Category: Comments

Charles Iyore, a partner at DNA Capital, writes from Darenth Kent, England. He can be reached by email at Dioncta@aol.com and +447932945002 (text only)

 

Families need jobs to eat and live (thrive) and these jobs can and should be tied to their living.

As the unit aggregate of society, the success of the family is what translates to the success of society or state.

These jobs are in what they eat (agriculture), in what they wear (textiles), in where they live (housing), in how they teach and instruct the next generation, as well as, in how they release the values from the wealth buried beneath them and harness that which is around them.

When these processes are not tied to the citizens, they (citizens) are excluded from what happens around them and are reduced to begging, consuming spectators, of the production activities occurring on their land.

The process of tying all these together in retail and wholesale arrangements is what constitutes governance – the subtle act of turning challenges into opportunities.

The instruments for effectively delivering those arrangements are the established ministries, departments and agencies. These establishments are enhanced for good territorial coverage in the administrative set-ups or government units. They must all work together to deliver the tapestry of society. That tapestry will begin to unravel, if they work at cross-purposes and slacks begin to set in.

The guiding principles for delivering a sound tapestry of state are the directive principles of state. (A collective statement of aspirations)

Politics in leadership, in whatever form of origination, even if through violent dictatorship, is about making these arrangements work for the common good and not for the protection of narrow private interests.

State bureaucracies therefore, through self-regulation and external oversight, must ensure that these arrangements are fit for purpose, otherwise their activities will be a betrayal of trust and outright antitrust.

In some societies, conducts of state actors considered inimical to the public good, are regarded as treason and punishable by removal (death penalty).

When that flow diagram of governance has been distorted for long periods, then there will be a need to press the reset button and set the stalls again.

Setting the stalls means regarding governance as an asset management challenge, it should range from the heavy lifting of the public sector, through the shared risk of public, private sector partnerships, to the concessions and other arrangements of private financing initiatives. Governance is not transactions but value creation.

All classes need to be taken together in various mixes, based on the confirmed local capacity to deliver to set expectations. The asset allocation starting from the state budget must set the tone for economic direction and this is often the trigger for domestic production processes. If the budget does not set the tone and the policies are not consistently applied, the outcomes will always fall below expectations. This is when it becomes overwhelming for state actors.

The support framework.

The efficiency of interoperability and the strengths of linkages between the many activities are tied to the currency management, security of life and limb or in general terms, the operating environment.

All of these classes of actions must be governed by a sound regulatory framework, to ensure service delivery to the public is of the right quality and at the appropriate price.

This quality assurance has come to be accepted over time, as best delivered though healthy market competition (trade and exchange).

For the markets to work well, the public accounts must balance. (Fiscal consolidation is imperative)

The dynamics of transforming State fortunes.

The operative words in the transformation of society are “working together”. Working together starts from a sense of belonging which comes from the collective ownership of the concepts or a shared set of aspirations. A deliberate government engagement, based on merit and an effort to upskill the citizens to the merit levels desired. Some have described this as transparency, meritocracy or glasnost (openness).

By whatever choice of description, the purpose must be to create opportunities and enable all to get involved in the economic processes that can guarantee growth, and ensure that growth is always ahead of inflation.

Meritocracy does not cascade from the top down but should be a culture built from the bottom up: Identified in communities, assembled in provinces and pooled together in the centre, based on demonstrated abilities.

As simple and straightforward as that might seem, man always tries to buck the system by denying logic and seeking to lead according to strange whims and caprices. Governments of the people cracking down on them, to impose their will. Opposition to that conduct is what created NADECO.

Ever since 1999, I have always had to ask myself, if those ideals still exist. Has this elite become the civilising influence we hoped for, or have the cohorts of leaders consistently delivered below expectations?

Equity and fairness are the great expectations from the conclusion of the power transfer in 2023. A return to an open system, in which work pays and merit counts – Opportunities Nigeria!

The broad exchange of ideas must start immediately, because we hold so much in our hands not only for our country, but also for the sub-region and indeed the black race.

Tell me it will all be different!

Though it’s 100 days, the review will not start yet.

Environmental issues have actually become an important aspect of the global human challenges facing every living thing (man, animal and plants) on planet earth. The observed environmental devastations that keep manifesting in all shades and manners are the consequences of the actions of man, with clear and outright violation of the laid down regulations instituted by relevant authorities and government agencies. The adverse climate change impact and the eventual losses suffered (human lives and properties), however, are the resultant effects of different kinds of extreme weather conditions manifesting, as being presently experienced with excruciating pains, in all nooks and crannies of the world. The said weather conditions that are mainly ecological include; heat waves, fire, droughts, tornadoes and torrential rains/heavy rains with fierce rainstorms (which recently triggered catastrophic, deadly floods in Southeast Europe and battered neighbouring Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria; with loss of lives and swept away cars).

The ESG Policy that strategically focuses on three key factors of environmental, social and governance issues through performance in their respective effective policy elements, targets compliance to sustainable low carbon emissions by businesses for economic and commercial activities within the global village. The strategic focus dwells much on checks and control measures that maintain stability in every aspect of human operations for overall environmental impact audits. It is on this note that energy production, utilisation or consumption is specifically considered as an aspect that determines man’s future existence on earth. Energy sources, utilisation and consumption from the history of man, date back to the stone age/dark ages, when early man generated energy by utilisation of biomass (burning of wood with fire ignited by sparks of stones), for cooking and heating his immediate environment for warmth against cold weather conditions. The striking aspect is the causes and effects of some sources of energy that emit heavy amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) that is better referred to as the greenhouse gas (GHG) into the atmosphere. The said source is none other than fossil fuel (majorly hydrocarbon natural resources), which includes coal, crude oil and natural gas. Over time, this emission through diverse human activities, accumulated beyond environmental permissible limits. The eventual impact devastated the environment, and the ecological status quo (natural habitat, both the terrestrial and aquatic environments) shifted from original climatic conditions that sustained normal life and the environment seamlessly, to strangely erratic and adverse weather conditions, which became unsustainable with mounting threats to man’s future existence on earth. This climate change that is characterised by global warming (abnormal rise in temperature) affected lives of man, animals and plants, both on air, land and water habitats.

The ongoing interventions initiated by the United Nations (UN) for climate action on the global warming mitigation and adaptation initiatives are being championed through multilaterally signed agreements at various global conventions. The energy transition plan for renewable energy sources, with compliance on energy efficiency, further measures on carbon emissions reduction (decarbonization of the carbon footprints) are equally being implemented for a net zero carbon emissions by 2050, for man’s sustainable existence on earth. The comity of nations is seriously committed to fighting further escalation of global warming above +1.5 degrees Celsius. Man’s actions through business activities are therefore urged to comply with the global best practices that relate to the ESG policy. This can be achieved by consistently and constantly drumming the message home to the hearing of every living soul that we are facing a precarious situation that requires urgency in fighting climate change to avert further climate deterioration and its looming global catastrophe.   

