the recruitment processes, procedures and practices in the paramilitary services under the supervision of the ministry.
“Such experiences were characterised by incoherent procedures, favouritism, job racketeering and unequal opportunities, among others, and therefore needed immediate attention. “The noble task before me was to institute measures that would ease the application procedures, enthrone an open and transparent process, allow for equal opportunities, institute a process for the engagement of qualified and deserving persons and also to ensure the reflection of federal character, pursuant to the applicable federal laws.
“In December 2012, the immigration service approached me with a waiver for the recruitment of 4,556 personnel from the Office of the Head of Service of Nigeria. The conduct of that recruitment was marred by controversy and accusations of tribalism, nepotism, job racketeering and lopsidedness. The exercise was cancelled.
“The recruitment procedures into the service is as contained in the Act establishing the board and guidelines for appointment, promotions and discipline for use in the Civil Defence, Fire Service, Immigration and Prisons Services,” he explained.
Moro, who also blamed the devil for the failure of the exercise, said contrary to allegations against him that he unilaterally took the decision on the exercise, a board meeting was held in May last year on the matter, adding that another one was held in January.
He also said he opted for the e-recruitment exercise in view of its successes when employed by the navy, army and some other paramilitary agencies.
Earlier, the Federal Character Commission (FCC), Parradang, and the Board of Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prison Services, had accused Moro of unilaterally ordering the March 15 recruitment exercise.
In his submission, Paradang, who said he was not aware of the aptitude test until a meeting of the board held in January, said: “In all my years in the service, nobody had ever taken away from us the power to recruit officers from level one to six,” adding that there was no budget for the exercise.
Parradang, who also said he was warned by the Budget Office not to go ahead with the recruitment without a budget cover, made certain recommendations which included allowing the service and the board to conduct a recruitment exercise in the future, adding that only those shortlisted for such tests should be invited. He also suggested that the exercise should be phased.
He also said contrary to reports, the total number of people who died at the exercise was 16 and not 23, explaining that seven died in Abuja, five in Rivers State, two in Niger, one in Benin and one in Ekiti.
In its submission, FCC, which was represented by Mr. Uche Diogu, said it first received a letter from NIS asking for waiver for the recruitment to fill 1,750 vacancies to counter the Boko Haram threat in July 2011.
Subsequently, he said FCC called several meetings to ensure that due process was followed, adding that it raised a number of observations and suggested that the March 15 exercise should be postponed.
“But the minister disagreed saying he had already made commitment to the exercise before the National Assembly,” he said.
The commission also said it only heard of the exercise on March 12 and called a meeting on March 13, where it advised against holding it as scheduled.
Also speaking, the Secretary of the Board of Civil Defence, Fire, Immigration and Prison Services, Mr. Sylvanus Tapgun, who said Dextrel Technology, the consultants which handled the exercise, initially reported that 693,015 had applied for the job, he revealed that the company finally submitted the list of a total of 710,110 applicants when the application process was completed. He added that whereas 522,652 were eventually called for the aptitude test, the consultant was asked to provide funds for the exercise but declined, saying that was not its responsibility.
Tapgun also said the board, perceiving that the exercise might fail, proposed on February 20 that it should be staggered and be held from March 15 to 19, while the physical exercise should be shifted to March 29.
However, he said the minister refused to accept the board’s suggestion on the grounds that the pronouncement on it had already been made.
He said: “We drew the attention of the minister to the reality. We made our position clear that it might not succeed but he said we should work towards the date. We didn't have independent way of monitoring the exercise. We only relied on information from consultants.”
He also disclosed that on March 13, the consultant only released N45 million as against the N201 million it was asked to release for the funding of the exercise, claiming that it was not part of agreement that the consultant would fund the exercise.
Another member of the board, Mr. Mustapha Zakaria, who said the board, which was mandated by the Act establishing it to handle recruitment of officers from level seven and above, argued that agreement for the recruitment only took place between the minister and the consultant.
“The board was not carried along. We wrote a memo to the ministry that the agreement was in breach of the Act establishing the board because it exists as a separate entity. We said it constituted an infringement on functions of the board. “We also said it was inappropriate for applicants to apply online; that it was in conflict with the Act but we were ignored. We also disagreed with the arrangement that only one officer would be sent to each state to conduct the test. We said: ‘How could only one officer be sent to conduct a test?’ I have been on the board for six years but things had never been done in this manner,” he said.
In its testimony, a representative of Dextrel Technology, Theodore Maiyaki, said it signed the agreement with the Ministry of Interior to handle the recruitment process in April 2013 for the purpose of online registration in ministry and agencies.
He also said even though the company initially agreed with the ministry to charge each applicant N1,200, including bank charges, it eventually resolved to charge N1,000 after an interface with FCC.
He disclosed that the process held between September and October, during which he said a total of 710,110 applications were received out of which, he said, 522,652 were shortlisted. He admitted that the company received a letter from the board asking it to make a remittance of N201 million for the funding of the exercise.
“We didn't reply immediately but sought to meet with the board and drew attention of the board to Section 228 of contract agreement that the ministry would fund the exercise.
“We sent a letter that was dated March 7, in which we reiterated that our role was restricted to the digital quota. But we later agreed that since there was no funding provision for the exercise, the potential for rancour would heighten.
“After engagement, we found that the integrity of the exercise was critical to us, so the board approved N45 million. The decision was taken reluctantly but patriotically backed with a letter exonerating us from funding,” he said.
He also said in view of expansion of its infrastructure because of the influx of applications, the company experienced a breakdown of infrastructure three times, adding that the bank charged N250 per N1,000 deposited with it, amounting to N177 million. He also said the company spent N98 million as cost of execution.
Moro however, debunked Maiyaki's claim, saying the company was expected to fund the exercise.
The Head of Service, Alhaji Goni Aji, who was represented by the permanent secretary in his office, who simply identified himself as Yemi, said the head of service had no statutory power to recruit officers into any agency or ministry, noting that it is the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) that is vested with that power.
He pointed out that following the waiver requested for employment by NIS for the counter insurgency, it was granted after the agency met the conditions for the recruitment such as established vacancies, grade levels of those to be recruited, remuneration already fixed in the service, staff strength of the agency, financial implication and justification for the recruitment.
He argued that the NIS provided justification for the recruitment and was therefore granted the waiver to fill 4,556 jobs in 2012 after an initial waiver granted for recruitment in 2011
National Conference “Sleeping Delegate” Hamma Misau Is Dead
A delegate at the ongoing National Conference in Nigeria, retired police AIG Hamma Misau has died at the National Hospital in Abuja. Mallam Misau died last night of an undisclosed illness at the age of 67.
Mallam Misau became famous after a photo of him taking a nap at the conference was shared on social media three days ago.
Barrister Mohammed Hamma a cousin to the retired police officer confirmed his demise. He said a Muslim funeral is due shortly in Bauchi for the late delegate. Mallam Hamma Misau hails from Misau in Bauchi state.
Mallam Misau became famous after a photo of him taking a nap at the conference was shared on social media three days ago.
Barrister Mohammed Hamma a cousin to the retired police officer confirmed his demise. He said a Muslim funeral is due shortly in Bauchi for the late delegate. Mallam Hamma Misau hails from Misau in Bauchi state.
Thursday, 27 March 2014
Nigerian Embassy Official, Mr. Abutu Caught On Camera: Promised To Smuggle Contrabands Via Diplomatic Channels
A staff of the Nigerian High Commission in the United Kingdom Mr. Alfa Abutu is in soup. Deservedly so. He was caught on camera telling agents in an undercover investigation he could help move contrabands and cash from the United Kingdom to any part of the world using his diplomatic privileges.
Watch : http://www.itv.com/news/2014-03-26/caught-on-camera-embassy-worker-who-says-he-can-smuggle-stolen-goods-out-of-the-uk-in-diplomatic-bags/
Watch : http://www.itv.com/news/2014-03-26/caught-on-camera-embassy-worker-who-says-he-can-smuggle-stolen-goods-out-of-the-uk-in-diplomatic-bags/
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Youth Delegate At National Conference, Hassan Rilwan Outlines His Agenda
There is a chance for youths to express themselves in the on going conference organised by the federal government. This can be done through this delegate : Hassan Rilwan, he is the publisher of Sardauna Magazine.
Read his outlined agenda.
Sequel to my nomination as a National Conference delegate representing Outstanding Youth Role models in the ‘Other Youths Organisation’ list, I thought it expedient and proper to create a 12-member think-tank (TT) comprised of a crop of intelligent and exceptional youths to discuss and formulate a viable youth agenda for the National conference.
The members of this Think-Tank are as follows:
Hassan Rilwan, Blossom Nnodim, Nasir Galadanchi, Japheth Omojuwa, Umar Musa Ikhilor, Linus Okorie, Ibrahim Wala, Alexander Mamchika Atta, Haruna Abdullahi, Ahmed Terab, Audu Maikori, Vera Ibe
Over the past few weeks, members of this think-tank have had series of interaction via various social media platforms (Facebook, twitter, blackberry group, whatsapp etc.) requesting for inputs from the general youth populace towards the formulation of a viable youth agenda for the National Conference. These online interactions have generated a lot of interesting feedbacks upon which members of the think-tank met to extensively deliberate on Saturday, March 22nd, 2014. After a full day of brainstorming and passionate discussions amongst some members, the following was agreed upon as a viable youth agenda for the national conference.
EDUCATIONAL POLICIES
It has been observed that there is a wide gap between the educational content being presently churned out to the youth and the emerging realities of the society they face after graduation. This gap must be bridged. In this regard, it is our considered position at the policy objective of the State on Education as captured in Section 18 (3) of Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) be expanded to include the following:
(i) Provision of free entrepreneurial training for the youth
(ii) Provision of free Skills Acquisition Training for youths with or without formal education;
(iii) Provision of free Leadership Training for youths at all levels of formal education
(iv) Formulation and inculcation of a National Ideology at all levels of formal and informal education and training. This National Ideology should emphasizes honest hard work, dignity of labour, patriotism, pursuit of excellence, ethnic and religious tolerance and respect for individuals and human rights.
SOCIAL SECURITY FOR UNEMPLOYED YOUTH
A recent report suggests that 65% of the total Nigerian population is made up of young persons between the ages 0 – 25. Unfortunately, about 45million Nigerian youths are without employment. Despite the various government programmes and claims of reducing unemployment, the devastating effect was brought home to us during the recently organized NIS employment examination which saw the death of over 20 youths with several hundred injured. May their souls rest in perfect peace.
Consequent on the above, we therefore call for the establishment of a Youth Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF) to provide social security for unemployed Youth. Sources of such fund shall include (but not limited to): Government grant (1% of total emoluments of government employees), Corporate Social Security Tax (1% of net profit), International grants/donations (World Bank, USAID, DFID etc.).
It is our considered view that all other government programmes on Employment creation such as the National Directorate on Employment, YouWin, Sure-P programme for youth employment, Growth and Employment Project (GEP) should all be collapsed into this Youth Social Security Trust Fund.
In the light of the above, NYSC’s scope and mandate should be expanded to include graduates of all tertiary institutions (not just universities and polytechnics). The scope should also include youths who must have graduated from any informal sector of education (such as vocational and skills acquisition training Institute accredited by appropriate government regulatory body).
There should be an NYSC Reform whose end product should be the empowerment of the youth and provision of entrepreneurial skills for youth with ease of access to capital to set up new businesses and expand existing ones. The capital should come from the Youth Social Security Trust Fund.
It is our considered view that Social security need not be monetized in form of financial stipends to unemployed youth as this might amount to giving the youths fish instead of teaching them how to fish. It is also economically impracticable and will present a huge burden on government. Instead, funds in the Youth Social Security Trust Fund should be channeled towards the following:
(i) Provision of very low interest loans (under 5%) for unemployed graduates of both formal and informal institutions who must have undergone the requisite entrepreneurial training via NYSC and have a viable business proposal.
(ii) Provision of services such as Health services for unemployed Youth. The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is currently expanding its scope to cover vulnerable persons (such as women and aged-persons) by 2015. It is our strong opinion that every jobless youth should be considered a vulnerable person and put under the scheme.
(iii) Provision of employment opportunities/incentives for unemployed youths. Funds from the Youth Social Security Trust Fund can be used to create financial incentives for youth to take up employment in certain neglected sector of our economy (such as the agricultural sector).
With regards to Informal educational Training for youths without formal education, there should be a Skills Acquisition Certification and Regulatory Board that should regulate and certify existing skills acquisition and vocational training centres at all levels of government for quality assurances, regulation, efficiency and organizational purposes. This should solve the very low quality of our artisans and reduce capital flight due to our increasing reliance on neighbouring countries for them.
JUSTICIABILITY OF CHAPTER TWO OF THE 1999 CONSTITUTION
It is baffling to observe that the very chapter that captures the fundamental obligation of government towards its citizens (especially as it relates to socio-economic rights) is said to be injusticiable (i.e it cannot be a basis of suing government for their enforcement).
Here are a few of the socio-economic rights which government is obliged to provide:
(i) right to General welfare and security, (S. 14(2)(b);
(ii) Provision of Transportation: adequate facilities for movement of people, goods and services throughout the Federation (S. 15(3)(a);
(iii) Provision of Physiological needs: suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food, reasonable national minimum living wage, old age care and pensions, and unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled are provided for all citizens (S. 16(2)(d);
(iv) Right to employment: all citizens, without discrimination on any group whatsoever, [shall] have the opportunity for securing adequate means of livelihood as well as adequate opportunity to secure suitable employment (s. 17(3)(a);
(v) Right to health: adequate medical and health facilities for all persons (S. 17(3) (d);
(vi) Right to education, from cradle to grave: free, compulsory and universal primary education; free secondary, university education and adult literacy programme (S. 18(3)(a) to (d);
(vii) The State shall not operate the economic system in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group (S. 16(2)(c);
(viii) The State to ensure that the material resources of the nation are harnessed and distributed as best as possible to serve the common good; (S. 16(2)(b);
(ix) The State to control the national economy in such manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality of status and opportunity (S. 16(1)(b).
It is our considered view that Chapter 2 of the Constitution especially section 17 (3) that stipulates the socio-economic rights of the citizens should be made justiciable. This will make government to priotise the fulfillment of these basic needs to the people. In any case these very socio-economic rights have been captured in many International Conventions (such as the African Charter on Human and People’s Right) to which Nigeria in a signatory.
YOUTH PARTICIPATION
In view of the fact that the youth make up more than half of our country’s population, it is only reasonable that the government should direct its policy towards ensuring more participation for youth in governance. In this regard, we are of the view that:
(i) There should be a downward review of the required minimum age for contesting elective offices for Federal and State Houses from 35years of age to 25/30 years of age.
