Friday, May 29, 2015 is a day Muhammadu Buhari will never forget. As he was invited to the stage to take over the the leadership of his beloved country at the well-attended hand-over and inauguration ceremony at the eagle square, Abuja, his face glowed in obvious fulfilment of a long-drawn wish…to be a democratically elected president of Nigeria. Soon enough he received the Nigerian flag and the Defence flag from out-going president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and took his oath of office as president on that bright May morning.
Buhari’s ascendancy to the position of president is a perfect example of someone never giving up on his dreams. It was the fourth consecutive time that he had contested the election. The last time, in 2011 when he lost both at the polls and the courts for the third time, he was reported to have wept and said he would not contest again. But destiny had other plans for him as a new platform (a mega-party) the All Progressives Congress (APC) was created to give the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) a run for their money. About 14 months later APC had given PDP a bloody nose as the new party swept PDP out of the presidential villa with a Buhari victory as well as won majority of states in the governorship elections and National Assembly seats. It was a defeat the PDP had never imagined possible.
But the victory is not only Buhari’s to savour. It is also victory for millions of Nigerians who believed in Buhari and contributed and worked selflessly towards his eventual victory. The duo of Hajiyah Fati and Nicole Benson both personify the near fanatical following of Buhari. Hajiya Fati, a popular 95-year old business woman in Koko, Koko local government of Kebbi State made a personal donation of N1million to General Buhari’s campaign when he visited the state out of her business savings and 9-year-old girl, Nicole Benson, donated her lunch money totalling 6,000 Naira also to Buhari’s campaign . Nicole is a pupil of Greensprings School Lekki campus, Lagos State.
But to whom much is given, much is expected. Buhari himself knows this much. He has since been telling Nigerians that he is not a miracle worker and will require time and patience for him to salvage the damage that has bedevilled Nigeria in various aspects of national life. But the big question is how quickly can President Muhammadu Buhari and his political party, the APC deliver the “Change” they promised Nigeria; and what brand of change will this be?
Does President Muhammadu Buhari’s inaugural speech provide a clear indication of how he intends to achieve his set objectives? You be the judge:
“I am immensely grateful to God who has preserved us to witness this day and this occasion. Today marks a triumph for Nigeria and an occasion to celebrate her freedom and cherish her democracy. Nigerians have shown their commitment to democracy and are determined to entrench its culture. Our journey has not been easy but thanks to the determination of our people and strong support from friends abroad we have today a truly democratically elected government in place.
I would like to thank President Goodluck Jonathan for his display of statesmanship in setting a precedent for us that has now made our people proud to be Nigerians wherever they are. With the support and cooperation he has given to the transition process, he has made it possible for us to show the world that despite the perceived tension in the land we can be a united people capable of doing what is right for our nation. Together we co-operated to surprise the world that had come to expect only the worst from Nigeria. I hope this act of graciously accepting defeat by the outgoing President will become the standard of political conduct in the country.
I would like to thank the millions of our supporters who believed in us even when the cause seemed hopeless. I salute their resolve in waiting long hours in rain and hot sunshine to register and cast their votes and stay all night if necessary to protect and ensure their votes count and were counted. I thank those who tirelessly carried the campaign on the social media. At the same time, I thank our other countrymen and women who did not vote for us but contributed to make our democratic culture truly competitive, strong and definitive. I thank all of you.
Having just a few minutes ago sworn on the Holy Book, I intend to keep my oath and serve as President to all Nigerians.
I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.
A few people have privately voiced fears that on coming back to office I shall go after them. These fears are groundless. There will be no paying off old scores. The past is prologue.
Our neighbours in the Sub-region and our African brethren should be rest assured that Nigeria under our administration will be ready to play any leadership role that Africa expects of it. Here I would like to thank the governments and people of Cameroon, Chad and Niger for committing their armed forces to fight Boko Haram in Nigeria.
I also wish to assure the wider international community of our readiness to cooperate and help to combat threats of cross-border terrorism, sea piracy, refugees and boat people, financial crime, cyber-crime, climate change, the spread of communicable diseases and other challenges of the 21st century.