One solution that needs to be tabled at this juncture, to change the narrative from the hi-tech innovative measures, is simply, the tree planting initiative. This is a roadmap to a net zero future for African countries, as a low hanging fruit. By nature, trees play a significant role in CO2 absorption through the process of photosynthesis, while discharging oxygen (O2) into the atmosphere. It is also a known fact that between man’s energy activities and plant’s life sustainable existence, there is a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship that exists; which is a natural phenomenon that favours climate action measures. Among all the African nations where industries that are classified by their operations to be heavy carbon emitters, this unique concept and initiative for “carbon balancing” method and technique, will go a long way to mitigate the impact of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions within Africa. This concept needs to be applied around every industrial zone where carbon balancing is of necessity. The tree that is selectively adopted for this tree planting project is “NEEM TREE” (known as Azadirachta indica A juss by its botanical name). Neem trees with lifespan of 150 to 200 years have a scientifically proven very high carbon absorptive capacity; therefore, should be accounted for in industrial locations planning and national biomass carbon inventory. It is a preferred carbon sink for heavy industrial emitters in the industrial landscape for climate change mitigation measures, and for carbon conservation, to support low carbon emissions strategy for industries, especially for African economies.

Beze Adogu, MD, PhD, was educated at Jos, Nigeria and Cambridge, UK where he was a federal government national merit scholar and later named as Her Majesty’s Scholar in Medicine at Downing College, Cambridge, followed by successive nominations to prestigious Shell, Chevening, Cambridge and Wellcome scholarships. He was elected FWACP in 1987 and life fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1988. After medical research positions at Cambridge, UK and Brown University in the USA, he was named clinical professor of medicine at Medical College of Georgia.

 

Nemo Patriam Quia Magna Est Amat, Sed Quia Sua (Nobody loves his country because it is great, but only because it is his)  —  Seneca

 

The aphorism above is attributed to Lucius Annaeus Seneca, aka Seneca the Younger, a Roman politician and philosopher, whose pithy commentary continues to reverberate down the shafts of ancient history. One of the very few in all of human history to be universally recognized by a first-name mononym, he upheld the primacy of education  – which in his days consisted of Latin, Greek, Logic, Drama, Oratory, Javelin and Combat – in restoring the “Dignity of Fallen Man”. It is a forlorn sensibility once championed by Dennis Memorial Grammar School, Onitsha, which appears to have since withered across the unforgiving space of contemporary Nigeria.

A generation – and almost an entire civilization – ago, Dennis Memorial Grammar School, more commonly referred to as simply “Grammar School” by the cognoscenti, was a historical intellectual landmark, an Anglican secondary school sited at the confluence of the deceptively lazy Niger River and the uproarious chaos of Onitsha mercantilism. It was a contrasting iconography that would come to animate and, perversely enough, seem to define the essence of a Grammar School education. Named after Reverend TJ Dennis, an intrepid English missionary who had undertaken the largely thankless (and endlessly controversial) job of translating the Holy Bible into an “authorised orthographic” variant of the polyglot Igbo language, this old school has successfully nurtured generations of callow Nigerian youth into confident adulthood since 1925. Sporting an extraordinarily broad-based 18-subject academic curriculum, ranging from Civics & Current Affairs to Additional Mathematics, successful transit through each class obliged one to attain some degree of competence, if not mastery, of core material. In combination with a plethora of “extracurriculars”, Grammar School education contrived to produce graduates ready for the rigour of higher education or the challenge of self-employment. For me, as for most students, admission was often the beginning of an enduring love affair.

Despite the laurels and plaudits garnered over a century of achievement, Grammar School, the shining light on the Niger valley and the very first post-primary school in all of Igbo land, is presently in a state of significant disrepair. It beggars belief that this eminence grise which once bestrode Nigeria’s intellectual terrain like a colossus would have been allowed to go to seed. This is a school that had single-handedly produced an overwhelming majority of Igbo vice-chancellors, from KO Dike, doyen of African historiography and senior prefect of the class of 1936, through famed mathematician, JOC Ezeilo of the class of 1948, GO Onuaguluchi, from the class of 1944, Basil Oli, a renowned physicist of the 1955 set, Elochukwu Amucheazi (class of 1957), Ilochi Okafor, SAN (class of 1963), all the way to Greg Nwakoby (class of 1980). And that was when, to (mis)appropriate an extant Joe Bidenism, being a university vice-chancellor in Nigeria was a “f’ing big deal”. Over that same period, as regularly as clockwork, the old school posted a perfect 100 percent in all exit school certificate examinations, starting from the Cambridge School Certificate to the serial iterations of the hallowed London Matriculation, until the advent of the West African School Certificate, as the current staple. No less impressively, virtually all Igbo Anglican bishops are of Grammar School vintage: from Rev LM Uzodike (class of 1931) through Most Rev BC Nwankiti, Archbishop JA Onyemelukwe, Rev RNC Nwosu, Archbishop MSC Anikwenwa (class of 1958), Rev GN Otubelu, Rev EI Iheagwam (a scholar and priest of the finest tradition, in the ecclesiastical mould of Cardinal John Henry Newman), Rev KSC Okeke, Rev BP Udogu, all the way to Rev NC Obi (class of 1982).

Giving fillip to the Latin injunction “mens sana in corpore sano” (a healthy mind resides in a healthy body), Grammar School would also effortlessly dominate the world of amateur sports, starting from the heroics of Emmanuel “Vancouver” Ifeajuna, who would attract iconic status following his gold medal-winning jump at the Vancouver Commonwealth games, captured in lithograph on innumerable “Olympic” exercise books as he scaled the bar, feet unshod, defying both gravity and expectations. He would, 12 years later, achieve lasting notoriety as the lead putschist in the January 15 coup. Then, there were the East Central State soccer Academicals, with Grammar School winning unprecedented back-to-back statewide championships in 1975 and 1976. Several of her erstwhile soccer maestros would later earn national caps, a vast majority making a brief detour to either the Enugu Rangers or P&T’s Vasco Da Gama Club – the dominant professional soccer teams of that era – before proceeding to university at home or abroad. Soccer buffs would recall midfield virtuosos like Vincent “Macbeth” Chika, Emeka “Hercules” Ibekwe, Nwachukwu “Igariga” Onyekwelu, Nnamdi “Waski” Anyafo (later to be “re-baptized” by ace soccer commentator, Ernest Okonkwo, as “Policeman”, after successfully “arresting” the quicksilver Segun Odegbami during his salad days at IICC Shooting Stars). Even the schoolboy aliases would suggest a better-than-average familiarity with the cultural zeitgeist of that era. It was a team that would challenge the timeless legacies of CKC’s alliteratively-named Shagasha, St Theresa’s quartet of Godwin “Pele” Ogbueze, Kenneth “Kendo” Ilodigwe, Moses “Mogambo” Nweke and Damian “Arabi ChoCho” Odoh, as well as Arugo’s Pat Ekeji and Obed Ariri. Perhaps as an inevitable outgrowth of her strong Music curriculum, the first-ever commercially successful teeny-bop musical band in Nigeria, the “Dee-Mites” (which etymology was unmistakably derived from “Dengramites”), was founded at post-war Grammar School. It would feature a glittering array of talent, all of who would, remarkably, find success in other non-musical careers in adult life. Those were the true avatars of the Grammar School experience. That unique juxtaposition of staid tradition embodied in her Anglican heritage and restless improvisation as is common fare in the commercial epicentre that is Onitsha, would create an environment that boasts a capacity to transform “all manner of boys into a certain kind of men”. The creative paradox implicit in that wager would meet its tragic apotheosis in the deadly confrontation between two opposing alumni, each representing a totally different perspective of “engaged citizenship”, in the early hours of the ill-fated January 1966 coup d’etat: Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, at the head of armed insurrectionists at Lagos, versus Lt Col Arthur Unegbe, army quartermaster-general and a man of valour, whose resolute insistence on the inviolability of our army chain-of-command would ultimately cost him his very life.