(ii) There should be a national bench-mark for determining who is a “youth” that is in line with international standards. In this regard, it is our considered view that the bench-mark should be fixed between 18-35 year instead of the present situation where persons above 45 and 50years are appointed to be in charge of youth affairs.
(iii) The Minister for Youth Development should be appointed from amongst the Youths who will be more likely to be in touch with the needs and aspirations of the average youth and not from crops of elders who are totally out of touch with the realities facing the youths.
(iv) Conscious efforts should be put in place to ensure that more youth are involved in government rather than for political thugery. The negative tendencies of some State Governors to set up youth thuggery groups to intimidate their political opponents and further their political dominance is very condemnable and must be stopped immediately.
CONCLUSION
It is imperative to state that the above issues facing the youth are not the only agenda the youth, (of which I am a representative), shall table before the Conference. We shall also come up with our position on Resource control, true federalism, State Police, indigeneship, and other critical issues which shall form the overall agenda for the National Conference. For now these issues facing the youth are our top priority.
Let us finally reiterate, that the National Conference is about the Future of Nigeria and the youth are the future of this country. We therefore urge all delegates to bear this in mind as they deliberate and take decisions. In paraphrasing the words of W.B. Yeats, we the youths are saying: ““But we, being poor, have only our dreams. We have spread our dreams under your feet; therefore tread softly because you tread on our dreams”
Hassan Rilwan @Hassan_Rilwan can be reached via engagehassan@gmail.com
Read his outlined agenda.
Sequel to my nomination as a National Conference delegate representing Outstanding Youth Role models in the ‘Other Youths Organisation’ list, I thought it expedient and proper to create a 12-member think-tank (TT) comprised of a crop of intelligent and exceptional youths to discuss and formulate a viable youth agenda for the National conference.
The members of this Think-Tank are as follows:
Hassan Rilwan, Blossom Nnodim, Nasir Galadanchi, Japheth Omojuwa, Umar Musa Ikhilor, Linus Okorie, Ibrahim Wala, Alexander Mamchika Atta, Haruna Abdullahi, Ahmed Terab, Audu Maikori, Vera Ibe
Over the past few weeks, members of this think-tank have had series of interaction via various social media platforms (Facebook, twitter, blackberry group, whatsapp etc.) requesting for inputs from the general youth populace towards the formulation of a viable youth agenda for the National Conference. These online interactions have generated a lot of interesting feedbacks upon which members of the think-tank met to extensively deliberate on Saturday, March 22nd, 2014. After a full day of brainstorming and passionate discussions amongst some members, the following was agreed upon as a viable youth agenda for the national conference.
EDUCATIONAL POLICIES
It has been observed that there is a wide gap between the educational content being presently churned out to the youth and the emerging realities of the society they face after graduation. This gap must be bridged. In this regard, it is our considered position at the policy objective of the State on Education as captured in Section 18 (3) of Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) be expanded to include the following:
(i) Provision of free entrepreneurial training for the youth
(ii) Provision of free Skills Acquisition Training for youths with or without formal education;
(iii) Provision of free Leadership Training for youths at all levels of formal education
(iv) Formulation and inculcation of a National Ideology at all levels of formal and informal education and training. This National Ideology should emphasizes honest hard work, dignity of labour, patriotism, pursuit of excellence, ethnic and religious tolerance and respect for individuals and human rights.
SOCIAL SECURITY FOR UNEMPLOYED YOUTH
A recent report suggests that 65% of the total Nigerian population is made up of young persons between the ages 0 – 25. Unfortunately, about 45million Nigerian youths are without employment. Despite the various government programmes and claims of reducing unemployment, the devastating effect was brought home to us during the recently organized NIS employment examination which saw the death of over 20 youths with several hundred injured. May their souls rest in perfect peace.
Consequent on the above, we therefore call for the establishment of a Youth Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF) to provide social security for unemployed Youth. Sources of such fund shall include (but not limited to): Government grant (1% of total emoluments of government employees), Corporate Social Security Tax (1% of net profit), International grants/donations (World Bank, USAID, DFID etc.).
It is our considered view that all other government programmes on Employment creation such as the National Directorate on Employment, YouWin, Sure-P programme for youth employment, Growth and Employment Project (GEP) should all be collapsed into this Youth Social Security Trust Fund.
In the light of the above, NYSC’s scope and mandate should be expanded to include graduates of all tertiary institutions (not just universities and polytechnics). The scope should also include youths who must have graduated from any informal sector of education (such as vocational and skills acquisition training Institute accredited by appropriate government regulatory body).
There should be an NYSC Reform whose end product should be the empowerment of the youth and provision of entrepreneurial skills for youth with ease of access to capital to set up new businesses and expand existing ones. The capital should come from the Youth Social Security Trust Fund.
It is our considered view that Social security need not be monetized in form of financial stipends to unemployed youth as this might amount to giving the youths fish instead of teaching them how to fish. It is also economically impracticable and will present a huge burden on government. Instead, funds in the Youth Social Security Trust Fund should be channeled towards the following:
(i) Provision of very low interest loans (under 5%) for unemployed graduates of both formal and informal institutions who must have undergone the requisite entrepreneurial training via NYSC and have a viable business proposal.
(ii) Provision of services such as Health services for unemployed Youth. The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is currently expanding its scope to cover vulnerable persons (such as women and aged-persons) by 2015. It is our strong opinion that every jobless youth should be considered a vulnerable person and put under the scheme.
(iii) Provision of employment opportunities/incentives for unemployed youths. Funds from the Youth Social Security Trust Fund can be used to create financial incentives for youth to take up employment in certain neglected sector of our economy (such as the agricultural sector).
With regards to Informal educational Training for youths without formal education, there should be a Skills Acquisition Certification and Regulatory Board that should regulate and certify existing skills acquisition and vocational training centres at all levels of government for quality assurances, regulation, efficiency and organizational purposes. This should solve the very low quality of our artisans and reduce capital flight due to our increasing reliance on neighbouring countries for them.
JUSTICIABILITY OF CHAPTER TWO OF THE 1999 CONSTITUTION
It is baffling to observe that the very chapter that captures the fundamental obligation of government towards its citizens (especially as it relates to socio-economic rights) is said to be injusticiable (i.e it cannot be a basis of suing government for their enforcement).
Here are a few of the socio-economic rights which government is obliged to provide:
(i) right to General welfare and security, (S. 14(2)(b);
(ii) Provision of Transportation: adequate facilities for movement of people, goods and services throughout the Federation (S. 15(3)(a);
(iii) Provision of Physiological needs: suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food, reasonable national minimum living wage, old age care and pensions, and unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled are provided for all citizens (S. 16(2)(d);
(iv) Right to employment: all citizens, without discrimination on any group whatsoever, [shall] have the opportunity for securing adequate means of livelihood as well as adequate opportunity to secure suitable employment (s. 17(3)(a);
(v) Right to health: adequate medical and health facilities for all persons (S. 17(3) (d);
(vi) Right to education, from cradle to grave: free, compulsory and universal primary education; free secondary, university education and adult literacy programme (S. 18(3)(a) to (d);
(vii) The State shall not operate the economic system in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group (S. 16(2)(c);
(viii) The State to ensure that the material resources of the nation are harnessed and distributed as best as possible to serve the common good; (S. 16(2)(b);
(ix) The State to control the national economy in such manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality of status and opportunity (S. 16(1)(b).
It is our considered view that Chapter 2 of the Constitution especially section 17 (3) that stipulates the socio-economic rights of the citizens should be made justiciable. This will make government to priotise the fulfillment of these basic needs to the people. In any case these very socio-economic rights have been captured in many International Conventions (such as the African Charter on Human and People’s Right) to which Nigeria in a signatory.
YOUTH PARTICIPATION
In view of the fact that the youth make up more than half of our country’s population, it is only reasonable that the government should direct its policy towards ensuring more participation for youth in governance. In this regard, we are of the view that:
(i) There should be a downward review of the required minimum age for contesting elective offices for Federal and State Houses from 35years of age to 25/30 years of age.
(ii) There should be a national bench-mark for determining who is a “youth” that is in line with international standards. In this regard, it is our considered view that the bench-mark should be fixed between 18-35 year instead of the present situation where persons above 45 and 50years are appointed to be in charge of youth affairs.
(iii) The Minister for Youth Development should be appointed from amongst the Youths who will be more likely to be in touch with the needs and aspirations of the average youth and not from crops of elders who are totally out of touch with the realities facing the youths.
(iv) Conscious efforts should be put in place to ensure that more youth are involved in government rather than for political thugery. The negative tendencies of some State Governors to set up youth thuggery groups to intimidate their political opponents and further their political dominance is very condemnable and must be stopped immediately.
CONCLUSION
It is imperative to state that the above issues facing the youth are not the only agenda the youth, (of which I am a representative), shall table before the Conference. We shall also come up with our position on Resource control, true federalism, State Police, indigeneship, and other critical issues which shall form the overall agenda for the National Conference. For now these issues facing the youth are our top priority.
Let us finally reiterate, that the National Conference is about the Future of Nigeria and the youth are the future of this country. We therefore urge all delegates to bear this in mind as they deliberate and take decisions. In paraphrasing the words of W.B. Yeats, we the youths are saying: ““But we, being poor, have only our dreams. We have spread our dreams under your feet; therefore tread softly because you tread on our dreams”
Hassan Rilwan @Hassan_Rilwan can be reached via engagehassan@gmail.com
Three Things TECNO Must Do To Chase SAMSUNG Out Of Nigerian Android Market
Nigerians love to show off! We love to pride ourselves as owners of what our next door neighbour is dreaming to have!
That’s why we can even borrow to buy the latest car. Hardly is there an expensive car that doesn’t exist in Nigeria. We love class and have no apologies about that.
This is what I expected the franchise owners of Tecno Nigeria to have keyed in on before invading the Nigerian phone market with sophisticated gadgets that no wealthy man would want to proudly use!
The fact is, besides the annoying keyboard sounds of Tecno phone, it is the most sophisticated , afordable phone in the market right now.
The question is, who wants to use a phone he can’t show off to his friends and family? A phone that does almost everything the most expensive phone can do except elevate your class? This is the question Tecno Nigeria didn’t ask and answer before setting up in Nigeria where class is everything.
WHAT CAN BE DONE:
Now don’t get me wrong, Nigerians love cheap things, that is where Tecno Nigeria got it right but it is wiser to give Nigerians the cheap product that has class and I quarantee you, Tecno will sweep Samsung out of the market! Since the both run on Android OS.
FIRST, Tecno should get a top Nigerian celebrity as its brand Ambassador. A brand ambassador has a way of making people believe that the ambassador uses the product he or she is representing or endorsing. Please I don’t mean celebrities like Terry G, Nonso Diobi, Chioma Chukwuka-Akpotha, Benita Nzeribe, NO! These ones can’t change Tecno’s appeal to the wealthy. You need artistes with powerful appeal level and class like RMD, Tuface, D’banj, Ramsey Noah, Jim Iyke, Tonto Dikeh, Genevieve Nnaji or Omotola Jalade.
SECONDLY, Tecno Nigeria must shoot TVC (Tv Commercial) that projects the product as product for the upwardly mobile. The truth is, a well packaged brand is infectious. The moment the average earner sees that the money bags are using a product, they start saving up to join the bandwagon and upgrade.
THIRDLY, Tecno must make sure there is nothing in the phone that suggest it is made in China or better put, it is a China phone because Nigerians class anything from China as a low quality product.
If Tecno can judiciously follow these tips, I quarantee that they will chase Samsung out of the Android market.
The Writer, Paschal Oge Chikero, is a Blogger, www.chikeroonline.com.
The views expressed above are solely that of the writer and not of Edosomwan's Blog or its associates.
That’s why we can even borrow to buy the latest car. Hardly is there an expensive car that doesn’t exist in Nigeria. We love class and have no apologies about that.
This is what I expected the franchise owners of Tecno Nigeria to have keyed in on before invading the Nigerian phone market with sophisticated gadgets that no wealthy man would want to proudly use!
The fact is, besides the annoying keyboard sounds of Tecno phone, it is the most sophisticated , afordable phone in the market right now.
The question is, who wants to use a phone he can’t show off to his friends and family? A phone that does almost everything the most expensive phone can do except elevate your class? This is the question Tecno Nigeria didn’t ask and answer before setting up in Nigeria where class is everything.
WHAT CAN BE DONE:
Now don’t get me wrong, Nigerians love cheap things, that is where Tecno Nigeria got it right but it is wiser to give Nigerians the cheap product that has class and I quarantee you, Tecno will sweep Samsung out of the market! Since the both run on Android OS.
FIRST, Tecno should get a top Nigerian celebrity as its brand Ambassador. A brand ambassador has a way of making people believe that the ambassador uses the product he or she is representing or endorsing. Please I don’t mean celebrities like Terry G, Nonso Diobi, Chioma Chukwuka-Akpotha, Benita Nzeribe, NO! These ones can’t change Tecno’s appeal to the wealthy. You need artistes with powerful appeal level and class like RMD, Tuface, D’banj, Ramsey Noah, Jim Iyke, Tonto Dikeh, Genevieve Nnaji or Omotola Jalade.
SECONDLY, Tecno Nigeria must shoot TVC (Tv Commercial) that projects the product as product for the upwardly mobile. The truth is, a well packaged brand is infectious. The moment the average earner sees that the money bags are using a product, they start saving up to join the bandwagon and upgrade.
THIRDLY, Tecno must make sure there is nothing in the phone that suggest it is made in China or better put, it is a China phone because Nigerians class anything from China as a low quality product.
If Tecno can judiciously follow these tips, I quarantee that they will chase Samsung out of the Android market.
The Writer, Paschal Oge Chikero, is a Blogger, www.chikeroonline.com.
The views expressed above are solely that of the writer and not of Edosomwan's Blog or its associates.
Monday, 24 March 2014
Why Do African/Nigerian Kleptocrats Steal Money They Don’t Need, Use, See, Reach, Or Ever Access?
A writeup By Austin Aneke
He is the author of Technology and Corruption and founder of www.june12post.com
Why do African/Nigerian politicians steal money they don’t use, see, need, reach, or access? The stealing by government officials in Nigeria is systematic, planned, organised, endemic, and extreme. Nigeria’s thieving autocrats have turned every treasury in Nigeria into a crime scene. They spare no funds- no matter how consolidated. They spare no assets or public accounts because they are morally depraved and ethically bankrupt.