At home we face enormous challenges. Insecurity, pervasive corruption, the hitherto unending and seemingly impossible fuel and power shortages are the immediate concerns. We are going to tackle them head on. Nigerians will not regret that they have entrusted national responsibility to us. We must not succumb to hopelessness and defeatism. We can fix our problems.
In recent times Nigerian leaders appear to have misread our mission. Our founding fathers, Mr Herbert Macauley, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Malam Aminu Kano, Chief J.S. Tarka, Mr Eyo Ita, Chief Dennis Osadebey, Chief Ladoke Akintola and their colleagues worked to establish certain standards of governance. They might have differed in their methods or tactics or details, but they were united in establishing a viable and progressive country. Some of their successors behaved like spoilt children breaking everything and bringing disorder to the house.
Furthermore, we as Nigerians must remind ourselves that we are heirs to great civilizations: Shehu Othman Dan fodio’s caliphate, the Kanem Borno Empire, the Oyo Empire, the Benin Empire and King Jaja’s formidable domain. The blood of those great ancestors flow in our veins. What is now required is to build on these legacies, to modernize and uplift Nigeria.
Daunting as the task may be it is by no means insurmountable. There is now a national consensus that our chosen route to national development is democracy. To achieve our objectives we must consciously work the democratic system. The Federal Executive under my watch will not seek to encroach on the duties and functions of the Legislative and Judicial arms of government. The law enforcing authorities will be charged to operate within the Constitution. We shall rebuild and reform the public service to become more effective and more serviceable. We shall charge them to apply themselves with integrity to stabilize the system.
For their part the legislative arm must keep to their brief of making laws, carrying out over-sight functions and doing so expeditiously. The judicial system needs reform to cleanse itself from its immediate past. The country now expects the judiciary to act with dispatch on all cases especially on corruption, serious financial crimes or abuse of office. It is only when the three arms act constitutionally that government will be enabled to serve the country optimally and avoid the confusion all too often bedeviling governance today.
Elsewhere, relations between Abuja and the States have to be clarified if we are to serve the country better. Constitutionally, there are limits to powers of each of the three tiers of government but that should not mean the Federal Government should fold its arms and close its eyes to what is going on in the states and local governments. Not least the operations of the Local Government Joint Account. While the Federal Government cannot interfere in the details of its operations it will ensure that the gross corruption at the local level is checked. As far as the constitution allows me I will try to ensure that there is responsible and accountable governance at all levels of government in the country. For I will not have kept my own trust with the Nigerian people if I allow others abuse theirs under my watch.
However, no matter how well organized the governments of the federation are they cannot succeed without the support, understanding and cooperation of labour unions, organized private sector, the press and civil society organizations. I appeal to employers and workers alike to unite in raising productivity so that everybody will have the opportunity to share in increased prosperity. The Nigerian press is the most vibrant in Africa. My appeal to the media today – and this includes the social media – is to exercise its considerable powers with responsibility and patriotism.
My appeal for unity is predicated on the seriousness of the legacy we are getting into. With depleted foreign reserves, falling oil prices, leakages and debts the Nigerian economy is in deep trouble and will require careful management to bring it round and to tackle the immediate challenges confronting us, namely; Boko Haram, the Niger Delta situation, the power shortages and unemployment especially among young people. For the longer term we have to improve the standards of our education. We have to look at the whole field of medicare. We have to upgrade our dilapidated physical infrastructure.
The most immediate is Boko Haram’s insurgency. Progress has been made in recent weeks by our security forces but victory cannot be achieved by basing the Command and Control Centre in Abuja. The command centre will be relocated to Maiduguri and remain until Boko Haram is completely subdued. But we cannot claim to have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing the Chibok girls and all other innocent persons held hostage by insurgents.
This government will do all it can to rescue them alive. Boko Haram is a typical example of small fires causing large fires. An eccentric and unorthodox preacher with a tiny following was given posthumous fame and following by his extra judicial murder at the hands of the police. Since then through official bungling, negligence, complacency or collusion Boko Haram became a terrifying force taking tens of thousands of lives and capturing several towns and villages covering swathes of Nigerian sovereign territory.