In recognition of her upcoming centennial in January 2025, we, alumni and friends, from wide and near, have dedicated ourselves to establishing an endowment fund for our alma mater. This fund is not expected to replace the usual sources of funding infrastructure and instruction at Grammar School, but will be focused on identifying and supporting those practices that will foster scholastic excellence, both now and forever. It is the fondest hope of our alumni that we will recreate an exceptional Grammar School, not as a nostalgic replica of the 1970s but as an ambitious exemplar of what a 21st century school ought to be. Having been nominated by my fellow alumni as Executive Director of this endowment fund, I will be responsible for flying the flag of our alma mater. Even though my background, as is common knowledge to my fellow alumni, is neither in finance nor developmental economics, I do have an indefatigable zeal to recreate Grammar School as an institution of academic excellence for the ages. Its fruition will not happen by accident or happenstance, but only by “intelligent design”: through an unrelenting campaign to create the future we seek. My success – or failure – in this generational mission will be directly dependent on my ability to harness the goodwill of other well-meaning citizens of my country of birth, in reimagining Nigerian education at its very best. To achieve that purpose, I will seek the support of Nigerians of every tongue, tribe or tendency, in support of what will predictably be a long, arduous journey of two and half million steps. My commitment as the executive director of this bold initiative, is that all funds raised under this banner will be sacrosanct, utilised only for its intended purpose, and administered strictly as a true endowment fund. We will manage her affairs with sensitivity and integrity, in recognition that money – at least in my own experience, in North America – never comes easy, and ought to be treated with utmost respect for the sensibilities of each individual donor. To that end, I will impose certain constraints to my administration of donated funds: an ethical constraint never to benefit financially in any way from this Fund, and in that context, all my services and expenditure on behalf of this endowment effort, will be strictly pro bono publicum; a procedural constraint not to go beyond the mandate of the fund’s Board of Trustees, comprised of distinguished alumni, men of unimpeachable integrity and common purpose, who will serve as repository of the “common will” of our donors; and a substantive constraint to always direct my efforts primarily towards growing this endowment in order to achieve our fondest dreams for Grammar School.

Some 150 years ago, missionaries travelled through the artificial divides of time, race, geography, culture and circumstance, to bring the promise of Christ’s gospel of salvation to children of “another” dispensation. Those missionaries had nothing to gain, either materially or experientially, from that singularly one-way transaction. Most of them ultimately fell victim to social isolation, deadly tropical diseases as epitomised by malaria, importunity, and other unpredictable vagaries of life, including Reverend TJ Dennis, who died at sea on his way back to England following his eventful tour of Eastern Nigeria. Those men of faith gave of their own lives so that we, in turn, could see. It is now left to us as moral beings to repay that “blood debt” by making that exceptional gift of “deliverance” accessible to yet another generation of youth, and in that selfless effort, achieve the union of Heaven unto Earth.

As in all human affairs, this novel approach to educational sustenance will predictably go through Arthur Schopenhauer’s triple motif of acceptance: first, the concept will be seen as utterly ridiculous (why save for a “rainy day” when it’s already storming outdoors), before being violently opposed in the second stage, especially by those who are already resigned to or are indifferent to the decrepitude of the educational enterprise in Nigeria, before the third and final stage when the once-novel concept will be accepted as self-evident truth. This endowment fund will not fall prey to the so-called “Nigerian Factor”: the administrative process will be entirely transparent, the results will be potentially transformative, and every single dime will be exhaustively accounted for. It is encouraging to me that only four trustees, all alumni of this grand old school, have already donated in excess of $130,000:00 to help inaugurate this fund. So far, we have already raised in excess of $400,000:00 (US), all from alumni at home and in the Nigerian diaspora. Our goal is to reach $500,000:00 by the end of this calendar year, and hopefully, breach our target corpus of $2,500,000:00, by the year of our centennial, in 2025.

Our reprise, paraphrasing Shakespeare’s Henry V, should be, “once more unto the breach, my fellow alumni, just once more time…. close this wall up with our Igbo dead.” Or better yet, this time from the immortal Ayn Rand: If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. We should not fail. We cannot fail. We dare not fail.

So help us God. E Pluribus Gloria

It is a sheer paradox that the more Nigeria tries to woo foreign investors, the more those investors flee in droves from the country. This trend manifests in the very poor shape of some of the key indicators of socio-economic progress in recent times. Without a doubt, inflow of foreign investment into an economy is, all things being equal, a strong vote of confidence in such a country’s investment climate and economic stability. But, for Nigeria, foreign investment (or foreign portfolio investment) through the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited fell (year-on-year) by a whopping 40.5 percent to N145.08 billion in the first half, 2023, from N243.49 billion in the first half of 2022.

The scenario was not any better in the first quarter 2023, as data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Nigeria was a mere $48 million. This is as against $84 million in the last quarter 2022; representing a decline of 43 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis. On a year-on-year comparison, this would show a substantial 69 percent decrease, as FDI fell from $155 million in the first quarter of 2022 to $48 million in the first quarter of 2023.

Unarguably, these dwindling investment inflows (both FPI and FDI) are manifesting at a time when the Nigerian government has been implementing reforms obviously targeted at attracting more foreign investment. Not a few people believe that recent economic liberalisation measures of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration (fuel subsidy removal and exchange rates unification) were aimed at attracting investments from within and outside the country. Unfortunately, as it were, the unintended consequences of those ‘reform’ policies have been practically ‘sinking’ the economy and unleashing interminable hardship on the citizenry.

Put differently, the declining investment inflow into the country reflects low investor-confidence in the Nigerian economy; mostly driven by prolonged foreign exchange (FX) scarcity as well as uncertainties caused by the build up to the 2023 general elections. The Naira redesign policy and its (un)intended consequences were truly scary to all economic agents — especially — the investors. The ‘show of power’ and ding-dong between the Presidency (then) and the judiciary (the Supreme Court) on the matter of availability and acceptability of certain Naira denominations negatively affected all (financial) market activities.

The Bretton Woods institutions (The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank) have never relented in urging and nudging the Nigerian government to adopt full liberalisation of the economy. To them, market forces should determine the prices of all products and services, including public goods. This accounts for why, in its recent Country Report for Nigeria, the IMF blamed what it termed “Nigeria’s complex exchange rate policy and multiple exchange rates as some of the factors impeding the inflow of FDI and FPI to the country.

Reflecting the impact of global geopolitics on capital flows, the IMF noted that “firms and policy makers are increasingly looking at strategies for moving production processes to trusted countries with aligned political preferences to make supply chains less vulnerable to geopolitical tensions.” In the face of this, the Fund advised that multilateral efforts aimed at preserving global integration are the best way to reduce the large and widespread economic cost of FDI fragmentation.