They steal so much that no matter how lavish their life styles within the country become, they can only use a fraction of their loot in their life time. Most times their loots are hidden in foreign bank accounts in tax heavens, especially Switzerland. Their stealing spree creates huge holes in the development process at home; hence HOME is unstable and unsafe to keep stolen funds. Home may explode at any minute.
Nevertheless, at the commencement of the inevitable trouble at home; the foreign hosts of their looted funds also commence their black mail. “Sorry you can’t reach the funds until we clarify certain issues”. The foreign host tax heavens- ensure that the funds are seized, forfeited and ring fenced. The looter gets ill and dies.
The US government recently froze about $483.00 million stolen by former Nigerian dictator – Sanni Abacha, in largest kleptocracy forfeiture action ever brought in the US. If you wish to know; the $483.00 million dollars, is in addition to the £500- $700 million dollars previously recovered from the same culprit by the Nigeria government. These were monies he never used, saw, reached, and as we now know- accessed.
So lets get it right.
Africa/Nigeria is not a tax heaven for depositing stolen foreign/local resources, because the regimes over time, have made it unsafe. However, Africans/Nigerians steal the funds and deposit them into foreign fortes because “HOME” is not safe. Africans/Nigerians lose the funds because the foreign thieves hosting the funds, blackmail their families and Nigeria- at their death, coup, or insurrection. The ultimate loser is the ordinary African/Nigerian in the street.
So when will African/Nigerian leaders stop stealing the funds they cannot use, reach, access, or touch; which are eventually lost to handlers of stolen goods, abroad. When will African/Nigerian leaders start copying Nelson Mandela and stop behaving in ways that endear them to no one? When will they start realising that the public at home and their foreign deposit countries loathe them? The foreign countries do not like them, but love what hey bring to them (stolen money), at the expense of their own people (Africans/Nigerians).
Is it not phony when you hear that Dangote is the richest man in Africa/Nigeria? He may be the richest business man, but he is clearly not the richest man in Africa or Nigeria. The richest men in Africa/Nigeria can be found in ex -ministers/Presidents, Prime Ministers, Governors. Nevertheless and unfortunately Forbes magazine cannot categorise them as richest, because first they know that their funds were stolen, and second- they are aware that they don’t even have access to their funds nor control them. Furthermore, because these funds running into billions are stolen and hidden, groups like Forbes find it difficult to categorise, classify, or measure their wealth. The recent missing $20 billion dollars in Nigeria is a case in point. This is just unaccounted funds just for about one financial year. Where do you think the money has gone? Mobutu is believed to have lost about £4 billion dollars of his country’s resources in Swiss Fortes.
“Kleptocracy is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often with pretence of honest service. This type of government corruption is often achieved by the embezzlement of state funds”.
While the stealing continues, the primary schools are in shambles, there is no primary health care, the Universities are shot, poor roads are constructed, if at all, and there is no pipe borne water. The health systems remain so rotten that almost all the Kleptocrats pride themselves in accessing health facilities abroad.
Past and present African/Nigerian politicians compete on who builds the best marble houses, with looted funds, - for personal use, and on hill tops. They also compete on who is rated as having looted more billions of dollars, pounds and naira. And you know what; the people hail them in these unholy competitions. The people will say that “he/she is doing well”. “He just built a personal marble house after just 6 months in office”.
The culture of stealing public funds in Africa/Nigeria is alarming. African legislative houses are houses of thieves. Unintelligible gangsters rule Africa/Nigeria. African political officials are voted in- NOT to do well, but to help to dismember the treasuries.
So, when will African/Nigerian leaders start to realise the vanity of their stealing spree? When will they begin to realise that the deaths of African presidents Zenawi of Ethiopia, John of Ghana, and Bingu Mutharika of Malawi, all in one year, are enough signs to prompt them to reflect and realise the vanity of their stealing spree? When will they begin to realise that African/Nigerian people are the only losers in the stealing debacle? When will African/Nigerian people stop cheering their kleptocrats?
When will African/Nigerian politicians start returning their loots before they are lost to greedy western banks and countries? Who will introduce an African/Nigerian money return initiative to help save the stolen funds stashed in Switzerland and its ilk? When will the world commence prosecuting African/Nigerian politicians for economic terrorism against their people?
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Edosomwan's Blog
He is the author of Technology and Corruption and founder of www.june12post.com
Why do African/Nigerian politicians steal money they don’t use, see, need, reach, or access? The stealing by government officials in Nigeria is systematic, planned, organised, endemic, and extreme. Nigeria’s thieving autocrats have turned every treasury in Nigeria into a crime scene. They spare no funds- no matter how consolidated. They spare no assets or public accounts because they are morally depraved and ethically bankrupt.
They steal so much that no matter how lavish their life styles within the country become, they can only use a fraction of their loot in their life time. Most times their loots are hidden in foreign bank accounts in tax heavens, especially Switzerland. Their stealing spree creates huge holes in the development process at home; hence HOME is unstable and unsafe to keep stolen funds. Home may explode at any minute.
Nevertheless, at the commencement of the inevitable trouble at home; the foreign hosts of their looted funds also commence their black mail. “Sorry you can’t reach the funds until we clarify certain issues”. The foreign host tax heavens- ensure that the funds are seized, forfeited and ring fenced. The looter gets ill and dies.
The US government recently froze about $483.00 million stolen by former Nigerian dictator – Sanni Abacha, in largest kleptocracy forfeiture action ever brought in the US. If you wish to know; the $483.00 million dollars, is in addition to the £500- $700 million dollars previously recovered from the same culprit by the Nigeria government. These were monies he never used, saw, reached, and as we now know- accessed.
So lets get it right.
Africa/Nigeria is not a tax heaven for depositing stolen foreign/local resources, because the regimes over time, have made it unsafe. However, Africans/Nigerians steal the funds and deposit them into foreign fortes because “HOME” is not safe. Africans/Nigerians lose the funds because the foreign thieves hosting the funds, blackmail their families and Nigeria- at their death, coup, or insurrection. The ultimate loser is the ordinary African/Nigerian in the street.
So when will African/Nigerian leaders stop stealing the funds they cannot use, reach, access, or touch; which are eventually lost to handlers of stolen goods, abroad. When will African/Nigerian leaders start copying Nelson Mandela and stop behaving in ways that endear them to no one? When will they start realising that the public at home and their foreign deposit countries loathe them? The foreign countries do not like them, but love what hey bring to them (stolen money), at the expense of their own people (Africans/Nigerians).
Is it not phony when you hear that Dangote is the richest man in Africa/Nigeria? He may be the richest business man, but he is clearly not the richest man in Africa or Nigeria. The richest men in Africa/Nigeria can be found in ex -ministers/Presidents, Prime Ministers, Governors. Nevertheless and unfortunately Forbes magazine cannot categorise them as richest, because first they know that their funds were stolen, and second- they are aware that they don’t even have access to their funds nor control them. Furthermore, because these funds running into billions are stolen and hidden, groups like Forbes find it difficult to categorise, classify, or measure their wealth. The recent missing $20 billion dollars in Nigeria is a case in point. This is just unaccounted funds just for about one financial year. Where do you think the money has gone? Mobutu is believed to have lost about £4 billion dollars of his country’s resources in Swiss Fortes.
“Kleptocracy is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often with pretence of honest service. This type of government corruption is often achieved by the embezzlement of state funds”.
While the stealing continues, the primary schools are in shambles, there is no primary health care, the Universities are shot, poor roads are constructed, if at all, and there is no pipe borne water. The health systems remain so rotten that almost all the Kleptocrats pride themselves in accessing health facilities abroad.
Past and present African/Nigerian politicians compete on who builds the best marble houses, with looted funds, - for personal use, and on hill tops. They also compete on who is rated as having looted more billions of dollars, pounds and naira. And you know what; the people hail them in these unholy competitions. The people will say that “he/she is doing well”. “He just built a personal marble house after just 6 months in office”.
The culture of stealing public funds in Africa/Nigeria is alarming. African legislative houses are houses of thieves. Unintelligible gangsters rule Africa/Nigeria. African political officials are voted in- NOT to do well, but to help to dismember the treasuries.
So, when will African/Nigerian leaders start to realise the vanity of their stealing spree? When will they begin to realise that the deaths of African presidents Zenawi of Ethiopia, John of Ghana, and Bingu Mutharika of Malawi, all in one year, are enough signs to prompt them to reflect and realise the vanity of their stealing spree? When will they begin to realise that African/Nigerian people are the only losers in the stealing debacle? When will African/Nigerian people stop cheering their kleptocrats?
When will African/Nigerian politicians start returning their loots before they are lost to greedy western banks and countries? Who will introduce an African/Nigerian money return initiative to help save the stolen funds stashed in Switzerland and its ilk? When will the world commence prosecuting African/Nigerian politicians for economic terrorism against their people?
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Edosomwan's Blog
Delegates Reconvene Today, Begin Discussion On Jonathan’s Agenda
Four Hundred and Ninety One delegates will today reconvene to discuss, among others, the issues outlined for them by President Goodluck Jonathan in his inaugural speech last Monday when the National Conference was inaugurated.
The agenda for discussion, according to Jonathan, are form of government, structures of government, devolution of powers, revenue sharing formula, resource control, creation of state police, fiscal federalism, indigeneship, gender equality and children’s rights, amongst others. The president said delegates should focus on the above issues and not ethnicity and religious bigotry.
But less than 24-hours after the inauguration, delegates converged for the maiden sitting of the conference last Tuesday where religious issue came to the fore. Immediately after the confab leadership had announced that arrangement had been made for Muslim delegates to observe their prayers, Barrister Mike Ozekhome (SAN) raised the issue of according same treatment for Christian delegates as well.
Conference secretary, Valerie Azinge, also disclosed that the delegates will, in the fist two weeks of deliberations, discussion Jonathan’s speech.
While some observers saw last Tuesday’s conduct of members as signs of things come in the 3-month duration of the conference, delegates said it was the manifestation of democracy where people speak their minds.
Only last Thursday the confab secretariat announced that it had registered only three-quarter of the delegates, promising that others would be attended to as they arrive.
The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) had on, Thursday last week, officially rejected its participation in the conference having rejected the one slot allotted to it about 3 weeks ago. Also, the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) has not forwarded the names of its representatives, saying the confab is a waste of time while the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) is battling with a court case over who should represent the party .
The agenda for discussion, according to Jonathan, are form of government, structures of government, devolution of powers, revenue sharing formula, resource control, creation of state police, fiscal federalism, indigeneship, gender equality and children’s rights, amongst others. The president said delegates should focus on the above issues and not ethnicity and religious bigotry.
But less than 24-hours after the inauguration, delegates converged for the maiden sitting of the conference last Tuesday where religious issue came to the fore. Immediately after the confab leadership had announced that arrangement had been made for Muslim delegates to observe their prayers, Barrister Mike Ozekhome (SAN) raised the issue of according same treatment for Christian delegates as well.
Conference secretary, Valerie Azinge, also disclosed that the delegates will, in the fist two weeks of deliberations, discussion Jonathan’s speech.
While some observers saw last Tuesday’s conduct of members as signs of things come in the 3-month duration of the conference, delegates said it was the manifestation of democracy where people speak their minds.
Only last Thursday the confab secretariat announced that it had registered only three-quarter of the delegates, promising that others would be attended to as they arrive.
The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) had on, Thursday last week, officially rejected its participation in the conference having rejected the one slot allotted to it about 3 weeks ago. Also, the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) has not forwarded the names of its representatives, saying the confab is a waste of time while the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) is battling with a court case over who should represent the party .
Sunday, 23 March 2014
ENTERPRENEURSHIP, ALTERNATIVE TO UNEMPLOYMENT
The turnout for the just concluded NIS recruitment exercise that left scores injured and about 21 people dead has underscored a very chilling point: unemployment is still very much an issue that threatens the economic survival of the people and that of the nation.
Unemployment rate in Nigeria increased to 23.90 per cent in 2011 from 21.10 per cent in 2010, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and it has expressed worry that it may rise by an additional two per cent before the year ends. Given the NIS recruitment turnout, many people are wondering if the figure had not been doctored.
Since the exercise, however, an outcry has been raised against the state of unemployment in Nigeria and several alternatives have emerged to unemployment in the country. One is entrepreneurship. The question, however, is can entrepreneurship solve the youth unemployment crisis? A group of entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs believe that, yes, entrepreneurship can indeed solve the youth unemployment crisis, and then called on all stakeholders, especially the government, to ensure entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.
A group of researchers, in their “Entrepreneurship Development: A Panacea for Unemployment Reduction in Nigeria”, published in the Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences, agreed that it was imperative to “increase entrepreneurial activities to reduce high rate of unemployment” in Nigeria.
Entrepreneurship development, they said, “has led to employment generation, growth of the economy and sustainable development,” adding that entrepreneurship plays an important role in bringing down unemployment in the country.
Just last year, the Global Entreprenuership Monitor reported that entrepreneurs in Africa help boost employment and GDP rates. Countries like Nigeria, Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia were listed.
“The entrepreneurial landscape in sub-Saharan Africa is changing rapidly and the region is now becoming a Mecca for business development and growth,” remarked Mike Herrington, lead author of the report and GEM Executive Director and Professor at University of Cape Town, South Africa, on GEM’s website adding that “opportunities abound and a positive spirit is emerging amongst the population of these countries.”
Roles of entrepreneurship in national economic development
The United Nations (UN), has also observed that global development is entering a phase where “entrepreneurship will increasingly play a more important role.” The body cited three major reasons for this observation. In the West, it said, the managed economy of the 1970s-2000s was characterized by reliance on big business and mass production and thus, gave way to “a so-called entrepreneurial economy.” It observed that in this age and time, knowledge-driven goods and services have become more flexibly provided by smaller firms, forcing the emergence of a creative class to require less interference, but more facilitating state.
Second, in the emerging countries, it said, especially – Brazil, Russia, India and China, “impressive growth has been driven by a veritable entrepreneurial revolution. The need in these economies to sustain growth through sustainable access to resources, knowledge, markets, and low-carbon industrialization puts a premium on innovative entrepreneurship.”
And finally, in the least developed countries, where aid dependency is high, donors have been shifting the emphasis in development cooperation towards private sector development, the UN said, adding that “promoting youth entrepreneurship here has become a vital policy objective of many development organisations and donors.”
Roles of entrepreneurs in national economic development
In discussing the roles entrepreneurship plays in bringing down unemployment in the country, it is pertinent to seek out the role of entrepreneurs in economic development. As someone succinctly put it, an entrepreneur plays a pivotal role not only in the development of industrial sector of a country but also in the development of farm and service sector.