Boko Haram is a mindless, godless group who are as far away from Islam as one can think of. At the end of the hostilities when the group is subdued the Government intends to commission a sociological study to determine its origins, remote and immediate causes of the movement, its sponsors, the international connexions to ensure that measures are taken to prevent a recurrence of this evil. For now the Armed Forces will be fully charged with prosecuting the fight against Boko haram. We shall overhaul the rules of engagement to avoid human rights violations in operations. We shall improve operational and legal mechanisms so that disciplinary steps are taken against proven human right violations by the Armed Forces.
Boko Haram is not only the security issue bedeviling our country. The spate of kidnappings, armed robberies, herdsmen/farmers clashes, cattle rustlings all help to add to the general air of insecurity in our land. We are going to erect and maintain an efficient, disciplined people – friendly and well – compensated security forces within an over – all security architecture.
The amnesty programme in the Niger Delta is due to end in December, but the Government intends to invest heavily in the projects, and programmes currently in place. I call on the leadership and people in these areas to cooperate with the State and Federal Government in the rehabilitation programmes which will be streamlined and made more effective. As ever, I am ready to listen to grievances of my fellow Nigerians. I extend my hand of fellowship to them so that we can bring peace and build prosperity for our people.
No single cause can be identified to explain Nigerian’s poor economic performance over the years than the power situation. It is a national shame that an economy of 180 million generates only 4,000MW, and distributes even less. Continuous tinkering with the structures of power supply and distribution and close on $20b expended since 1999 have only brought darkness, frustration, misery, and resignation among Nigerians. We will not allow this to go on. Careful studies are under way during this transition to identify the quickest, safest and most cost-effective way to bring light and relief to Nigerians.
Unemployment, notably youth un-employment features strongly in our Party’s Manifesto. We intend to attack the problem frontally through revival of agriculture, solid minerals mining as well as credits to small and medium size businesses to kick – start these enterprises. We shall quickly examine the best way to revive major industries and accelerate the revival and development of our railways, roads and general infrastructure.
Your Excellencies, My fellow Nigerians I can not recall when Nigeria enjoyed so much goodwill abroad as now. The messages I received from East and West, from powerful and small countries are indicative of international expectations on us. At home the newly elected government is basking in a reservoir of goodwill and high expectations. Nigeria therefore has a window of opportunity to fulfill our long–standing potential of pulling ourselves together and realizing our mission as a great nation.
Our situation somehow reminds one of a passage in Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar: “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;Omitted, all the voyage of their life, Is bound in shallows and miseries.”
We have an opportunity. Let us take it.”
President Buhari has a unique opportunity to recreate the Nigerian Brand. As he acknowledged in his inauguration speech, he is swimming in a sea of goodwill both locally and globally. He needs to strike while it is hot. Not a few believe that if anyone can fix Nigeria, that person is Buhari. What many do not understand however is that it is not going to be a tea party.
As though on cue, immediate past president Jonathan set the tone for change with his exemplary conduct when he promptly conceded defeat and called to congratulate Buhari over the latter’s victory even before INEC declared the final results. This means our democracy has climbed up the maturity stage in the socio-political curve. Buhari would definitely need to build on this going forward. He needs to deepen democracy even further. Nigerians expect the President to free the nation from all factors that have held us hostage and threatened our survival. He is expected to harness our unique natural endowments and rich diversities to make Nigeria great again.
Interestingly, change means different things to different people, but whatever change President Buhari will bring must be the greatest good to the greatest number of Nigerians. Those who are likely to resist the envisaged change are the hawks who have fed fat at our collective expense over the years. So, will Buhari’s change be good enough for you? Only time can tell.
BRANDPOWER columnists Ray Echebiri, Godwin-Dudu Orumen and Nnanke Harry Willie provide an insight into how President Muhammadu Buhari can set about achieving the desired change to Nigerians on the following pages.
UNEMPLOYMENT: THE BEAST BUHARI MUST TAME – RAY ECHEBIRI
Etche, a local government area in Rivers State is in ruins. The better part of the local government area, which prides itself as the food basket of Rivers State, has been destroyed by its own sons. Its various villages used to be a beehive of activities, bubbling from dawn to dusk with farmers working almost round the clock as they streamed to the farms before the cock would crow and came back home much later in the day to process their bountiful agricultural harvests. Not any more. The villages are now like ghost towns. They have been deserted.