“Some countries could reduce their vulnerability by promoting private sector development, while others could take advantage of the diversion of investment flows to attract new FDI by undertaking structural reforms and improving infrastructure,” the IMF said. On its part, the World Bank said FDI in Nigeria remains low because of “limited forex availability, security concerns and other structural challenges”. According to the Bank, these challenges have also affected the net withdrawal of equity by foreign investors.

All said, however, the barrage of policies or reforms by the President Bola Tinubu administration would seem to be escalating rather than calming the volatility in the FX market. This has led to the non-stop crashing of the Naira against the dollar and other world currencies. In truth, the FX volatility, coupled with the inability of businesses to access foreign exchange (without hassles), is really stymying investment: both FDI and FPI. Without a doubt, investors are scared of the kind of environment where they would bring in millions of dollars, but end up having their earnings trapped or being allowed to repatriate a few thousands of dollar-revenue. Till date, not a few foreign investors (FDI) have their monies trapped in Nigeria because of acute scarcity of the greenback.

The scandalous case of many foreign airlines (operating in Nigeria) whose (earned) revenues running into close to a billion dollars got trapped in Nigeria, is ever fresh in the mind of investors. Truth be told: Nigeria, as a highly import-dependent economy, experiences massive demand for dollars at all times — with static or dwindling supply of the currency in the FX market. This is why, since the liberalisation of the FX market (or floatation of the Naira) by the current administration in Nigeria, the local currency has been on a free-fall against all other currencies. Some sort of equilibrium in the forex market got distorted: currency speculators, hoarders, round-trippers, racketeers, etc. got unleashed into the FX market.

Rather than sanity, the new policies in the FX market introduced insanity and confusion — even as the monetary authorities seem to have reached their wits end. In truth, the economic structure of Nigeria is not such that Naira flotation or devaluation would translate to improved exports (that is, rise in the demand for goods and services from Nigeria). Nor is the environment such that it can attract local and foreign investors on the basis of weak local currency alone. The ‘ease of doing business’ in the country is nothing to write home about; the state of physical and social infrastructure remains appalling. Multifaceted insecurity has remained a feature of the country for several years now; the situation is life threatening.

The world has since become a global village; and investments flow to climes that guarantee not only high returns but also security of life and property. Investments go to places with low corruption perception indices, strict adherence to rule of law and high regard for good corporate governance and sustainability tenets. Nigeria, in truth, ranks very low on these indices or attractions for business. A country that cannot safeguard the mainstay of its economy — crude oil — from the ravages of ‘organised theft’, cannot be perceived as capable of guaranteeing safety of business entities.

More than anything else, this could be why many international oil companies (IOCs) have quit the shores of Nigeria in recent years. Clutching onto ‘energy conversion’ fad, most of the IOCs fled Nigeria, claiming to be migrating to places where ‘renewable energies’ are in vogue. The IOCs practically waited for aeons to see and be guided by the country’s oil industry roadmap, but got frustrated when the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) had to spend an indeterminate number of years on the federal legislative shelves. Owing to this, major new investments in the oil sector got stalled (or deferred) or diverted to other jurisdictions.

Today, Nigeria, a country that used to enjoy the place of pride as the number one oil producer and exporter on the African continent, ranks fourth; producing crude oil far below its OPEC allotted quota of 1.8 million barrels per day. Insecurity around oil facilities across the Niger Delta is equally a major deterrent to existing and prospective investors. All these sum up to a clarion call on the Tinubu administration to quickly begin to address the multifaceted challenges of the country, if foreign investment must begin to flow into Nigeria, going forward. At present, the business environment appears too hostile and unattractive.

Nigeria currently grapples with multifaceted economic challenges, majorly linked to an age long practice of selfish interest by a handful of political leaders who manifest insensitivity towards the wellbeing of their subjects within their respective constituencies. The current economic hardship every household suffers came about after a series of poorly managed policies by the ruling class cumulatively impacted negatively on socio-economic deliverables against overall national development. The stewardship being rendered by the ruling class is found, by their style of governance over the years, not to be people focused, or on alleviating the immediate economic problems and financial pains of the masses in micro-businesses.

However, unless such leadership style is changed for the better, to one of “other people centred governance”, the economic hardship and the unsustainable costs of living that is padded by hyperinflation shall remain far from eradication.  It is, therefore, believed that, for things to start getting better there must be a total and complete shift from the ways and thoughts of the elitist leaders (the old order) in the running of this economy. They need to closely feel the pulse of the masses and the harrowing pains of the struggling common people in the streets of Nigeria, who may neither have been a crook, nor a vagabond but, otherwise, generally acclaimed in their respective neighbourhoods as well-behaved and very civilised Nigerian citizens.

A good leadership style that will bear fruits for good governance starts from every person in authority exhibiting leadership by example; disciplining oneself first, especially by cutting down costs and overheads attached to maintenance of his political aides. The reason for this measure is that financial extravagance is a potent variable that breeds poverty; it is a strategy the ruling class can sincerely apply in tackling poverty in the economy, if really the politically exposed persons (PEPs) meant well for their fellow Nigerians. The simple economic principle in wealth creation is that ‘other people centred stewardship’ will selflessly generate wealth for the public, and it shall subsequently (in a chain reaction mode) rub off on and enrich the general public. It is also a known fact that selfish leaders only end up making private money for their personal pockets, and end up impoverishing everyone involved in the system, as presently being experienced in the country since fuel subsidy was removed openly on 29th May 2023 by President Tinubu’s pronouncement. This exemplary financial and wealth creating strategic template is a potent step the economic drivers could leverage on, and apply a ‘backward integration policy (BIP)’ by implementing an economic plan that can improve local manufacturing in all economic sectors (industrial transformation). This would, in the long run, build up a virile economy. Economic achievers mostly thrive under a sober operational environment.

In a country that is suffering unpatriotic and uncommitted conducts in the hands of those that have been entrusted with the affairs of the nation, or are placed with the state responsibility to lead the way to economic stardom, it should be expected that little or no improvement can be achieved without a term plan for economic growth. This is based on the fact that the mindset of those driving the state affairs are not totally sold to positively deliver the goals selflessly. This is what this nation has suffered up to this stage of a failing economy with the financial turmoil around our foreign reserves and the ailing local currency exchange rate. However, the nation’s economy can still be revamped on the proviso that our leaders shall patriotically serve with a change of heart that ensures things are drastically turned around for better.

The leadership must express faith in whatever they are doing to change the tide with hope for economic emancipation, survival and progress. It is at this point that the aspect of products and service delivery would make sense, for self sufficiency to be actualized through the policy of backward integration (BIP). Businesses being operated within the economy under this strategic economic survival strategy are expected to key into productive operations by adding value to every raw material sourced locally, and reposition itself to break off from the old order of dependence on external supply chains for finished products.

In all sectors of the economy therefore, it is expected that the backward integration policy shall rearrange the supply chain architecture, where virtually all the finished goods are being manufactured domestically, and are scheduled for the export markets. Such a shift in commercial activities within the economy would ease the local currency exchange engagement by releasing it from the pressure of high demands and over dependence on the United States dollars.

The appointment of Mr. Olawale Edun, a seasoned stockbroker and  consummate banker with strong background in economics,  as the minister  of  finance and coordinating  minister of economy can be described as a metaphor for turning around the Nigerian dwindling economy under the administration of President Bola Tinubu.