Dr Gbemisola Oke, Director of Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Ibadan, while delivering a paper at a recent day SMEs event organised by the Oyo State government, noted the role of an entrepreneur in economic development bringing about growth. This growth, she said, comes in different forms.
Young entrepreneurs in Nigeria are also saying that with the new upsurge in entrepreneurship in the country, they are introducing new ideas into a fledgling economy that can help the country grow.
These entrepreneurs believe that entrepreneurship is one of the most important input in the economic development of a country, while noting that as entrepreneurs, they act as a trigger head to give spark to economic activities by their entrepreneurial decisions.
One of such entrepreneurs is Bukola Fasuba, Founder mhqstore.com. Fasuba, a lawyer schooled in Foundation in Law at Stafford House College, Kent, England before going for a graduate degree in LLB Law from University of Leicester, England, said her business is changing the phase of traditional market places in Nigeria. She considers herself as a business leader who looks for ideas and puts them into effect in fostering economic growth and development.
Entrepreneurs spoken with in the course of writing this report unanimously agreed that they promote capital formation by either borrowing or/and using their own resources for setting up their enterprises. They said that apart from the fact that they promote the country’s export trade, they increase countries’ Gross National Product and Per Capita Income, thus improving the standards of living in several nations.
The role of the government in promoting entrepreneurship
The UN, in its “Entrepreneurs and economic development” report, observed that “for entrepreneurs to play an appropriate role, the role of the state remains important, if not more so than before. Strong states, as regulators and gatekeepers, play a particularly vital role. In the absence of appropriate ‘rules of the game’, entrepreneurship may result in undesirable social outcomes, including corruption, crime, speculation and financial crises, and may worsen the vulnerabilities of people during natural disasters.”
While entrepreneurs and bodies like the CEI have constantly advocated for friendly policies to encourage the SMEs and startup entrepreneurs in the country, the Nigerian government has insisted that they are making sure that the Nigerian entrepreneurs are giving level playing grounds to do business.
For instance, the Federal Government, in collaboration with foreign bodies have been making capital available to SMEs. And experts believe that the international organisations have, since mid-1980s, continued to play vital roles in providing foreign capital to some SMEs in Nigeria. World Bank, African Development Bank (ADB) and International Finance Corporation (IFC), are among the said organisations. It could be seen that entrepreneurship business was, hitherto, neglected in Nigeria.
Also, some of the agencies such as the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND), the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), among others, have been established by government to aid entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.
Entrepreneurship opportunities in Nigeria
Tech-based businesses are currently revolutionalising the way business is done in Nigeria. According to Mr Tomi Davies, the CEO of TechnoVision, “technology has infinitely improved communication of ideas through its making tools available for entrepreneurs to express their visions... It is already changing the way we search for, buy and even consume our food. From recipes to restaurants we are seeing the incursion of technology.”
Agriculture is another goldmine that entrepreneurs can tap from and so is fashion and entertainment. In the coming weeks, we will be examining each industry and the business prospects there in
Unemployment rate in Nigeria increased to 23.90 per cent in 2011 from 21.10 per cent in 2010, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and it has expressed worry that it may rise by an additional two per cent before the year ends. Given the NIS recruitment turnout, many people are wondering if the figure had not been doctored.
Since the exercise, however, an outcry has been raised against the state of unemployment in Nigeria and several alternatives have emerged to unemployment in the country. One is entrepreneurship. The question, however, is can entrepreneurship solve the youth unemployment crisis? A group of entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs believe that, yes, entrepreneurship can indeed solve the youth unemployment crisis, and then called on all stakeholders, especially the government, to ensure entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.
A group of researchers, in their “Entrepreneurship Development: A Panacea for Unemployment Reduction in Nigeria”, published in the Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences, agreed that it was imperative to “increase entrepreneurial activities to reduce high rate of unemployment” in Nigeria.
Entrepreneurship development, they said, “has led to employment generation, growth of the economy and sustainable development,” adding that entrepreneurship plays an important role in bringing down unemployment in the country.
Just last year, the Global Entreprenuership Monitor reported that entrepreneurs in Africa help boost employment and GDP rates. Countries like Nigeria, Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia were listed.
“The entrepreneurial landscape in sub-Saharan Africa is changing rapidly and the region is now becoming a Mecca for business development and growth,” remarked Mike Herrington, lead author of the report and GEM Executive Director and Professor at University of Cape Town, South Africa, on GEM’s website adding that “opportunities abound and a positive spirit is emerging amongst the population of these countries.”
Roles of entrepreneurship in national economic development
The United Nations (UN), has also observed that global development is entering a phase where “entrepreneurship will increasingly play a more important role.” The body cited three major reasons for this observation. In the West, it said, the managed economy of the 1970s-2000s was characterized by reliance on big business and mass production and thus, gave way to “a so-called entrepreneurial economy.” It observed that in this age and time, knowledge-driven goods and services have become more flexibly provided by smaller firms, forcing the emergence of a creative class to require less interference, but more facilitating state.
Second, in the emerging countries, it said, especially – Brazil, Russia, India and China, “impressive growth has been driven by a veritable entrepreneurial revolution. The need in these economies to sustain growth through sustainable access to resources, knowledge, markets, and low-carbon industrialization puts a premium on innovative entrepreneurship.”
And finally, in the least developed countries, where aid dependency is high, donors have been shifting the emphasis in development cooperation towards private sector development, the UN said, adding that “promoting youth entrepreneurship here has become a vital policy objective of many development organisations and donors.”
Roles of entrepreneurs in national economic development
In discussing the roles entrepreneurship plays in bringing down unemployment in the country, it is pertinent to seek out the role of entrepreneurs in economic development. As someone succinctly put it, an entrepreneur plays a pivotal role not only in the development of industrial sector of a country but also in the development of farm and service sector.
Dr Gbemisola Oke, Director of Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Ibadan, while delivering a paper at a recent day SMEs event organised by the Oyo State government, noted the role of an entrepreneur in economic development bringing about growth. This growth, she said, comes in different forms.
Young entrepreneurs in Nigeria are also saying that with the new upsurge in entrepreneurship in the country, they are introducing new ideas into a fledgling economy that can help the country grow.
These entrepreneurs believe that entrepreneurship is one of the most important input in the economic development of a country, while noting that as entrepreneurs, they act as a trigger head to give spark to economic activities by their entrepreneurial decisions.
One of such entrepreneurs is Bukola Fasuba, Founder mhqstore.com. Fasuba, a lawyer schooled in Foundation in Law at Stafford House College, Kent, England before going for a graduate degree in LLB Law from University of Leicester, England, said her business is changing the phase of traditional market places in Nigeria. She considers herself as a business leader who looks for ideas and puts them into effect in fostering economic growth and development.
Entrepreneurs spoken with in the course of writing this report unanimously agreed that they promote capital formation by either borrowing or/and using their own resources for setting up their enterprises. They said that apart from the fact that they promote the country’s export trade, they increase countries’ Gross National Product and Per Capita Income, thus improving the standards of living in several nations.
The role of the government in promoting entrepreneurship
The UN, in its “Entrepreneurs and economic development” report, observed that “for entrepreneurs to play an appropriate role, the role of the state remains important, if not more so than before. Strong states, as regulators and gatekeepers, play a particularly vital role. In the absence of appropriate ‘rules of the game’, entrepreneurship may result in undesirable social outcomes, including corruption, crime, speculation and financial crises, and may worsen the vulnerabilities of people during natural disasters.”
While entrepreneurs and bodies like the CEI have constantly advocated for friendly policies to encourage the SMEs and startup entrepreneurs in the country, the Nigerian government has insisted that they are making sure that the Nigerian entrepreneurs are giving level playing grounds to do business.
For instance, the Federal Government, in collaboration with foreign bodies have been making capital available to SMEs. And experts believe that the international organisations have, since mid-1980s, continued to play vital roles in providing foreign capital to some SMEs in Nigeria. World Bank, African Development Bank (ADB) and International Finance Corporation (IFC), are among the said organisations. It could be seen that entrepreneurship business was, hitherto, neglected in Nigeria.
Also, some of the agencies such as the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND), the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), among others, have been established by government to aid entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.
Entrepreneurship opportunities in Nigeria
Tech-based businesses are currently revolutionalising the way business is done in Nigeria. According to Mr Tomi Davies, the CEO of TechnoVision, “technology has infinitely improved communication of ideas through its making tools available for entrepreneurs to express their visions... It is already changing the way we search for, buy and even consume our food. From recipes to restaurants we are seeing the incursion of technology.”
Agriculture is another goldmine that entrepreneurs can tap from and so is fashion and entertainment. In the coming weeks, we will be examining each industry and the business prospects there in
The Rise And Fall Of TV Programmes In Nigeria
From the late 70s to the 90s, Nigeria was known for her rich and educational TV programmes that informed, educated, enlightened, persuaded, integrated and at the same time entertained viewers. But today, the love for these programmes has been overtaken by the trend of parents not having much time to scrutinise what their children or wards do before and after school. ANTHONY ADA ABRAHAM writes on the need for parents to go back to the old days while looking at some important television programmes.
TV was for the elites. There was always this joy to catch up with some of the programmes on air back then. For those who had the opportunity to own or see a TV in the 70’s to early 90’s when juveniles then who got to know much of TV during the mid 80’s and most of the early 90’s, the TV experience then was of a nostalgic feeling now.
There is no doubt that the then generations and before confirm that these present generations are getting adulterated TV content and programmes like which are not in any way contributing to the life of the present generation of youths.
A flashback to the early 70’s -90’s, TV programmes were of entertainment and education value that even parents needed not persuade their children to embrace them.
The Message
Though there were no 24hr TV broadcast at that time, but for the period of six hours of TV operations, TV was truly fun for its various viewers. One could remember when by 4pm, viewers were first greeted with music for an hour with the coloured strips adorning the TV and sometimes most residents had to stay tuned while someone tried to turn the antenna to get a clear picture of a favourite programme.
After the national anthem was played to introduce the line-up of the day’s programme which might not last up to 12am, the DCA (duty continuity announcer) would read the programme line-up for the day while some interesting cartoons followed. This was almost the tradition during weekdays until the 9pm network news on the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), which many parents don’t miss for anything no matter what kind of job they do. They prefer to skip meals instead of missing the network news.
By that time, children were expected to have gone to bed or just compulsorily listen to NTA network news.
News line uncovers many happenings around the country from weird spiritual happenings to investigative work. But today many have been taken away by politics and insurgencies.
Some Of The Interesting Programmes
Taking a drive through the past, there is no doubt that generations then always weep for the present generations for what they have missed; good and educating TV programming.
How would one quickly forget The Village Headmaster, one of Nigerian’s longest TV drama series back then? The good acting prowess of Oloja of Oja land played by Dejumo Lewis, Gorimapa, Sisi Clara, Teacher Oghenem, Councillor Balogun and others that made this TV drama one of the best from Nigeria.
Uchokwu was a court drama that involves and Igbo translator who always gives the wrong message to the people.
How would one also forget Things Fall Apart of the Pete Edochie (Okonkwo) fame? Also was The New Masquerade which had the likes of Chief Zebrudaya alias 4:30, Ovloria, Gringori, Clarus, the one and only late Prince Jegede Sokoya and his troublesome Apena (late Christy Essien) wife.
Other great programmes back then were Cock Crow At Dawn, Mirror In The Sun, Ripples, Behind The Cloud, Adio Family, Basi & Company, Second Chance, Samanja, Sura the Tailor, Koko Close, Awada Kerikeri.
What about Ultimate Power, of the Ishawuru fame?
In addition, there were Third Eye, Mind Bending, Pot of life, Magana Jarice, Mind your language, Hammer House of Horror, Soul Train, CI5 (The professionals) which was a British detective TV drama series that featured our own veteran actor, Olu Jacobs, and many others.
While the adults were busy enjoying the above TV programmes, their children at that time also had the cause to be excited staying glued to TV when finally allowed to, as parents then always lock their TV with padlocks because it was a box TV unlike the developed flat-screened TV set that are obtainable today.
At school, children were seen in groups discussing most of these notable TV programmes while some popular social clubs were formed.
Children and even adults were treated on a Sunday with captivating programmes like Tales by Moonlight, which was a reason most children would always want to be at home by 6pm.
Furthermore, Sesame Street, Voltron, Super Ted and Robin Hood were some of the programmes that thrilled viewers.
On Saturday morning, Cadbury breakfast show wakes you up with interesting comedy, cartoons like Pinky and the Brain, whose mission is to take over the world.
Kiddie’s Vision 101 helps in upgrading and testing the intellect of children and more of such programmes would really help in the moral development of the youths. Also was Rintinti (the police dog).
How can one forget Dr Who which was also one the best TV programmes for the kids back then before the Superman, Tom and Jerrys of this world took over?
The lists of these good and great programmes are many. Mentioning them only makes one sit and cry for the present generation of kids who have now become something else due to the adulterated TV contents they are now being exposed to.
Programmes For Present Generation
The new TV content and trend is music and dance based which is filled with lots of degrading moral value fillings. What mostly sell TV content nowadays are X-rated contents. This is eminent in our present music videos, reality programmes and so on.
Though many have asked and wondered where we all got it wrong from, but that still remains a puzzle yet to be unravelled.
The new crop of juveniles has argued that those TV programmes that wowed viewers in the past did so because there was not much competition as we now have. Their point is that back then, it was mainly the NTA and maybe LTV that were providing TV contents to Nigerians.
According to Mr Matthew Thompson, a pundit in the industry, the blame has to be shifted to the NBC who don’t scrutinise programmes before they are aired. He said unless they are given much power to ban any programme with erotic content, the decadence would continue.
He said: “I don’t know why we are crying over spilt milk. After all, they government has the power to say these are they programmes that would benefit out children. NTA is seen from many quotas as very local but on the contrary, they are the best. They are now competing favourably with other media, their programmes are always better.”
“When the only thing people watch in Nigeria is violence, war, sex, erotic scenes and sometimes even porn, what do you expect from a generation with keen interest? Parents now are more interested in the money they would get from politicians, and politicians are more interested in being an American. There is no way things would get better unless we change our attitude and go back to the drawing board. Thank God for the national conference, at least it may also help in fashioning ways of putting these diseases to an end,” he frowned.
What is still obtainable in school curriculums today are some of these TV stories which were acted to give viewers more understanding to what the books are saying.
The Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) should see this as a matter of urgency and take the bull by the horn.
Nigeria is a country made of traditions and culture which is also enshrined in its constitution. More values should be placed on education and information.
And most programmes that are not of benefit to the youths of Nigeria should be scraped to bring back sanity for a better tomorrow.