It is now strange to see goats bleating away and roaming the villages; they have all been killed and consumed by boys whose conducts equate to those of lord of manor. Villagers who were used to being woken in the morning by cock crows that resonate in every cranny of the villages in the area no longer have a way of knowing when it is dawn because the cocks have all vanished; the boys have made minced meat of all of them. Despite the havoc they are wrecking in the villages, they are referred to as umu oma (good boys). That is the name they want to be called. Woe unto you if they hear you call them bad boys – which they ought to be called given their atrocious activities. They steal, maim, kill, and commit arson and other atrocities.
Forget their boisterousness in words and in action; they are all poor. They are unemployed. They are idle. They are a very good proof that “An idle brain is the devil’s workshop”. Theirs is a clear case of the proverbial madness that has progressed from murmuring to violent actions. Otherwise, it is not isolated. Most villages and cities in the country now have something close to their replica – youths who have been driven insane by sub-human living conditions, occasioned mainly by unemployment and its twin brother, idleness. Make no mistake about it; they are like a time bomb waiting to go off.
Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria had warned some time last year that the high rate of graduate unemployment in the country could spark a revolution someday. At almost 25 per cent in 2013, Nigeria’s unemployment rate was obviously one of the highest in the world. But the high unemployment rate is neither a creation of the Jonathan administration nor a phenomenon that reared its ugly head just yesterday. It had been there – it predates even the Obasanjo administration – and it has been rising exponentially because not much had been done to tackle it. From 12.7 per cent in 2007, unemployment rate rose to 14.9 per cent in 2008, 19.7 per cent in 2009, 21.4 per cent in 2010, 23.9 per cent in 2011, and 27.4 per cent in 2012. It declined to 24.7 per cent in 2013, according to National Bureau of Statistics. But many Nigerians would not buy this statistics even if it sold to them for a kobo. They would rather believe that unemployment has gone from bad to worse. And they may not be wrong, because there is hardly any family in this country that does not have at least one unemployed person.
While Obasanjo was warning of an impending revolution that would be ignited by high level of unemployment, he probably did not know that there were already in existence umbrella bodies of unemployed graduates in the country, which were a prerequisite for the revolution he saw coming. Certainly, he never knew that at the time he was speaking, an umbrella body of unemployed graduates in Bayelsa State was perfecting its town-storming plans. For, soon after his prediction, about 150 youths under the aegis of Unemployed Graduates Forum of Bayelsa State stormed Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, protesting over their joblessness. The jobless graduates had accused the Bayelsa State government of insensitivity to their predicament. This is an indication of what is to come. If Bayelsa State which does not have a very high unemployment rate can have its relatively few unemployed graduates protesting against government’s insensitivity to their predicament, we do not need a soothsayer to tell us that anything can happen in states with very high unemployment rate if nothing is done very soon to address the situation.
Lamido Sanusi Lamido, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria who is now the Emir of Kano, was once quoted as saying that unemployment is a major contributory factor to the Boko Haram insurgency. He said that Yobe State’s unemployment rate was 60.60 per cent while Kano State’s was 67 per cent. He saw this as the main reason for the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East when he stated that “the current security upheaval and internal insurrection all over the country were as a result of severe poverty and rising unemployment, especially in the north”. This postulation surely holds some water, and it corroborates Obasanjo’s postulation “that an idle man is the devils workshop and a hopeless idle man is a tinderbox”.
Recently, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released new unemployment figures which put the country’s unemployment rate at 6.4 per cent. The new unemployment rate, according to NBS, was arrived at when the revised Concepts and Methodology for Computing Labour Statistics in the country was applied. Expectedly, the NBS has come under serious criticism for putting the nation’s unemployment rate at just 6.4 per cent. According to the Country Director, PLAN International, Hussaini Abdu, the 6.4 per cent unemployment rate is far from realistic. He said 34 per cent would be close to the true figure.
He stated that: “Changing figures on paper does not reduce the number of the unemployed in the job market. This is a very unserious way to deal with a national problem. If we say unemployment is 6.4 per cent in Nigeria, are we saying we are better off than France, UK and U.S. with higher unemployment figures?”