I have known the unassuming Edun as a stockbroker since the early 90s, when I was reporting the market for The Guardian during the Open Outcry trading system termed the Call-Over. As an executive director at Investment Banking and Trust Company (IBTC) Limited now, Stanbic IBTC PLC, he was highly respected as a cerebral professional. His credentials as a former commissioner for finance in Lagos State remains a reference point. We met at the golden jubilee anniversary of one of my former colleagues at The Nigerian Stock Exchange about six years ago. When we discussed my certification as a stockbroker, he was happy. He jocularly said that my watching  stockbrokers on the trading floor for many years was sufficient for me  to become a stockbroker. We both laughed.

Edun’s first policy pronouncement that the federal government would not indulge in borrowing at the moment but utilize the savings from the removal of fuel subsidy to create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive is comforting. As a stockbroker, Edun reinforced his policy pronouncement with reference to the stock market saying: “… the aim of all reforms at this time is to focus on what we call equity to focus on investment, to attract investment by Nigerians. Investment by foreign direct investors and even investment by portfolio investors that want to invest in the financial aspects of the Nigerian economy, such as the stock market, such as the bond market.”

Tinubu’s choice of Edun is strategic. The new High Priest of the Nigerian economy understands the linear relationship between the growth of an economy and the development of its capital market. He speaks the language of stockbrokers and decodes the profession’s nuances with ease. Edun cannot claim ignorance of the challenges facing the Nigerian capital market and how the governments  at all tiers have grossly underutilized the market.

One of the earliest pronouncements of President Tinubu was the plan by his administration to reform the Nigerian financial market: The reform aims at reactivating the economy. A committee has been constituted, co-chaired by the former governor of Kebbi State, Atiku Bagudu, and a former governor of Jigawa State, Abubakar Badaru to drive the process of restructuring the government boards, agencies and parastatals. But it is doubtful if a meaningful reform can be done without inclusion of stockbrokers. They are multi-dimensional professionals. Many of them  have reached the commanding heights of their initial professions before they developed capacity in the securities market. We have recorded a stockbroker as a governor and he is doing well. We have them as legislators. Stockbrokers, also called City Gentlemen, are trained to unlock private sector investment in sustainable infrastructures. They cannot be ignored if Tinubu wants to do something different from the past administrations.

Annually, the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) holds National Workshop which brings many talents from the financial market to dissect the economy and advise the government on the medium and long term investment opportunities in the Nigerian capital market.  This year’s Workshop, themed: “ Leveraging the Capital Market to Drive Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for Effective National Economic Growth” is scheduled to hold on Thursday, September 7, 2023 at Nicon Hilton Hotel, Abuja. This is a strong platform for Edun to renew his  relationship with the members of his constituency, the stockbrokers, gain their current thinking  about the critical areas where the new administration should commence the financial market reform  as a matter of urgency.

This year’s National Workshop is the first to be held during the tenure of President Tinubu. Market watchers are already betting whether Tinubu shall declare the Workshop open and seize the opportunity to interact with these financial engineers on their expectation from the new administration in the short, medium and long term. According to the President, of CIS, Oluwole Adeosun, issues that will dominate discourse at the Workshop include: “Macro-Economic Policy Framework for the New Administration”, “Capital   Market Development in  Nigeria”, “Impact Reporting on Bond Issuance in the Nigerian Capital Market”, “Environmental, Social and Governance Investing (ESG) in Nigeria: Issues and Prospects”, and launch of “History of the Nigerian Capital Market” (Book and Documentary) among others.

Barring unexpected glitch, the newly sworn-in minister of industry, trade and investment, Doris Uzoka-Aniete and minister of marine and blue economy, Adegboyega Oyetola are expected at the Workshop to gain insights from stockbrokers on the revival of the economy. The failure of successive governments to key into the annual communique of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) from either its National Workshop or Annual Conference, has always rendered the previous market reforms of the federal government ineffectual.

The least Edun can do is to ensure that the Communique issued  at the end of the event does not end in the indefinite keep-in-view file in Aso Rock. Stockbrokers understand the economy. They know the achilles heels of the market and the low-hanging fruits that the government can deploy to reinvigorate it. But the history of communiques from market operators is replete with the government’s failure to implement the recommendations.

As an emerging market, the Nigerian capital market suffers from a significant funding gap. The Primary market is largely inactive nowadays. Many investors have lost confidence in the market following loss of funds to investors who raked money from the primary market and reneged on listing the shares in the secondary market with impunity while the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) appears helpless. There is also an issue of limited choice as issuers lack options to diversify funding and match it with their needs. The high cost of transaction still remains a major disincentive to investors. Many have  put a large part of their savings in physical assets such as real estate, gold, and bank deposits as options to investment in the market. There is pricing inefficiency with consequences of poor resource allocation.

Market reform under the new administration should be geared towards development of financial infrastructure and increase in effectiveness of the existing institutions. Pension administrators should be made to invest more in the market. Tax reform should reduce transaction cost to attract investors into the market. Stockbrokers need an effective capital market that is deep with a range of product offerings that meet diverse needs of investors. The reform should clip the wings of corporate raiders who deploy new tactics to put minority shareholders at a disadvantage. The transaction procedures in the secondary market should be reviewed to eliminate bureaucracy whereby an investor can use only one account for all market transactions.

McKinsey & Company, has identified some pillars of financial market reforms that are applicable to any environment: Review of regulatory bodies and their institutions, addressing the issues of governance and ownership, ensuring transparent regulations and predictable enforcement, introduction of tax policies and incentives and building of market infrastructure and technology. These should serve as a compass for those who will be saddled with the responsibility of market reform under the new administration. The reform must attract private equity. It must encourage more listing of blue chips companies across diverse sectors of the economy.  It must address the issue of privatisation of moribund government parastatals and listing of their shares on the secondary market of securities exchanges. The market is awaiting NNPC Limited.

Stockbrokers should be allowed to play key roles in the reform of the Nigerian financial market. The City Gentlemen have a lot to offer on the policies that shape the Nigerian financial market. They play a pivotal role in the development of the Capital Market Master Plan of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) cannot underrate the City Gentlemen in policy formulation and implementation. The reform under Tinubu’s administration should create a deliberate policy by the government at all tiers to invest in infrastructure by raising funds from revenue bonds and other relevant financial assets. Government bonds are usually a delight to risk-averse investors as the bond is protected with Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO), issued by the Accountant-General of the State through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to hedge against default.

The federal government should take a cue from Lagos State government that has a trajectory of sourcing long-term funds from the market to build infrastructure. Municipal Bond was floated to build the popular Sura Market over three decades ago. The state government has floated a N100 billion bond this year to finance priority projects. Lagos State has also become a major player in the commodity ecosystem through its sustained partnership with Lagos Commodities and Futures Exchange (LCFE).

Francis Kokutse is a journalist based in Accra and writes for Associated Press (AP), University World News, as well as Science and Development.Net. He was a Staff Writer of African Concord and Africa Economic Digest in London, UK.

 

Nigeria’s political parties, unlike their Ghanaian counterparts, are not using the WhatsApp messaging app properly and this has resulted in poor messaging and created cult figures out of Nigerian politicians, a new study has found.