TV was for the elites. There was always this joy to catch up with some of the programmes on air back then. For those who had the opportunity to own or see a TV in the 70’s to early 90’s when juveniles then who got to know much of TV during the mid 80’s and most of the early 90’s, the TV experience then was of a nostalgic feeling now.
There is no doubt that the then generations and before confirm that these present generations are getting adulterated TV content and programmes like which are not in any way contributing to the life of the present generation of youths.
A flashback to the early 70’s -90’s, TV programmes were of entertainment and education value that even parents needed not persuade their children to embrace them.
The Message
Though there were no 24hr TV broadcast at that time, but for the period of six hours of TV operations, TV was truly fun for its various viewers. One could remember when by 4pm, viewers were first greeted with music for an hour with the coloured strips adorning the TV and sometimes most residents had to stay tuned while someone tried to turn the antenna to get a clear picture of a favourite programme.
After the national anthem was played to introduce the line-up of the day’s programme which might not last up to 12am, the DCA (duty continuity announcer) would read the programme line-up for the day while some interesting cartoons followed. This was almost the tradition during weekdays until the 9pm network news on the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), which many parents don’t miss for anything no matter what kind of job they do. They prefer to skip meals instead of missing the network news.
By that time, children were expected to have gone to bed or just compulsorily listen to NTA network news.
News line uncovers many happenings around the country from weird spiritual happenings to investigative work. But today many have been taken away by politics and insurgencies.
Some Of The Interesting Programmes
Taking a drive through the past, there is no doubt that generations then always weep for the present generations for what they have missed; good and educating TV programming.
How would one quickly forget The Village Headmaster, one of Nigerian’s longest TV drama series back then? The good acting prowess of Oloja of Oja land played by Dejumo Lewis, Gorimapa, Sisi Clara, Teacher Oghenem, Councillor Balogun and others that made this TV drama one of the best from Nigeria.
Uchokwu was a court drama that involves and Igbo translator who always gives the wrong message to the people.
How would one also forget Things Fall Apart of the Pete Edochie (Okonkwo) fame? Also was The New Masquerade which had the likes of Chief Zebrudaya alias 4:30, Ovloria, Gringori, Clarus, the one and only late Prince Jegede Sokoya and his troublesome Apena (late Christy Essien) wife.
Other great programmes back then were Cock Crow At Dawn, Mirror In The Sun, Ripples, Behind The Cloud, Adio Family, Basi & Company, Second Chance, Samanja, Sura the Tailor, Koko Close, Awada Kerikeri.
What about Ultimate Power, of the Ishawuru fame?
In addition, there were Third Eye, Mind Bending, Pot of life, Magana Jarice, Mind your language, Hammer House of Horror, Soul Train, CI5 (The professionals) which was a British detective TV drama series that featured our own veteran actor, Olu Jacobs, and many others.
While the adults were busy enjoying the above TV programmes, their children at that time also had the cause to be excited staying glued to TV when finally allowed to, as parents then always lock their TV with padlocks because it was a box TV unlike the developed flat-screened TV set that are obtainable today.
At school, children were seen in groups discussing most of these notable TV programmes while some popular social clubs were formed.
Children and even adults were treated on a Sunday with captivating programmes like Tales by Moonlight, which was a reason most children would always want to be at home by 6pm.
Furthermore, Sesame Street, Voltron, Super Ted and Robin Hood were some of the programmes that thrilled viewers.
On Saturday morning, Cadbury breakfast show wakes you up with interesting comedy, cartoons like Pinky and the Brain, whose mission is to take over the world.
Kiddie’s Vision 101 helps in upgrading and testing the intellect of children and more of such programmes would really help in the moral development of the youths. Also was Rintinti (the police dog).
How can one forget Dr Who which was also one the best TV programmes for the kids back then before the Superman, Tom and Jerrys of this world took over?
The lists of these good and great programmes are many. Mentioning them only makes one sit and cry for the present generation of kids who have now become something else due to the adulterated TV contents they are now being exposed to.
Programmes For Present Generation
The new TV content and trend is music and dance based which is filled with lots of degrading moral value fillings. What mostly sell TV content nowadays are X-rated contents. This is eminent in our present music videos, reality programmes and so on.
Though many have asked and wondered where we all got it wrong from, but that still remains a puzzle yet to be unravelled.
The new crop of juveniles has argued that those TV programmes that wowed viewers in the past did so because there was not much competition as we now have. Their point is that back then, it was mainly the NTA and maybe LTV that were providing TV contents to Nigerians.
According to Mr Matthew Thompson, a pundit in the industry, the blame has to be shifted to the NBC who don’t scrutinise programmes before they are aired. He said unless they are given much power to ban any programme with erotic content, the decadence would continue.
He said: “I don’t know why we are crying over spilt milk. After all, they government has the power to say these are they programmes that would benefit out children. NTA is seen from many quotas as very local but on the contrary, they are the best. They are now competing favourably with other media, their programmes are always better.”
“When the only thing people watch in Nigeria is violence, war, sex, erotic scenes and sometimes even porn, what do you expect from a generation with keen interest? Parents now are more interested in the money they would get from politicians, and politicians are more interested in being an American. There is no way things would get better unless we change our attitude and go back to the drawing board. Thank God for the national conference, at least it may also help in fashioning ways of putting these diseases to an end,” he frowned.
What is still obtainable in school curriculums today are some of these TV stories which were acted to give viewers more understanding to what the books are saying.
The Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) should see this as a matter of urgency and take the bull by the horn.
Nigeria is a country made of traditions and culture which is also enshrined in its constitution. More values should be placed on education and information.
And most programmes that are not of benefit to the youths of Nigeria should be scraped to bring back sanity for a better tomorrow.
Saturday, 22 March 2014
Developing An Entrepreneurial Mindset
A write up submitted by : Zibusiso Mkhwanazi, CEO of AVATAR.
When does the mind set of an entrepreneur start to develop? In the world of information technology there are many thirteen-year olds who are creating amazing apps and other technologically advanced systems from the seclusion of their bedrooms.
Yet I am of the opinion that it is not the person that develops a certain mind set, but the circumstances around the individual that shapes such.
When I was around 13, my mother encouraged me to stay busy during school holidays and subsequently gave me a packet filled with sweets with the instruction to “go and sell the sweets”. Soon I became known as the sweet guy by the children at school. Because I were not particularly fond of this new nick name I started looking for a better way of selling the sweets; I encouraged one of my friends to start selling the sweets for me. In return I offered him 10 percent of the profit. It did not take long before I moved from sweet selling to sweet management with about 20 friends as part of my sales force.
It was this change from sales to management that defines the moment I started the journey as an entrepreneur.
But how does one develop the entrepreneurial spirit?
There is a common misperception that entrepreneurs are those people who make things happen by acting on impulse. It might look to the average person as if Sir Richard Branson is one crazy business man, but in fact everything he does is born out of careful planning with an objective in mind. Taking calculated risks are part of an entrepreneur’s make up. Yes, entrepreneurs generally have a bigger risk appetite; they know when to take a risk and when not to.
One of the biggest challenges facing entrepreneurs worldwide, but particularly in developing countries such as South Africa, is financial support. The tech environment is a prime example of the chicken-and-egg situation. An investor will not fund an idea which has not worked, but an entreprener needs money to make the idea work. Thus the key lies in the entrepreneurial mindset where one would need to find a midpoint. The entrepreneur dedicates time and takes basic steps to make an idea happen to reduce the risk associated with investments. This action can be a simple thing such as building a user base for whatever the idea might be, showing progress and market adoption rates. Once one has established this user base it will be easier to find a partner who would be willing to invest in one’s business.
Not only are entrepreneurs great risk managers, they are also visionaries. A successful entrepreneur is not motivated by money, but by seeing the vision come together. Take Mark Zuckerberg as an example. He had a vision of connecting his peers who were all students at the same university. As his social media network expanded outside of the university it did not immediately turn into a business. Facebook only started offering advertising when it reached a certain amount of users worldwide. This famous social media network recently bought Whatsapp for $19 billion; a prime example of money follows passion.
I am a firm believer that the entrepreneurial mind is also a creative mind. When an entrepreneur faces a challenge the solution is more often than not a creative one. Steve Jobs once said that one should stop trying to make your product better than that of your competitors; focus on making your product different. Imagine the surprise when someone told Henry Ford they wish they could have faster horses and he presented them with an automobile; it is yet another primary case of entrepreneurship.
As a CEO of an advertising agency I have to admit that managing creatives in our enviroment sometimes feels a bit like herding cats, being creative is not an easy thing because of the abstract and outside the box thinking that is required. However, when entrepreneurs are exposed to enviroments outside their own, their midsets start changing and that’s when creative ideas start flowing to solve complex problems.
Lastly, entrepreneurs realise that having perspective is more important than being smart. Perspective depends not on independence, but is interdependent on other people; other people make the entrepreneur a better thinker.
Do you have what it takes to develop an entrepreneurial mindset? Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, develop a mutually supporting business relationship and watch your business grow.
When does the mind set of an entrepreneur start to develop? In the world of information technology there are many thirteen-year olds who are creating amazing apps and other technologically advanced systems from the seclusion of their bedrooms.
Yet I am of the opinion that it is not the person that develops a certain mind set, but the circumstances around the individual that shapes such.
When I was around 13, my mother encouraged me to stay busy during school holidays and subsequently gave me a packet filled with sweets with the instruction to “go and sell the sweets”. Soon I became known as the sweet guy by the children at school. Because I were not particularly fond of this new nick name I started looking for a better way of selling the sweets; I encouraged one of my friends to start selling the sweets for me. In return I offered him 10 percent of the profit. It did not take long before I moved from sweet selling to sweet management with about 20 friends as part of my sales force.
It was this change from sales to management that defines the moment I started the journey as an entrepreneur.
But how does one develop the entrepreneurial spirit?
There is a common misperception that entrepreneurs are those people who make things happen by acting on impulse. It might look to the average person as if Sir Richard Branson is one crazy business man, but in fact everything he does is born out of careful planning with an objective in mind. Taking calculated risks are part of an entrepreneur’s make up. Yes, entrepreneurs generally have a bigger risk appetite; they know when to take a risk and when not to.
One of the biggest challenges facing entrepreneurs worldwide, but particularly in developing countries such as South Africa, is financial support. The tech environment is a prime example of the chicken-and-egg situation. An investor will not fund an idea which has not worked, but an entreprener needs money to make the idea work. Thus the key lies in the entrepreneurial mindset where one would need to find a midpoint. The entrepreneur dedicates time and takes basic steps to make an idea happen to reduce the risk associated with investments. This action can be a simple thing such as building a user base for whatever the idea might be, showing progress and market adoption rates. Once one has established this user base it will be easier to find a partner who would be willing to invest in one’s business.
Not only are entrepreneurs great risk managers, they are also visionaries. A successful entrepreneur is not motivated by money, but by seeing the vision come together. Take Mark Zuckerberg as an example. He had a vision of connecting his peers who were all students at the same university. As his social media network expanded outside of the university it did not immediately turn into a business. Facebook only started offering advertising when it reached a certain amount of users worldwide. This famous social media network recently bought Whatsapp for $19 billion; a prime example of money follows passion.
I am a firm believer that the entrepreneurial mind is also a creative mind. When an entrepreneur faces a challenge the solution is more often than not a creative one. Steve Jobs once said that one should stop trying to make your product better than that of your competitors; focus on making your product different. Imagine the surprise when someone told Henry Ford they wish they could have faster horses and he presented them with an automobile; it is yet another primary case of entrepreneurship.
As a CEO of an advertising agency I have to admit that managing creatives in our enviroment sometimes feels a bit like herding cats, being creative is not an easy thing because of the abstract and outside the box thinking that is required. However, when entrepreneurs are exposed to enviroments outside their own, their midsets start changing and that’s when creative ideas start flowing to solve complex problems.
Lastly, entrepreneurs realise that having perspective is more important than being smart. Perspective depends not on independence, but is interdependent on other people; other people make the entrepreneur a better thinker.
Do you have what it takes to develop an entrepreneurial mindset? Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, develop a mutually supporting business relationship and watch your business grow.
Aliko Dangote: A lesson for African entrepreneurs
I built a conglomerate and emerged the richest black man in the world in 2008 but it didn’t happen overnight. It took me 30 years to get to where I am today. Youths of today aspire to be like me but they want to achieve it overnight. It’s not going to work. To build a successful business, you must start small and dream big. In the journey of entrepreneurship, tenacity of purpose is supreme.” – Aliko Dangote
Alhaji Aliko Dangote represents what African businessmen should be. He is an example for aspiring entrepreneurs across the continent. Start small, aim very high, identify and take advantage of opportunities. Do not be discouraged by challenges. Give, and give generously to help others make progress.
That was how Aliko Dangote, who started out as a trader of commodities, became Africa’s leading businessman, with companies in 16 countries, employing over 10,000 people. In the process, he became the richest African and black man on the planet, with a personal fortune of $25 billion. It is this feat that makes him eminently qualified, and deservingly recognised as the Vanguard Newspaper African Personality of the Year.
Born with the Midas touch
When on 10th of April 1957, a male child was born in Kano; little was heard or known of the child. Like Shakespeare wrote in one of his epic books, Julius Caesar, ‘when beggars die there are no comets seen but the heavens themselves blaze the death of Princes’. In some dynasties and royalties, when kings are born, they are celebrated.
That was not the case in Kano when Aliko Dangote was born. He was just like any other child. He, like other children, learnt to crawl, walk and run. He cried like others but at school, he was focused on what he chose to do.
He probably discovered his destiny early enough and keyed into it. In his words: “I can remember when I was in primary school, I would go and buy cartons of sweets (sugar boxes) and I would start selling them just to make money. I was so interested in business, even at that time.” Dangote, right from when he was young had his eyes on business.
He had always, as all real entrepreneurs do, seen opportunities where others see high risk and failure. In an atmosphere of difficulty, when others would have given up, he took the risk. He is known for taking great risks in a highly risky environment.
He has grown to have a Midas touch in every business he ventured into. He started as a commodity trader, he made success of it, he entered into sugar refining, and he made success of it. He set up cement manufacturing; he has made a huge success of it.
Now he is venturing into petroleum product refining. His hard work has set him apart to the envy of his detractors who only see him as a beneficiary of government waiver and concession. But there are others who have had the same benefit but could not make anything tangible from it.
That has brought success to him, his family, state and his country. He has invested in the various sectors of the Nigerian economy and across the African continent thus creating millions of direct and indirect jobs in the continent of Africa. He has become a business colossus that bestrides the global business environment, making him the richest African today.