The figures may have declined, but the incidence of unemployment has not really abated. Unemployment is biting very hard in the country and it constitutes clear and present danger to our society. Therefore, as Muhammadu Buhari takes charge as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he must immediately roll out policies, programmes and projects that will hit very hard at the heart of unemployment in the country.
One good example of government policy that generated lots of jobs was the deregulation of the telecommunications sector. The core objective of that policy was to deliver quality and affordable telecommunications services to Nigerians. That has been achieved to a large extent. Perhaps more important is that that policy which resulted in the sale of GSM licences to private firms, has created millions of jobs directly and indirectly. And the telecommunications sector which obviously was contributing next to nothing to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), now accounts for a good part of the country’s GDP. According to the Nigerian Telecommunications Commission (NCC), the contribution of the telecommunications sector to Nigeria’s GDP rose from a mere 0.62 per cent in 2001 to 5.67 per cent in 2011.
The power sector can re-enact what happened in the telecommunications sector. By formulating and pursuing the right policies for this all-important sector, electricity supply can improve tremendously and this can lead to a boom in economic and social activities across the country. Of course, millions of jobs will be created in the process. The Jonathan administration has succeeded in doing the difficult job of deregulating the sector. This must not be reversed. Instead, the necessary conducive environment must be provided for the new operators in the power sector to operate and take power supply to the next level.
From all indications, the All Progressives Congress (APC), understands and appreciates the enormity of the problem called unemployment, and has in its manifesto stated clearly how it will tackle the problem. No doubt, the party’s road map for jobs looks good. To create jobs, the party plans to do the following:
Invest in large-scale public works projects, beginning in the first quarter of the administration, including a modern national railway system and interstate roads, to energize the economy and create new businesses and jobs throughout Nigeria.
Implement a social housing policy of one million low-cost housing units in the first four years, which will create housing and increase skilled and unskilled employment.
Establish Technology/Industrial Estates fully equipped with ICT, power and other support across the country to attract and encourage small-scale technology businesses and other entrepreneurs.
Establish plants for the assembly and ultimately the manufacture of phones, tablets, computers and other devices.
Promote technology transfer, including investing in new and less expensive technologies (as in the building of affordable homes) to create more jobs.
Make Nigeria a global hub for Internet and telecommunications services, including outsourcing and cloud computing, to create millions of new jobs.
The APC is also looking at growing SMEs to create jobs. Specifically, the party said that it will adopt the following strategies to grow the SMEs sector so that it can create the needed jobs:
- Pay a guaranteed indexed-linked price to farmers to ensure that there is always a ready market for their produce, which will create more jobs, agricultural related employment and sustain existing jobs.
- Create a scheme that provides matching funds for businesses that have already been validated and secured funding elsewhere, including by borrowing, if such business will create a minimum number of skilled jobs.
- Support training centres created for skills acquisition or vocational training by providing infrastructure for such institutions and matching grants where necessary, and organize job fair and recruitment exercises at such institutions.
- Embark on vocational retraining and skills acquisition for unemployed graduates, school leavers and drop-outs emphasizing technology and construction such as plumbers, electricians and tilers, which will feed the public works and social housing schemes among others.
- Dramatically increase the number of small and medium-sized enterprises that produce new jobs, with industrial hubs focused on their creation and growth in all regions of the country.
- Increase investments in research and development, particularly in the areas of science and technology, to create jobs in high-demand fields.
- Improve the entrepreneurial, vocational and technical skills of youth in areas such as technology, agriculture, manufacturing and other important fields, to prepare them for the jobs of the future.
- Before now, it was all talk and more talk. But time has come for the APC to walk the talk, and this rests squarely on the shoulders of President Muhammadu Buhari. Unfortunately, he does not have all the time in the world to do this because the problem has got out of hand and, therefore, needs to be addressed immediately.