According to the authors, whereas in Ghana, there is a formal/hierarchical use of the app by party communicators, in Nigeria, there is the informal/free-for-all use by groups affiliated to the parties, which has resulted in “poor message discipline, and further contribute to the personalisation of politics.”

The study,  “WhatsApp and political communication in West Africa: Accounting for differences in parties’ organisation and message discipline online,” published in the Sage journal on July 24, 2023, said, “the ways in which African political parties use WhatsApp during elections is determined, to a significant degree, by pre-existing levels of party institutionalisation, particularly levels of internal cohesion.”

Drawing on the comparison of Ghana and Nigeria – two countries where parties had different levels of institutionalisation prior to the advent of social media, the authors identified, “two broad patterns of WhatsApp use – the formal/hierarchical and the informal/free-for-all. Formal/hierarchical groups of the kind seen in Ghana, are likely to maintain party unity and message discipline, maintain or increase the power of existing party structures and gatekeepers, and limit the influence of outsiders.”

“This is evidenced most starkly in the ways in which ‘propaganda secretaries’ and ‘social media armies’ in Nigeria and Ghana respectively have – albeit in quite different ways – been absorbed into existing party structures, formal and/or informal,” the authors said, adding that, “the  rise of social media has certainly led to the creation of new campaign structures in both countries, and has introduced a new set of young, tech-savvy actors into the equation.”

According to the authors, their study also “suggests that patterns of WhatsApp use appear to influence the extent to which the platform is used by party associates to disseminate mis/disinformation. Where levels of intra-group oversight are low and outsiders are given ‘creative freedom’ to formulate messages on behalf of politicians, both mis/disinformation and dirty campaign tactics proliferate.”

On the other hand, they found that, “when WhatsApp groups are tightly controlled and messages are policed, the worst types of provocations and outright lies are limited”. The authors said their research,  which aligns with evidence from other contexts, provides one avenue for battling the spread of political mis/disinformation on WhatsApp: create clear group hierarchies with group moderators tasked with monitoring messages and limit the reliance on “volunteers” loosely affiliated to individual politicians.

The authors, Jonathan Fisher and others said their  paper drew on 113 interviews and 15 focus group discussions (FGDs) with political candidates, their campaign teams and advisers, and party activists in both countries.

They said the focus of their work in both case studies was principally on the presidential races since these are commonly viewed both domestically and internationally as the most significant poll during a general election. The presidential races were also the main area of interest for most of the respondents, even if some also discussed other electoral contests.

In all they conducted 72 Interviews and 10 Focus group Discussions (FGDs) in Ghana which were carried out between March and July 2019 with candidates and party operatives from the National Democratic Congress (NDC – 42 interviews and 6 focus groups) and New Patriotic Party (NPP – 30 interviews and 4 focus groups) in the capital city Accra and in Ghana’s Northern region (the regional capital Tamale and neighbouring rural areas).

In Nigeria, 41 interviews and five FGDs were carried out between February and April 2019 with candidates and party operatives from the All-Progressives Congress (APC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the capital city Abuja and in the second and third largest Nigerian cities, Kano, and Ibadan. This allowed them to compare and contrast views and practices with major cities in three of Nigeria’s six geopolitical “zones”. The research team also visited and met with staff at the Buhari Media Centre in Abuja, where the digital side of the ruling party’s presidential campaign was led from.

Sixteen of these interviews were undertaken with candidates, advisers, or campaign staff who were clearly and consistently identified as APC or PDP. They said they found “a defining feature of Nigerian party politics – both overall and in relation to the 2019 election – is the frequent movement of actors at all levels between parties.” Among the  other 25 interviewees and FGD participants, for example, were candidates and operatives who had defected from PDP to APC and could therefore shed light on the use of WhatsApp by both parties. They also  spoke to a campaign digital media aide who had worked for three parties (including PDP and APC) during the same electoral cycle.

In the case of Ghana, the research focused on the Northern region and the capital city Accra. Whereas in  Nigeria, a  huge country  both in terms of population and geography, their  data does not speak directly to dynamics in the east of the country in particular. A number of the interviewees (in capital cities, in particular), however, were describing national patterns and citing examples from other regions so,  the authors say they  can be reasonably confident their  theory applies beyond their fieldwork sites.

Interviews and FGDs were carried out by at least one of the core members of the research teams, often supported by research assistants. Analysing WhatsApp – and other closed platforms – nonetheless, came with its own distinctive methodological challenges, which were navigated in a number of ways.

First, while some interviewees voluntarily showed  their main WhatsApp display (e.g., to demonstrate the large number of groups they were in or messages they received), they did not request that respondents do so.

The authors said in the context of parties’ use of WhatsApp, extensive digital structures may exist to connect campaigns, activists, and candidates, and to enable them to share and discuss strategy, content, and messaging. Without internal party cohesion – including mechanisms to, or norms encouraging loyalty to the party and its messages themselves over (in some cases) those of individual candidates – these structures may fail to operate in the party’s interests.

They also analysed how key campaign messages and themes were  debated, challenged, and negotiated via these structures, and the degree to which this process exhibits an appreciation for or deference to the party platform and wider brand. On the latter, they reflected on some of the incentives their respondents claimed their actions to be motivated by, as a means to better understand some of the differences in WhatsApp use by Ghanaian and Nigerian parties.

The authors said much of their data  drew on analysis of “closed” discussions within party structures – i.e., of WhatsApp groups composed just of party strategists and activists – and respondents’ reflections on message discipline in WhatsApp interactions with voters.

“This includes, in the case of Nigeria especially, in WhatsApp groups established by party operatives and others with the sometimes-indirect support of the party itself. This is partly for conceptual reasons – internal cohesion in this context is evidenced by both internal and external message discipline – and partly for empirical reasons. The more informal character of the Nigerian parties’ organisational structures means that distinguishing ‘internal’ and ‘official’ from ‘external’ requires a more flexible approach,” they added.

“The rapid rise and significance of social media in general, and WhatsApp in particular, in electoral politics represents, they felt  has the potential to unsettle established structures, since those with the technical knowledge to shape and manage digital campaigns and electioneering are often not traditional party elites but, in many cases, younger people of far more modest economic and political standing,” they said. In their view,  “there  are several explanations for these diverging trajectories. First, the nature of the transitions themselves. In Nigeria, the stage-managed introduction of multi-party politics centred around a form of elite ‘pact’ whereby different regional, political, and military interests were contained within a single party”.

In Ghana, they said a more substantive form of political competition was institutionalised with the country’s  “new” political parties drawing on a rich ideological and institutional tradition which predates independence.

“On the other hand, in Nigeria, the PDP – which, aptly, took an umbrella as its symbol – focused on accommodating different elite and regional interests rather than developing ideological coherence. This has had implications for the PDP’s institutionalisation,” the authors added.

Perhaps, it might not be too late for the political parties in Nigeria  to start learning from Ghana which embarks on another election next year.

The world is a dynamic hub of different human activities, including business. It is the directions given by the leaders that give the world its meaning. Leadership has been defined as the ability to influence others. It is not a matter of age, sex, educational qualification, colour, tribe or religion. It is the ability of one person to inspire others to do some activities. Types of leaders include: political, traditional, business, institution, religious and sports leaders, according to function. According to style of leadership, we have autocratic (dictatorial), laissez faire, democratic, strategic, transformational, visionary, coaching, bureaucratic, transactional, pace-setting and situational leaders. According to demography, we have youth, women, people with disability (PWD), ethnic leaders etc. According to the institution, we have a market, club, bank, church, school or education institution, community, union and team leaders, etc.