Undeterred by Risks & Uncertainties
In one of the articles written by Jonathan Berman in Harvard Business review entitled; American CEOs should Stop Complaining about Uncertainty, he wrote how uncertainty has not deterred Aliko Dangote from investing in Nigeria and across Africa. In the write-up, Barman said: “This month, the chief executive officers of America’s biggest companies went on a media blitz to decry the uncertainty caused by the fiscal cliff. In such uncertain times, they say, they are hesitant to invest in the US economy.
I departed Washington in the midst of these rumblings to attend a forum of Africa’s leading CEOs. Here’s a quick sample of the scheduled participants: Aliko Dangote, CEO of Dangote Cement. He’s building a $2 billion fertilizer plant in his native Nigeria. He recently announced the next two growth markets for sizeable investment by his group are Iraq and Myanmar.
“For Dangote and many other executives in frontier markets, uncertainty is not the inhibitor of opportunity. It is the condition in which opportunity arises. That is a reasonable perspective to look for in American CEOs as well.” The moving force behind private enterprise all over the world is what Adam Smith described as the invisible hand that allocates resources in the most uncertain environment.
It is real entrepreneurs that see opportunity in very risky areas, yet go in there with the hope of making profit. Business is about taking risk and any local entrepreneur that is not ready to take risk is not a genuine businessman. Dangote saw opportunities in the very uncertain and tough business environment in Nigeria. From trading in rice, sugar and other commodities, he veered into manufacturing in an environment many foreign and local investors see as very risky.
Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s business empire is estimated at a net worth of $20.8 billion as of November 2013 spanning interests in commodities with operations in Nigeria and several other countries in Africa , including Benin, Cameroon, Togo , Ghana, South Africa and Zambia. Dangote in 2013 was ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 43rd richest person in the world and the richest man in Africa based on his investment and the listing of his companies’ interest at the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Taking some of his companies to the exchange has given other Nigerians opportunities to share in his success and has shown that he operates his companies in an open manner.
Early life
Alhaji Aliko Dangote, a northerner, precisely from Kano State, Nigeria, was born on the 10th of April 1957 into a wealthy Muslim family. He studied Business at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt and thereafter returned to Nigeria to borrow from his uncle, Sanusi Abdulkadir Dantata. The uncle (Dantata) eventually gave him a loan of N500,000 when he was just 21 years old to start his own business.
Business career
The Dangote Group which started as a small trading firm was established in the year 1977. Today, it is a multi-trillion naira conglomerate with many of its operations in Benin, Ghana , Nigeria, and Togo. At present, Dangote has enlarged his line of businesses to also cover food processing, cement manufacturing and freight. The Dangote Group also dominates the sugar and cement markets in Nigeria and is a major sugar supplier to Nigeria’s soft drink companies, breweries , and confectioners.
The Dangote Group has also moved from being a trading company to being the largest industrial group in Nigeria and the group includes: Dangote Sugar Refinery, Dangote Cement and Dangote Flour just to mention but a few. He plans to set up the largest petroleum product refinning facility in Nigeria.
In the month of July 2012, he approached the Nigerian Ports Authority with the idea of leasing an abandoned piece of land at the Apapa Port, which was welcomed and approved. He later went to build facilities for his flour company there. In the 90’s, he approached the Central Bank of Nigeria with a proposal that it would be cheaper for the bank to allow his transport company manage their fleet of staff buses which was also approved.
He owns the Obajana Cement plant which is the largest cement manufacturing facility in Africa. Apart from these, Dangote Group owns salt factories and flour mills and also a major importer of rice, fish, pasta and fertilizer. The company exports cotton, cashew nuts, cocoa, sesame seed and ginger to several countries. It also has major investments in real estate, banking, transport, textiles and oil and gas.
The company employs over 11,000 people and is the largest industrial conglomerate in the whole of West Africa. Dangote is also exploring the telecommunications sector and has started building 14,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables to supply the whole of Nigeria and as a result, he was honoured in January 2009 as the leading provider of employment in the Nigerian construction industry.
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, continues to expand his publicly traded Dangote Cement across the continent, announcing plans to build new plants in Kenya and Niger. With operations in about eight countries, it is the largest cement manufacturer in sub-Sahara Africa.
In May 2013, Dangote said he would build a $9 billion oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Nigeria. When completed, it will be Nigeria’s first and Africa’s largest petroleum refinery.
His words; “As an investor who believes in Nigeria, knows Nigeria well and whose prosperity was made in Nigeria, we have responded to the challenge with our decision to invest $ 9 billion in a refinery/petrochemical and fertilizer complex to be located at the OKLNG Free Trade Zone. This complex will be the largest industrial complex project ever in the history of our great nation.
On the 14th of November, 2011, Dangote was awarded a National Honour, Nigeria’s second highest honour, Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON ) by the President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan .
Apart from his business acumen, he is also a philanthropist who has collaborated with American billionaire, Bill Gates Foundation to invest in the provision of health especially the eradication of polio in Africa and other parts of the world where the disease is still prevalent.
The DANGOTE Group consists of:
Dangote Cement Plc
Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc
Dangote Flour Mills Plc
Dangote Pasta Plant Limited
Dangote Agro Sacks Limited
Prayer Mats Production
Dangote Salt Plc
Ports Operations
Haulage
Steel Production
Dangote Foods Limited
Real Estate
Telecommunications
Oil Refinery, Petrochemicals and Fertilisers
The Philanthropic side of Dangote
To underscore his belief in giving back to the society, Aliko Dangote, through his Dangote Foundation, has over the years committed a lot of his resources into philanthropic activities.
The Dangote Foundation which was set up in 1994 is the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of Dangote Group. The Foundation intervenes in the areas of health, education and empowerment. The Foundation is also involved in providing humanitarian aid to victims of natural disasters. It has contributed over $100 million (about N16 billion) in charitable funds to several causes in Nigeria and Africa over the past four years.
Dangote recently announced plans to endow the Foundation with N200 billion ($1.25 billion). He said the endowment would come from personal contributions as well as shares of his publicly quoted companies, which would be transferred to the Foundation for onward disbursement to beneficiaries. He added that this will ensure that the Foundation has secure and steady funding to carry out its mission as we significantly scale up our work.
Board of Trustees of the Foundation include Dangote as Chairman; his brother, Sani; his daughter, Halima Aliko Dangote; Chief Operating Officer, Dangote Industries Limited, Olakunle Alake; A.B Mahmoud (SAN); former Group Managing Director/CEO, Access Bank Plc, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede; wife of the former Ekiti State Governor, Angela Adebayo; wife of the former Managing Director/CEO Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Hajara Adeola; and Group Chief Executive Officer, Renaissance Capital West Africa, Mrs. Yvonne Ike-Fasinro.
SOME OF DANGOTE’S CSR INTERVENTIONS:
$500,000 to boost UNICEF’s fight against measles
The Dangote Foundation contributed $500,000 (N79.15 million) through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to support the Federal Government’s response to recent measles outbreak that affected many states in Nigeria. The donation was announced on April 12, 2013 in Lagos during a visit to the office of the Chairman of Dangote Foundation, Aliko Dangote, by a delegation of the UNICEF led by the Country Representative, Ms. Jean Gough. Gough lauded Dangote Foundation saying: “Public-Private sector interventions such as these in the health sector and other sectors such as water and early childhood development are the way forward for Nigeria to improve the well-being of Nigerian children.” The grant is a major contribution to government’s fight against measles which is among the leading causes of child deaths in Nigeria, especially in areas where immunization coverage is low.
The grant from Dangote Foundation, Ms. Gough pointed out, will support the measles campaign of the government through its Ministry of Health and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA). Dangote said the issue of health and safe living was a core responsibility in the discharge of the corporate social responsibility of the Foundation pointing out that “we have a common synergy with UNICEF in the areas of health, education and nutrition and we hope that our efforts will encourage more private sector operators to engage with on going efforts to improve the well-being of Nigerians.”
$6.4m to International Cancer Centre Abuja (ICCA)
Dangote Foundation made a donation of $6.4 million towards building a world class International Cancer Centre in Abuja, in 2009. The donation is to strengthen the fight against the disease. The International Cancer Centre Abuja (ICCA) was initiated by Dr. Hajiya Turai Umaru Yar’Adua, former First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as a non- governmental humanitarian project devoted to training, research and diagnosis of various forms of cancer. It is intended to be a one-stop centre, providing a comprehensive range of high quality, holistic and cost effective treatment for cancer patients in sub-Saharan Africa. The centre will actively engage in research geared towards prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Education and public awareness programmes will be employed as tools for cancer control and prevention.
Donates dialysis machines to Lagos General Hospital
Dangote Foundation, in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Victoria Island, donated two dialysis machines to the Dialysis Centre of the Lagos General Hospital, Marina, in April 2010, to facilitate treatment of patients with acute and chronic kidney disease. In addition, the Foundation provides all the consumables used for the treatment. This has drastically reduced the treatment charges on the patients. “The machines have been of utmost importance and inestimable benefits to the patients who come from far and near to receive medical support. The machines have been very useful serving both the acute and chronic kidney patients.” – Dr. Sade Soyinka, Dialysis Centre at Lagos General Hospital, Marina, Lagos
$ 2.6m to flood victims & women in Kogi
President/Chief Executive, Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, on October 5, 2012, announced a donation of $2.6 million (N430 million) to victims of the flood disaster and for women empowerment in Kogi State. At a ceremony attended by top government functionaries in the state capital, Lokoja, Dangote said the contribution which is given through his Dangote Foundation is meant to complement the efforts of the government in providing relief materials to the victims and in resettling them as soon as possible. Dangote who gave out $312,500 (N50 million) worth of foodstuff and relief materials, and $937,000 (N150 million) in cash, also said $1.4 million (N230 million) would be distributed to 1,000 women in each of the 21 local government areas of the state to boost economic activities.
In his speech entitled: Lending a Helping Hand,” Dangote said, he was touched by the pain the victims were passing through, noting that the flood has led to loss of lives and property and may cause outbreak of epidemic. “Obviously, the government alone cannot shoulder this onerous responsibility of bringing relief to the victims,” he said.
Partners Bank of Industry (BOI) to boost job creation
Dangote Foundation and the Bank of Industry (BOI) signed a partnership deal that will create direct employment for one million Nigerians over the next few years, on March 7, 201 1 in Lagos.
The partners announced the funds release of $32 million in the first tranche, which is expected to grow up to $128 million eventually.
Dangote Foundation committed $16 million to the fund, while BOI also contributed a matching fund of $16 million, thus creating a total fund of $32 million to launch the fund. The fund would be used for lending to groups in the informal sector of the economy, as take off or working capital to support their businesses.
The Dangote component of the fund attracts zero interest, while that of BOI is 5 per cent. This is expected to impact directly on up to 13,000 registered groups in the entire country, each with an average of 20 entrepreneurs, thus impacting the lives of up to 250,000 micro-entrepreneurs, through job creation, spreading across all six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The project is first of its kind in the country.
Some beneficiaries of the Dangote/BOI partnership:
Ken Baxton Limited: Secured about N19 million ($118,012) loan from Dangote/BOI intervention fund at five per cent interest rate.
Stallion (Ikeja) Cooperative Multi-purpose Society Ltd: Secured a N4.8 million ($29,813) loan under the Dangote/ BOI Fund with just 5 per cent interest rate.
Afriks Vegetable Oil Multi-purpose Cooperative Society, Kano State: Secured a N5.1 million ($31,677) Dangote/BOI loan which has enabled it to expand its operations.
Kudenda Thure Multi-purpose Cooperative Society: Secured N5.25 million ($32,609) loan which has enabled it to employ more hands to run two production shifts.
Geese (Ikeja) Cooperative Society Limited: Secured N7.5 million ($46,584) loan at 5 per cent interest.
Wahabiyya Vegetable Oil and Cold Room: Secured N5.28 million ($32,795) loans under the Dangote/ BOI Fund
Alhaji Aliko Dangote represents what African businessmen should be. He is an example for aspiring entrepreneurs across the continent. Start small, aim very high, identify and take advantage of opportunities. Do not be discouraged by challenges. Give, and give generously to help others make progress.
That was how Aliko Dangote, who started out as a trader of commodities, became Africa’s leading businessman, with companies in 16 countries, employing over 10,000 people. In the process, he became the richest African and black man on the planet, with a personal fortune of $25 billion. It is this feat that makes him eminently qualified, and deservingly recognised as the Vanguard Newspaper African Personality of the Year.
Born with the Midas touch
When on 10th of April 1957, a male child was born in Kano; little was heard or known of the child. Like Shakespeare wrote in one of his epic books, Julius Caesar, ‘when beggars die there are no comets seen but the heavens themselves blaze the death of Princes’. In some dynasties and royalties, when kings are born, they are celebrated.
That was not the case in Kano when Aliko Dangote was born. He was just like any other child. He, like other children, learnt to crawl, walk and run. He cried like others but at school, he was focused on what he chose to do.
He probably discovered his destiny early enough and keyed into it. In his words: “I can remember when I was in primary school, I would go and buy cartons of sweets (sugar boxes) and I would start selling them just to make money. I was so interested in business, even at that time.” Dangote, right from when he was young had his eyes on business.
He had always, as all real entrepreneurs do, seen opportunities where others see high risk and failure. In an atmosphere of difficulty, when others would have given up, he took the risk. He is known for taking great risks in a highly risky environment.
He has grown to have a Midas touch in every business he ventured into. He started as a commodity trader, he made success of it, he entered into sugar refining, and he made success of it. He set up cement manufacturing; he has made a huge success of it.
Now he is venturing into petroleum product refining. His hard work has set him apart to the envy of his detractors who only see him as a beneficiary of government waiver and concession. But there are others who have had the same benefit but could not make anything tangible from it.
That has brought success to him, his family, state and his country. He has invested in the various sectors of the Nigerian economy and across the African continent thus creating millions of direct and indirect jobs in the continent of Africa. He has become a business colossus that bestrides the global business environment, making him the richest African today.
Undeterred by Risks & Uncertainties
In one of the articles written by Jonathan Berman in Harvard Business review entitled; American CEOs should Stop Complaining about Uncertainty, he wrote how uncertainty has not deterred Aliko Dangote from investing in Nigeria and across Africa. In the write-up, Barman said: “This month, the chief executive officers of America’s biggest companies went on a media blitz to decry the uncertainty caused by the fiscal cliff. In such uncertain times, they say, they are hesitant to invest in the US economy.
I departed Washington in the midst of these rumblings to attend a forum of Africa’s leading CEOs. Here’s a quick sample of the scheduled participants: Aliko Dangote, CEO of Dangote Cement. He’s building a $2 billion fertilizer plant in his native Nigeria. He recently announced the next two growth markets for sizeable investment by his group are Iraq and Myanmar.