One common thing about these leaders is that they have followers whom they must influence. They are in charge of moving people to work voluntarily and without coercion. Since the business environment is dominated by people who have objectives to meet, business leaders must be ready to adapt to the needs of the people they are leading in order to influence them effectively. According to Tiffany D. Kriz, Ayraham N. Kluger and Christ J. Lyddy in “Feeling Heard: Experiences of Listening (or Not) at Work” published online in 2021 by Journal of Front Psychology, “listening has been identified as a key workplace skill, important for ensuring high-quality communication, building relationships, and motivating employees. Business leaders must learn to listen beyond hearing, a requirement in leading today’s employees. They must allow ‘modern’ employees to air their views and encourage the ‘introverts’ among them to contribute to the ‘production process’.

Modern employees are different from the employees of the past. Amongst others, age diversity among workers has brought about generational differences in the workplace, with each generation having unique work beliefs. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, there are about five different generations in workplaces today, right from the Silent Generation to Gen Z. It is glaring that the generational differences are impacting business organisations’ functioning. Among different generations in the workplace, there are a variety of preferences and values. The differences between the age groups are quite small but their styles are great. For instance, millennials may want to communicate with other workers via texts, while baby boomers do not want that. A popular belief is that millennials prefer flexible or virtual work schedules while their older counterparts prefer a traditional workday.

Leading skills today are different from leading skills of the past. Leaders do not only lead human beings, they also lead robots, other structures with artificial intelligence and team members who are computer literate and information technology-compliant. In the past, employees worked generally in physical offices and regularly met each other and their leaders. They listen to instructions from their leaders for each round of production and hold physical meetings regularly. They work for pay and future advancement. Today, employees meet through virtual meetings on zoom and telegram. They chat with social media tools. What modern employees are generally concerned about is the common goal of their organisations, their targets and how to meet them. Leaders’ goals still remain the same – to make sure that employees meet their targets.

Work environments are changing daily and business leaders also need to upscale their skills daily to be able to meet up with their team members’ yearnings. For the first time in history, there are five generations in the workplace. They are: Traditionalists – born between 1925 and 1945; Baby Boomers – born from 1946 and 1964; Generation X – born from 1965 and 1980; Millennials – born from 1981 and 2000; and Generation Z – born from 2001 and 2020. This complex work diversity brings a lot of challenges for today’s leaders. Generational workforce differences affect leaders’ ability to manage employees effectively. The traits, beliefs, needs and life experiences that mark each generation, influencing how they work, communicate, and respond to change, must be appreciated by today’s leaders before they can effectively lead them successfully.

This is why the most common business training in the business circle today  is leadership training. Modern leaders are expected to be versatile and to be on top of their games. From business profitability goals to sustainability requirements of businesses and from employees’ management to corporate social responsibilities of the immediate community of the business, business leaders have tasking roles to play. Business schools of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge universities, and reputable business schools like London Business School, IESE Business School, Chicago Booth School of Business, Kellogg School of Business, Tuck School of Business, MIT Sloan School of Management and Lagos Business School, have short leadership training courses all year round.

Leaders cannot afford to be docile in the new millennium business world. They must believe in self-development more than managers and other employees to continue to be ahead. They can do this through networking with their peers, reading research findings from international magazines like The Economic Times, The Economist Magazine, The Walls Street Journal, business journals and regularly observing and listening to their team members.

Leadership methods are generally divided into two: general leadership skills which cut across all regions and localised leadership skills which are unique to different workers in different organisations. The localised leadership skills in banks are different from those of manufacturing industries as their processes are different. The last COVID-19 epidemic which has made it glaring that some types of workers can work “office-less” successfully has made leadership requirements to be more challenging. Leaders must therefore upscale regularly to meet today’s requirements and future needs of employees.

Charles Iyore, a partner at DNA Capital, writes from Darenth Kent, England. He can be reached by email at Dioncta@aol.com and +447932945002 (text only)

 

We have, as a nation, struggled with establishing an exchange rate mechanism without success, since 1980. The sudden large rise in our foreign reserves, built on oil (non-inclusive) receipts, gave us the notion we had plenty of money and that our only challenge was how to spend it.

Many cement armadas later and after becoming the import capital of the world’s brands of beer, we revved up that spending on an individual level by a salary award to a small slice of the population – (the civil service), in the “Udoji Salary award”.  An award not tied to productivity and in disregard for strategic investments in assets at home and abroad, able to deliver returns for supporting a planned future. (Did we release the genie out of the inflation bottle?)

Those indiscretions were followed by an unplanned indigenization and the crippling of the civil service component of our bureaucracy, which all together, put us on a hiding to nothing.

Very many correction factors (civil servants stabbing perceived monsters in the dark) and decades later, the chickens have all come home to roost!

Our failures have come, not just in our wild forays into fancy methods of administration, but firmly lie with an elite, apparently incapable of constructional thought.

At the heart of our economic dis-equilibrium is the management of the currency, (which we create as a sovereign nation). It is no longer an impetus for increasing productivity, and has been in a downward spiral in global currency competitions (exchange rates) since 1988. It is perhaps now in free fall. Little wonder that our economy has become so amorphous without any firm reference points for domestic production planning, by whatever is left of our very diminished real sector – (Glaxo-Smith Kline gone. Next!)

All attempts at developing an exchange rate mechanism from import licensing, through second-tier (dual exchange rate), Dutch-auction and now in a multi-level allocation variant, of no clear description; we have always deployed solutions without planning and preparation.

It is pertinent against that background to offer ideas on rolling-off the many rocks which, over time, have made it impossible for Nigeria as a nation to breathe.

Rolling off those rocks must be the objective of “renewed hope”.

 

PLANNING

Planning and preparation is accepting that there are certain prerequisites for establishing an exchange rate mechanism, which over time will make the economy competitive. To do otherwise will be living in denial.

Keeping it simple, these for me, are the key issues;

1. It is critical that the component parts of our domestic production (the real reserves) are in such an inter-play and arrangement, that is able to deliver growth consistently ahead of inflation. (= husbanding of resources)

2. That the burden of domestic production (GDP) is evenly distributed between the public and private sectors, if the economy is to take flight and join globally competitive nations. To do otherwise, is attempting to fly on a wing (public sector) and a prayer. (= Financial System Stability). On that single-winged course, we would always wobble and not achieve fiscal consolidation.

The clarity that comes with understanding the interplay above, will determine the necessary interventions, their application timing (entry and exit), which will order the appropriate sequence of actions. Only such a disciplined approach will address the wide drift, reached over decades of poor planning and policy inconsistency.

 

NO MAGIC WAND

There are no silver bullet solutions and progress is not an assumed position or a destination but a continuous journey, driven by consistent efforts. The cohort of economic regulators will need to come together and form a war cabinet. This is a war without a frontline, but with bullets that hit everyone, because the warfront is everywhere – livelihoods are threatened and disappearing.