“For Dangote and many other executives in frontier markets, uncertainty is not the inhibitor of opportunity. It is the condition in which opportunity arises. That is a reasonable perspective to look for in American CEOs as well.” The moving force behind private enterprise all over the world is what Adam Smith described as the invisible hand that allocates resources in the most uncertain environment.
It is real entrepreneurs that see opportunity in very risky areas, yet go in there with the hope of making profit. Business is about taking risk and any local entrepreneur that is not ready to take risk is not a genuine businessman. Dangote saw opportunities in the very uncertain and tough business environment in Nigeria. From trading in rice, sugar and other commodities, he veered into manufacturing in an environment many foreign and local investors see as very risky.
Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s business empire is estimated at a net worth of $20.8 billion as of November 2013 spanning interests in commodities with operations in Nigeria and several other countries in Africa , including Benin, Cameroon, Togo , Ghana, South Africa and Zambia. Dangote in 2013 was ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 43rd richest person in the world and the richest man in Africa based on his investment and the listing of his companies’ interest at the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Taking some of his companies to the exchange has given other Nigerians opportunities to share in his success and has shown that he operates his companies in an open manner.
Early life
Alhaji Aliko Dangote, a northerner, precisely from Kano State, Nigeria, was born on the 10th of April 1957 into a wealthy Muslim family. He studied Business at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt and thereafter returned to Nigeria to borrow from his uncle, Sanusi Abdulkadir Dantata. The uncle (Dantata) eventually gave him a loan of N500,000 when he was just 21 years old to start his own business.
Business career
The Dangote Group which started as a small trading firm was established in the year 1977. Today, it is a multi-trillion naira conglomerate with many of its operations in Benin, Ghana , Nigeria, and Togo. At present, Dangote has enlarged his line of businesses to also cover food processing, cement manufacturing and freight. The Dangote Group also dominates the sugar and cement markets in Nigeria and is a major sugar supplier to Nigeria’s soft drink companies, breweries , and confectioners.
The Dangote Group has also moved from being a trading company to being the largest industrial group in Nigeria and the group includes: Dangote Sugar Refinery, Dangote Cement and Dangote Flour just to mention but a few. He plans to set up the largest petroleum product refinning facility in Nigeria.
In the month of July 2012, he approached the Nigerian Ports Authority with the idea of leasing an abandoned piece of land at the Apapa Port, which was welcomed and approved. He later went to build facilities for his flour company there. In the 90’s, he approached the Central Bank of Nigeria with a proposal that it would be cheaper for the bank to allow his transport company manage their fleet of staff buses which was also approved.
He owns the Obajana Cement plant which is the largest cement manufacturing facility in Africa. Apart from these, Dangote Group owns salt factories and flour mills and also a major importer of rice, fish, pasta and fertilizer. The company exports cotton, cashew nuts, cocoa, sesame seed and ginger to several countries. It also has major investments in real estate, banking, transport, textiles and oil and gas.
The company employs over 11,000 people and is the largest industrial conglomerate in the whole of West Africa. Dangote is also exploring the telecommunications sector and has started building 14,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables to supply the whole of Nigeria and as a result, he was honoured in January 2009 as the leading provider of employment in the Nigerian construction industry.
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, continues to expand his publicly traded Dangote Cement across the continent, announcing plans to build new plants in Kenya and Niger. With operations in about eight countries, it is the largest cement manufacturer in sub-Sahara Africa.
In May 2013, Dangote said he would build a $9 billion oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Nigeria. When completed, it will be Nigeria’s first and Africa’s largest petroleum refinery.
His words; “As an investor who believes in Nigeria, knows Nigeria well and whose prosperity was made in Nigeria, we have responded to the challenge with our decision to invest $ 9 billion in a refinery/petrochemical and fertilizer complex to be located at the OKLNG Free Trade Zone. This complex will be the largest industrial complex project ever in the history of our great nation.
On the 14th of November, 2011, Dangote was awarded a National Honour, Nigeria’s second highest honour, Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON ) by the President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan .
Apart from his business acumen, he is also a philanthropist who has collaborated with American billionaire, Bill Gates Foundation to invest in the provision of health especially the eradication of polio in Africa and other parts of the world where the disease is still prevalent.
The DANGOTE Group consists of:
Dangote Cement Plc
Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc
Dangote Flour Mills Plc
Dangote Pasta Plant Limited
Dangote Agro Sacks Limited
Prayer Mats Production
Dangote Salt Plc
Ports Operations
Haulage
Steel Production
Dangote Foods Limited
Real Estate
Telecommunications
Oil Refinery, Petrochemicals and Fertilisers
The Philanthropic side of Dangote
To underscore his belief in giving back to the society, Aliko Dangote, through his Dangote Foundation, has over the years committed a lot of his resources into philanthropic activities.
The Dangote Foundation which was set up in 1994 is the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of Dangote Group. The Foundation intervenes in the areas of health, education and empowerment. The Foundation is also involved in providing humanitarian aid to victims of natural disasters. It has contributed over $100 million (about N16 billion) in charitable funds to several causes in Nigeria and Africa over the past four years.
Dangote recently announced plans to endow the Foundation with N200 billion ($1.25 billion). He said the endowment would come from personal contributions as well as shares of his publicly quoted companies, which would be transferred to the Foundation for onward disbursement to beneficiaries. He added that this will ensure that the Foundation has secure and steady funding to carry out its mission as we significantly scale up our work.
Board of Trustees of the Foundation include Dangote as Chairman; his brother, Sani; his daughter, Halima Aliko Dangote; Chief Operating Officer, Dangote Industries Limited, Olakunle Alake; A.B Mahmoud (SAN); former Group Managing Director/CEO, Access Bank Plc, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede; wife of the former Ekiti State Governor, Angela Adebayo; wife of the former Managing Director/CEO Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Hajara Adeola; and Group Chief Executive Officer, Renaissance Capital West Africa, Mrs. Yvonne Ike-Fasinro.
SOME OF DANGOTE’S CSR INTERVENTIONS:
$500,000 to boost UNICEF’s fight against measles
The Dangote Foundation contributed $500,000 (N79.15 million) through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to support the Federal Government’s response to recent measles outbreak that affected many states in Nigeria. The donation was announced on April 12, 2013 in Lagos during a visit to the office of the Chairman of Dangote Foundation, Aliko Dangote, by a delegation of the UNICEF led by the Country Representative, Ms. Jean Gough. Gough lauded Dangote Foundation saying: “Public-Private sector interventions such as these in the health sector and other sectors such as water and early childhood development are the way forward for Nigeria to improve the well-being of Nigerian children.” The grant is a major contribution to government’s fight against measles which is among the leading causes of child deaths in Nigeria, especially in areas where immunization coverage is low.
The grant from Dangote Foundation, Ms. Gough pointed out, will support the measles campaign of the government through its Ministry of Health and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA). Dangote said the issue of health and safe living was a core responsibility in the discharge of the corporate social responsibility of the Foundation pointing out that “we have a common synergy with UNICEF in the areas of health, education and nutrition and we hope that our efforts will encourage more private sector operators to engage with on going efforts to improve the well-being of Nigerians.”
$6.4m to International Cancer Centre Abuja (ICCA)
Dangote Foundation made a donation of $6.4 million towards building a world class International Cancer Centre in Abuja, in 2009. The donation is to strengthen the fight against the disease. The International Cancer Centre Abuja (ICCA) was initiated by Dr. Hajiya Turai Umaru Yar’Adua, former First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as a non- governmental humanitarian project devoted to training, research and diagnosis of various forms of cancer. It is intended to be a one-stop centre, providing a comprehensive range of high quality, holistic and cost effective treatment for cancer patients in sub-Saharan Africa. The centre will actively engage in research geared towards prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Education and public awareness programmes will be employed as tools for cancer control and prevention.
Donates dialysis machines to Lagos General Hospital
Dangote Foundation, in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Victoria Island, donated two dialysis machines to the Dialysis Centre of the Lagos General Hospital, Marina, in April 2010, to facilitate treatment of patients with acute and chronic kidney disease. In addition, the Foundation provides all the consumables used for the treatment. This has drastically reduced the treatment charges on the patients. “The machines have been of utmost importance and inestimable benefits to the patients who come from far and near to receive medical support. The machines have been very useful serving both the acute and chronic kidney patients.” – Dr. Sade Soyinka, Dialysis Centre at Lagos General Hospital, Marina, Lagos
$ 2.6m to flood victims & women in Kogi
President/Chief Executive, Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, on October 5, 2012, announced a donation of $2.6 million (N430 million) to victims of the flood disaster and for women empowerment in Kogi State. At a ceremony attended by top government functionaries in the state capital, Lokoja, Dangote said the contribution which is given through his Dangote Foundation is meant to complement the efforts of the government in providing relief materials to the victims and in resettling them as soon as possible. Dangote who gave out $312,500 (N50 million) worth of foodstuff and relief materials, and $937,000 (N150 million) in cash, also said $1.4 million (N230 million) would be distributed to 1,000 women in each of the 21 local government areas of the state to boost economic activities.
In his speech entitled: Lending a Helping Hand,” Dangote said, he was touched by the pain the victims were passing through, noting that the flood has led to loss of lives and property and may cause outbreak of epidemic. “Obviously, the government alone cannot shoulder this onerous responsibility of bringing relief to the victims,” he said.
Partners Bank of Industry (BOI) to boost job creation
Dangote Foundation and the Bank of Industry (BOI) signed a partnership deal that will create direct employment for one million Nigerians over the next few years, on March 7, 201 1 in Lagos.
The partners announced the funds release of $32 million in the first tranche, which is expected to grow up to $128 million eventually.
Dangote Foundation committed $16 million to the fund, while BOI also contributed a matching fund of $16 million, thus creating a total fund of $32 million to launch the fund. The fund would be used for lending to groups in the informal sector of the economy, as take off or working capital to support their businesses.
The Dangote component of the fund attracts zero interest, while that of BOI is 5 per cent. This is expected to impact directly on up to 13,000 registered groups in the entire country, each with an average of 20 entrepreneurs, thus impacting the lives of up to 250,000 micro-entrepreneurs, through job creation, spreading across all six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The project is first of its kind in the country.
Some beneficiaries of the Dangote/BOI partnership:
Ken Baxton Limited: Secured about N19 million ($118,012) loan from Dangote/BOI intervention fund at five per cent interest rate.
Stallion (Ikeja) Cooperative Multi-purpose Society Ltd: Secured a N4.8 million ($29,813) loan under the Dangote/ BOI Fund with just 5 per cent interest rate.
Afriks Vegetable Oil Multi-purpose Cooperative Society, Kano State: Secured a N5.1 million ($31,677) Dangote/BOI loan which has enabled it to expand its operations.
Kudenda Thure Multi-purpose Cooperative Society: Secured N5.25 million ($32,609) loan which has enabled it to employ more hands to run two production shifts.
Geese (Ikeja) Cooperative Society Limited: Secured N7.5 million ($46,584) loan at 5 per cent interest.
Wahabiyya Vegetable Oil and Cold Room: Secured N5.28 million ($32,795) loans under the Dangote/ BOI Fund
Friday, 21 March 2014
Jonathan bags Namibia’s highest national honour
President Jonathan said the award rightly belongs to the Nigerian people.
President Goodluck Jonathan was on Friday in Windhoek conferred with the “Order of Welwitschia”, Namibia’s highest national honour, by his counterpart, President Hifikepunye Pohamba.
The decoration of President Jonathan with the honour was the high point of the 24th independence anniversary of Namibia.
The ceremony which took place at the capacity-filled Independence Stadium, Windhoek, was attended by the founding president and father of the Namibian nation, Sam Nujoma.
The Prime Minister of Namibia, Hage Geingob, cabinet ministers, members of the Namibian parliament and other senior citizens were among dignitaries who also witnessed the event at the 35,000 capacity
stadium.
In his speech, Mr. Pohamba said the honour was conferred on Jonathan in recognition of the selfless contributions by the government and the people of Nigeria to Namibia’s national liberation struggle.
He said that the contributions were deeply imprinted in the chronicle of Namibian history and the country would forever be grateful.
Mr. Pohamba said that despite the geographic distance, Nigeria played a prominent role together with the frontline states in supporting the liberation movements in Southern Africa, including SWAPO of Namibia.
He also applauded Nigeria’s steadfast and consistent contribution to the resolution of conflicts and the maintenance of peace and stability in Africa. He said that his country specifically recognised Nigeria under the leadership of Mr. Jonathan for acting decisively to resolve the crisis in Cote d’ Ivoire, Mali and other parts of Africa.
The Namibian President who was elected in 2005 and re-elected 2010, assured his people that come March 21 next year, he would stepped down and hand over to a democratically elected president.
He said he was aware that there were about 22 people aspiring to take over from him.
Mr. Pohamba promised that the Namibian general elections, expected to commence later in the year, would be conducted in a free, fair and peaceful environment.
In a citation read before the decoration of President Jonathan, the master of ceremony said that successive Nigerian government had stood with Namibia in thick and thin.
She said the distance notwithstanding, Nigeria consistently appropriated specific budget for the liberation movement during the SWAPO struggle for independence.
“Many sons and daughters of Nigeria sacrificed their lives for the freedom and independence of Namibia,” she said.
She also paid tribute to President Jonathan for demonstrating astute leadership in confronting the challenges faced by Nigeria and the African continent.
In his response, President Jonathan thanked Mr. Pohamba and the people of Namibia for the award which, he said, underscored the long-standing relationship between the two countries.
“Although I have been given the honour as Nigeria’s President, I recognise that this gesture rightly belongs to the Nigerian people on whose behalf I am privileged to serve.
“I want to thank you also for the privilege and opportunity of sharing this independence anniversary celebration with you.
“Twenty-four years in the history of any nation is no mean achievement. This occasion rightly provides an opportunity to reflect on the blessings of your independence and freedom.
“It is also a special time to reflect on the challenges that lie ahead,” he said.
Mr. Jonathan reiterated that Nigeria and Namibia had come a long way in bilateral relations, beginning from the time of the struggle against colonialism and racial domination. He recalled that Nigeria and Namibia worked side by side, shoulder to shoulder with faith and commitment in common destiny.
“Even though we are geographically distant from each other, Nigeria was proud to identify with Namibia as it did with other brotherly countries in this sub-region.
“Your struggle was our struggle, your pains were our pains and today, your freedom is our freedom,” he said.
Mr. Jonathan also paid tribute to the elder statesman and leading Pan-Africanist, Nujoma, and all Namibia freedom fighters for their vision and personal sacrifices that won their nation’s freedom and independence.
(NAN)
President Goodluck Jonathan was on Friday in Windhoek conferred with the “Order of Welwitschia”, Namibia’s highest national honour, by his counterpart, President Hifikepunye Pohamba.
The decoration of President Jonathan with the honour was the high point of the 24th independence anniversary of Namibia.
The ceremony which took place at the capacity-filled Independence Stadium, Windhoek, was attended by the founding president and father of the Namibian nation, Sam Nujoma.
The Prime Minister of Namibia, Hage Geingob, cabinet ministers, members of the Namibian parliament and other senior citizens were among dignitaries who also witnessed the event at the 35,000 capacity
stadium.
In his speech, Mr. Pohamba said the honour was conferred on Jonathan in recognition of the selfless contributions by the government and the people of Nigeria to Namibia’s national liberation struggle.
He said that the contributions were deeply imprinted in the chronicle of Namibian history and the country would forever be grateful.
Mr. Pohamba said that despite the geographic distance, Nigeria played a prominent role together with the frontline states in supporting the liberation movements in Southern Africa, including SWAPO of Namibia.
He also applauded Nigeria’s steadfast and consistent contribution to the resolution of conflicts and the maintenance of peace and stability in Africa. He said that his country specifically recognised Nigeria under the leadership of Mr. Jonathan for acting decisively to resolve the crisis in Cote d’ Ivoire, Mali and other parts of Africa.
The Namibian President who was elected in 2005 and re-elected 2010, assured his people that come March 21 next year, he would stepped down and hand over to a democratically elected president.
He said he was aware that there were about 22 people aspiring to take over from him.
Mr. Pohamba promised that the Namibian general elections, expected to commence later in the year, would be conducted in a free, fair and peaceful environment.
In a citation read before the decoration of President Jonathan, the master of ceremony said that successive Nigerian government had stood with Namibia in thick and thin.
She said the distance notwithstanding, Nigeria consistently appropriated specific budget for the liberation movement during the SWAPO struggle for independence.
“Many sons and daughters of Nigeria sacrificed their lives for the freedom and independence of Namibia,” she said.
She also paid tribute to President Jonathan for demonstrating astute leadership in confronting the challenges faced by Nigeria and the African continent.
In his response, President Jonathan thanked Mr. Pohamba and the people of Namibia for the award which, he said, underscored the long-standing relationship between the two countries.
“Although I have been given the honour as Nigeria’s President, I recognise that this gesture rightly belongs to the Nigerian people on whose behalf I am privileged to serve.
“I want to thank you also for the privilege and opportunity of sharing this independence anniversary celebration with you.
“Twenty-four years in the history of any nation is no mean achievement. This occasion rightly provides an opportunity to reflect on the blessings of your independence and freedom.
“It is also a special time to reflect on the challenges that lie ahead,” he said.
Mr. Jonathan reiterated that Nigeria and Namibia had come a long way in bilateral relations, beginning from the time of the struggle against colonialism and racial domination. He recalled that Nigeria and Namibia worked side by side, shoulder to shoulder with faith and commitment in common destiny.
“Even though we are geographically distant from each other, Nigeria was proud to identify with Namibia as it did with other brotherly countries in this sub-region.
“Your struggle was our struggle, your pains were our pains and today, your freedom is our freedom,” he said.
Mr. Jonathan also paid tribute to the elder statesman and leading Pan-Africanist, Nujoma, and all Namibia freedom fighters for their vision and personal sacrifices that won their nation’s freedom and independence.
(NAN)
D’banj unveils Koko garri
Koko Master D’banj isn’t losing steam as a One Ambassador as he unveils his new product Koko Garri at the One Do Agric Campaign launch which held, yesterday, at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja, as the first intended product to come out from his company, Koko Holdings
D’banj looking all dapper in blazers posted a pix of the new product on his Instangram page and wrote “iambangalee Finally here after 5 yrs.I can proudly say #KokoGarri is the firSt product of Koko Holdings, thanks to God, @oneinafrica, #DoAgric It Pays and #Nagropreneurs. Join me youths, we can do this.”
D’banj was made an Ambassador for the Nagroprenuers Initiative in Abuja earlier in the month by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Akinwunmi Adesina. The Minister had said that the Federal Government is set to roll out the Nigerian Agricultural Entrepreneurs, Nagroprenuers, initiative to attract youth to agriculture.
The goal of the programme was to collect roughly 750, 000 young entrepreneurial farmers for the country, who which will become the engine in transforming Nigeria’s agriculture in the future.
D’banj as an ambassador has just set the pace.
D’banj looking all dapper in blazers posted a pix of the new product on his Instangram page and wrote “iambangalee Finally here after 5 yrs.I can proudly say #KokoGarri is the firSt product of Koko Holdings, thanks to God, @oneinafrica, #DoAgric It Pays and #Nagropreneurs. Join me youths, we can do this.”
D’banj was made an Ambassador for the Nagroprenuers Initiative in Abuja earlier in the month by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Akinwunmi Adesina. The Minister had said that the Federal Government is set to roll out the Nigerian Agricultural Entrepreneurs, Nagroprenuers, initiative to attract youth to agriculture.
The goal of the programme was to collect roughly 750, 000 young entrepreneurial farmers for the country, who which will become the engine in transforming Nigeria’s agriculture in the future.
D’banj as an ambassador has just set the pace.
Thursday, 20 March 2014
COSON recruitment
Just when the Nigeria populace is complaining about the Nigerian Immigration Service recruitment, not just of the crowd and poor examination condition but of the attached N1000 every applicant had to pay to participate.
The Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), Edo/Delta chapter with its office in Benin City, is charging applicants; suppose jobless graduates N5000 for the submission of its application form.
An establishment, in ethical practice should bear the cost of organising exams, interview and training of its potential work force as it is believed, these staff are going to add value to the organisation and reduce workload for its managers.
This practice of attaching administrative fee to recruitment exercise is saddening and should be abolished as these graduates are pushed to the wall searching for job placement.
My candid opinion is that this is ripping off and should be checked as different agencies have made it a norm over time to always charge cash for application review.
The Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON), Edo/Delta chapter with its office in Benin City, is charging applicants; suppose jobless graduates N5000 for the submission of its application form.
An establishment, in ethical practice should bear the cost of organising exams, interview and training of its potential work force as it is believed, these staff are going to add value to the organisation and reduce workload for its managers.
This practice of attaching administrative fee to recruitment exercise is saddening and should be abolished as these graduates are pushed to the wall searching for job placement.
My candid opinion is that this is ripping off and should be checked as different agencies have made it a norm over time to always charge cash for application review.
NBA withdraws from National Conference
The NBA protested the single slot allocated to it.
The Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, has said it would not participate in the ongoing National Conference to protest the single slot allocated to it by the Federal Government.
According to a communiqué issued after its executive meeting in Ekiti State, the association said one representative from the body was insufficient for it to make an impact at the conference.
“In view of the fact that so many legal issues would be addressed at the national conference, it is only fitting and proper for the umbrella association of all lawyers, the profession with expertise on law making in Nigeria should have more than one slot,” the NBA President, Okey Wali, announced in the communiqué he signed.
Mr. Wali, who was the sole nominee of the association to the Conference, had stayed away from the inauguration of the 492-member talk shop in Abuja on Monday evening by President Goodluck Jonathan.
The NBA was among the 13 professional bodies given one slot each, according to the modalities released by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Pius Anyim, in January.
The other associations are Nigerian Society of Engineers, Chartered Institute of Bankers, Nigeria Medical Association, Nigeria Institute of Management, Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria, Association of National Accountant of Nigeria, Nigeria Institute of Public Relations, Advertising Practitioners of Nigeria, Nigerian Environment Society and Nigeria Economic Society.
But in a protest letter sent to Mr. Anyim a few days later, Mr. Wali said the association would not accept the slot offered it and urged the SGF to reconsider the issue.
“We do not believe that the single slot given to the Nigeria Bar Association will be impactive enough, and so, we request that you please reconsider the one slot offer to the Nigerian Bar Association, as we regrettably will be unable to accept that offer,” the NBA President said.
However, Mr. Jonathan had explained during his last media chat that though the single slot was allocated to the NBA as a body, many lawyers not picked on the ticket of the association would be delegates at the conference.
The Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, has said it would not participate in the ongoing National Conference to protest the single slot allocated to it by the Federal Government.
According to a communiqué issued after its executive meeting in Ekiti State, the association said one representative from the body was insufficient for it to make an impact at the conference.
“In view of the fact that so many legal issues would be addressed at the national conference, it is only fitting and proper for the umbrella association of all lawyers, the profession with expertise on law making in Nigeria should have more than one slot,” the NBA President, Okey Wali, announced in the communiqué he signed.
Mr. Wali, who was the sole nominee of the association to the Conference, had stayed away from the inauguration of the 492-member talk shop in Abuja on Monday evening by President Goodluck Jonathan.
The NBA was among the 13 professional bodies given one slot each, according to the modalities released by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Pius Anyim, in January.
The other associations are Nigerian Society of Engineers, Chartered Institute of Bankers, Nigeria Medical Association, Nigeria Institute of Management, Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria, Association of National Accountant of Nigeria, Nigeria Institute of Public Relations, Advertising Practitioners of Nigeria, Nigerian Environment Society and Nigeria Economic Society.
But in a protest letter sent to Mr. Anyim a few days later, Mr. Wali said the association would not accept the slot offered it and urged the SGF to reconsider the issue.
“We do not believe that the single slot given to the Nigeria Bar Association will be impactive enough, and so, we request that you please reconsider the one slot offer to the Nigerian Bar Association, as we regrettably will be unable to accept that offer,” the NBA President said.
However, Mr. Jonathan had explained during his last media chat that though the single slot was allocated to the NBA as a body, many lawyers not picked on the ticket of the association would be delegates at the conference.
Wednesday, 19 March 2014
Nigerian senate prescribes stiff penalties for human traffickers
The Senate on wednesday, the 19th of March, 2014 passed a bill prohibiting trafficking in persons which stipulated stiffer penalties for offenders. The Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Bill seeks to repeal and amend the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Law Enforcement and Administration Act of 2003.
The new bill, which seeks to stop illegal trade of human trafficking, prescribes a minimum of seven years imprisonment or a minimum fine of N1 million for offenders.
It prescribes criminal punishment for any person found to have illegal custody of a child under the age of 18 years, sexually abuse or causes any person to be exploited.
The passage of the bill followed a clause by clause consideration of the report of the Senate Joint Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters; and Women Affairs and Youth Development.
The repealed version of the bill had prescribed five years jail term or a fine of not less than N1 million.
The Senate also amended the bill by reducing the jail term for forced labour from seven years to five years and fine option of N2 million to N1 million.
“Any person who permits any place or premises to be used for the purpose of forced labour commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years and to a fine of not less than N1million.”
The Senate Joint committees said the recommendation for a reduction was necessary as “to make it consistent with punishments for similar offences under the bill.
The amended bill also prohibits the employment or procurement of children under the age of 12 as domestic servants.
It further protects children generally from being used for exploitative, injurious or hazardous work.
“Any person who employs, requires, recruits, transports, harbours, receives or hires out, a child under the age of 12 as a domestic worker, commits an offence.
“If convicted, such an offender is liable to imprisonment for a minimum term of six months and not exceeding seven years.
Meanwhile, the Senate also passed the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) amendment Bill which empowers the commission to play key role in the appointment of the Clerk of the National Assembly.
The bill will empower the NASC to appoint, discipline and remove its staff under the six directorates created under the commission.
The six directorates are Legislative, Administrations, Engineering, Medical, Finance and Common Services.
Sen. Aloysius Etok, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service, said the bill would address the issue of stagnation of staff in the National Assembly.
According to Etok, the new NASC bill will build the capacity of staff and enhance professionalism as well as provide a clear career path for legislative and non-legislative staff.
He said the six directorates would each be headed by a Director, who would be equivalent to a Permanent Secretary in the Civil Service.
He said the National Assembly leadership would request for additional budgetary funding above its current fixed N150 billion allocation to cover the additional cost.
“The NASC bill is principally to enhance the capacity and professionalism of staff.
“If for the reason of achieving results prescribed by the amendment, the presiding officers would not fail to make a request for an increase in their annual budget.
“Nobody would shy away from incurring additional cost to enable him run an institution successfully,” he added.
The new bill, which seeks to stop illegal trade of human trafficking, prescribes a minimum of seven years imprisonment or a minimum fine of N1 million for offenders.
It prescribes criminal punishment for any person found to have illegal custody of a child under the age of 18 years, sexually abuse or causes any person to be exploited.
The passage of the bill followed a clause by clause consideration of the report of the Senate Joint Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters; and Women Affairs and Youth Development.
The repealed version of the bill had prescribed five years jail term or a fine of not less than N1 million.
The Senate also amended the bill by reducing the jail term for forced labour from seven years to five years and fine option of N2 million to N1 million.
“Any person who permits any place or premises to be used for the purpose of forced labour commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years and to a fine of not less than N1million.”
The Senate Joint committees said the recommendation for a reduction was necessary as “to make it consistent with punishments for similar offences under the bill.
The amended bill also prohibits the employment or procurement of children under the age of 12 as domestic servants.
It further protects children generally from being used for exploitative, injurious or hazardous work.
“Any person who employs, requires, recruits, transports, harbours, receives or hires out, a child under the age of 12 as a domestic worker, commits an offence.
“If convicted, such an offender is liable to imprisonment for a minimum term of six months and not exceeding seven years.
Meanwhile, the Senate also passed the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) amendment Bill which empowers the commission to play key role in the appointment of the Clerk of the National Assembly.
The bill will empower the NASC to appoint, discipline and remove its staff under the six directorates created under the commission.
The six directorates are Legislative, Administrations, Engineering, Medical, Finance and Common Services.
Sen. Aloysius Etok, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service, said the bill would address the issue of stagnation of staff in the National Assembly.
According to Etok, the new NASC bill will build the capacity of staff and enhance professionalism as well as provide a clear career path for legislative and non-legislative staff.
He said the six directorates would each be headed by a Director, who would be equivalent to a Permanent Secretary in the Civil Service.
He said the National Assembly leadership would request for additional budgetary funding above its current fixed N150 billion allocation to cover the additional cost.
“The NASC bill is principally to enhance the capacity and professionalism of staff.
“If for the reason of achieving results prescribed by the amendment, the presiding officers would not fail to make a request for an increase in their annual budget.
“Nobody would shy away from incurring additional cost to enable him run an institution successfully,” he added.
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