Without addressing this currency challenge, all development programmes may be dead on arrival, and the cabinet (administration) would already be handicapped, because of paucity of funds.

The resources are actually there but often in the wrong locations, idling. The treasury must hence develop a keen eye for identifying those locations, in order to effectively inform the reserve board (CBN) on what “promises to pay” are entered into, for every spending round. – (currency in circulation). Together, they must agree on how to manage over-supply or under-supply, using other creative exchange options.

 

European experience in exchange rate mechanisms

Europe went through a long period of trying to dominate each other, grabbing territories through wars, cornering resources around the world through colonies, becoming nationalists in country pride and attempting to grow through domestic slave farming efforts. All of these were clearly distractions, when we now see what they have achieved through pursuing programmes of shared prosperity. What about the many directives, (MIFID etc.) that now order their economic linkages – the cross-border free movement of labour and integration of services? The most profound of them all, has been the transformation from an exchange rate mechanism (ERM) into a common currency of trade and exchange. And that is not ignoring the new global dominance of the European Airbus, in aviation.

 

Do we have to wait for a thousand years like them, or can we copy success?

As the kernel country of the sub-region, Nigeria can ill afford an unconscious bias in her choice of a winning team or run without properly laying-out her stalls. This is the time to strengthen the existing administrative structures and keep only those fit for purpose. The proclamation of “we are in this together” must open up policy conversations in a manner akin to “glasnost” (openness), before embarking on restructuring (“perestroika”). This might be a strange analogy, but failure in that combination has come out of inconsistency not conception.

We must end the mutual exclusion of public and private sectors, home and away, town and gown in developing, through the rigorous analysis required for policy formulation needed to guide execution. That way we would be walking the right talk not the wrong talk. Take a look at Japan and her chambers of commerce.

Those with the skill-sets abound in large numbers, (within and outside the country), we must find a working formula for identifying them and putting them all into play, beyond appointing them into office.

Let the chains we have wrongly put on ourselves for so long, drop off!

• business a.m. commits to publishing a diversity of views, opinions and comments. It, therefore, welcomes your reaction to this and any of our articles via email: comment@businessamlive.com

Chido Nwakanma is a communication strategist, journalist and journalism educator with extensive experience in IMC and strong interest in developing humanity. He can be contacted at chido@brandhaus.ng and via SMS on +234 (0) 803 723 1111; (0) 812 647 4335

 

In coffee table format, Courage & Character paints a colourful and rich narrative of Osun State history.

 

History in exciting colours is one of the main attractions of Courage & Character: The Definitive History of Osun State.  The 460-page tome comes in an arresting coffee table format, enabling it to incorporate valuable and rich primary and secondary sources in books, articles, and letters that provide a comprehensive overview.

The deluxe edition in my hands will befit the coffee table in elevated sitting rooms. It has a limited print run and is customised. Erudio says it will roll out an edition for mass circulation.

The Erudio Alphabet Company published Courage & Character (2023) and has brought it out as Osun State marks 32 years of its creation alongside others created by the military on 27 August 1991. Osun is one of the nine states created to raise the state count from 20 to 30.

Other states created on 27 August 1991 are Kebbi, Jigawa, Yobe, Taraba, Abia, Anambra, Delta, and Kogi.

The publishers say of the Osun book, “It is an epic story that begins in pre-colonial times and documents the great work of the founders and those who have had the privilege to lead the state. The Osun story is about a people’s rejection of subjugation and oppression, their quest for independence and sovereignty, and the struggle for survival and relevance.”

Courage & Character pays tribute to “the Omoluabi of Osun: brave hearts, unrelentingly optimistic, and flinty in their determination” and “To the abiding memory of the first Executive Governor of Osun State: Senator Isiaka Adetunji Adeleke”.

It is one of life’s coincidences and exciting turns that the incumbent governor of Osun State, Senator Ademola Nurudeen Jackson Adeleke, is a younger brother of the first civilian governor.

Colours hit you as you pick up the book.  Courage & Character is encased in bright colours. They manifest in the colour scheme on the cover and the evocative photographs on the pages.

“The colours on the cover of this book pay homage to the Pan-African flag, one of the Osun identity elements. They are the official colours of the African race: Red represents the blood that unites all people of African ancestry, Black depicts the existence of the Black race, Green denotes Africa as a continent of great fecundity, and Gold depicts the abundant mineral resources of Africa”, publisher and editor Temitope Lakisokun affirms.

History is about stories.  Courage & Character packs many gripping narratives. It starts in Part 1 with the level of “the unlikely catalyst” called Abdulsalami Agbaje. A ranking chief, Agbaje, stood tall in the Ibadan nobility to the point of becoming the Otun Balogun (fourth rank) with a chance at becoming the Olubadan.

He was a successful entrepreneur; one of his sons, Anthony Saka Agbaje, was the first Ibadan medical doctor (trained at the University of Glasgow in 1921 and co-published his newspaper, The Western Echo, in the 1940s.

“One major symbolism of his stupendous wealth is that he was the first Ibadan man to ride a car in 1915. He also built the first cement brick house in Ibadan before building what many consider a masterpiece, even till today: a magnificent mansion at Ayeye in the town’s northwest.”

Envious colleagues then petitioned against Agbaje, the colonial authorities. They levelled 14 counts of “misconduct” against him. The Olubadan also treated a delegation of Obas from the Osun Division contemptuously. Both actions sparked the resolve of the Osun people to manage their affairs away from the jurisdiction of the Ibadan Native Authority.

It led to the Butcher Commission of Inquiry, whose report exonerated Agbaje but confirmed allegations of “inefficiency and maladministration against the Ibadan District Native Authority.”

Photos of the principal actors and bromides of the Butcher Commission report enliven the account and several other sections of the book. It features outstanding and rare images, clips from newspapers of the era and sundry memorabilia.

Courage & Character offers three parts. Within its pages are a foreword by President Muhammadu Buhari, a preface by Ogbeni Aregbesola and a publisher’s note. There are ten chapters and appendices.

There are sections on the governments of Col Leo Ajiborisha, Senator Isiaka Adeleke, and the military interregnum featuring Colonel Abel Akale, Navy Captain Anthony Udofia, Lt Col Anthony Obi, Col Theophilus Olufemi Bamigboye. The administration of Chief Bisi Akande brought back the civilians. The book Courage and Character extensively documents the government of Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Rauf Aregbesola.

Courage & Character observed best practices in historical narrative. It is engaging and exciting. It deploys vivid language and storytelling techniques. There are rich primary and secondary sources in documents and artefacts created during the period it captures. Inside are all the significant events and figures and the lesser-known ones in simple language without jargon.

Publisher and editor Temitope Lakisokun and her team delivered on the mission of capturing the roots and the first twenty-five years of Osun State. That the book made it to the finish line is a triumph of tenacity because Governor Rauf Aregbesola exited along the line. Lakisokun furthers her father’s footprints. The late principal, Chief Adeleke Lakisokun, studied History at the University of Wales and taught history for over 40 years in secondary schools in Western Nigeria, Oyo State and Osun State. He must be smiling in approbation.

Temitope Lakisokun earned an Upper Honours in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos and the Owner Manager Certification of the Lagos Business School but has made the pips of a historian-publisher.

Courage & Character: The Definitive History of Osun State is a befitting legacy to Osun State at 32.