Buhari will surely record some quick wins with regard to tackling unemployment if he moves fast in the direction of boosting Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs). As APC rightly cited, in China, an estimated 50 million Small-medium enterprise (SMEs) created about 500 million jobs between 1980 and 2012. According to the party, faced with a huge population, the country embarked on an aggressive empowerment of SMEs and the creation of enabling micro-credit structure that led to this renaissance. Today, SMEs contribute to 60 per cent of China’s industrial output and 80 per cent of the country’s jobs. This feat can be replicated in Nigeria with the right policies.
According to an intergovernmental organization, Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion, formal SMEs account for 45% of total employment in emerging economies. This figure, it said, is even higher when informal businesses are counted. Again, SMEs tend to create jobs at a faster pace than larger companies, and in emerging markets they help to accelerate the transition from agricultural to industrial economies, the organization noted.
In Nigeria, SMEs face many impediments which make it difficult for them to thrive and grow and create jobs. These include government regulation, lack of needed infrastructure and access to funds. Efforts must be made by the Buhari Presidency to remove these obstacles so that SMEs can flourish and create wealth and jobs. We can ill-afford delay… the time to is now!
NIGERIAN SPORTS: The Imperatives Of The Urgent Rescue Of A Long Suffering Brand For Mr. President – GODWIN DUDU-ORUMEN
This comes at the instance of my Publisher, Mr Nnanke Harry-Willie, a most energetic, cerebral and very motivated young man. Ordinarily I do not engage in the dishing out of unsolicited advice to government especially in public because quite often it’s a hollow ritual. Also, even when opinions are invited by government they are hardly implemented and become an exercise in futility. And to be honest Nigeria’s sports is not where it is today because of a shortage of literature and advice on the way forward. It is because successive governments lacked the sovereign will to do as advised by several bodies, Commissions of Enquiry, Ministerial Committes etc etc who have worked and turned out well-intentioned and considered views, positions and advice.
Name it, there have been the S.O. Williams Committee (1982), The Babayo Shehu NFA Re-Structure Committee (2004), The Adokiye Amiesimaka Ministerial Committee, The Brigadier-General Oneya Committee reports and many others I have no intention of burdening this piece with. It is enough to say that there are enough advice and recommendations to make sports a great and sustainable industry that can create at least two million jobs at different levels and constantly engage a majority of the populace today have been put forward and quickly archived to gather choking dust.
Sports in Nigeria is not a miasma. It is an industry awaiting exponential exploitation. It is a powerful, immense and unmatchable tool for social mobilization, the very sentiment and grain for the establishment of the National Sports Festival now lacerated by many undesirable negatives. Sports can create hope where despair and pain exist. Sports can create economic emancipation, empowerment and growth if well organized.
Sports will come good and serve its real purpose in society and become very rewarding to all if the right leadership is enthroned, empowered and allowed a decent and appreciable time on the job as the watchman and navigator of the business to profitable grounds. Fifteen Sports Ministers in thirteen years is damaging to sports. A leadership that learns on the job is not what sports needs.
Therefore the ideal of appointing a Sports Minister from the lower end of ministerial appointees does the brand no good. It, in fact, totally undermines and mortifies the activities and keeps it permanently in a state of inertia. Managing and superintending Nigeria’s sport is beyond the ken of the School Physical Education (P.EE) teacher, a former Local Government Chairman or retired Councillor for many reasons including the increasing need for self-funding, planned development and growth, professionalism and high quality administration and the production of elite sports men to match global standards and to make sports profitable to all stakeholders are major tasks requiring know-how.
It becomes imperative that the leadership of the brand must be a Captain knowledgeable in the administration, development and growth of the brand. The captain must have vision, passion, capacity to take sports as a brand to the market place to invite industry captains and decision makers to buy into the business. The time has come when sports must stop going cap-in-hand to the private sector for over- advertised late night presence in sports broadcasts and events in exchange for tokenistic support.
Our prayers in Sports therefore include but not exhaustive of the under listed and several as are captured from the S.O Williams Report of 1982 and my thoughts:
- The National Sports Commission has to have a law properly setting it up, giving it muscle to function in its time position as the numero uno custodian of Nigeria’s Sports. A proper and all-encompassing legislation is canvassed.
- The new Legislation must provide for a Board headed by a Chairman (Not Executive), the Chairman being of Ministerial rank so he/she is able to attend FEC meetings to channel the challenges and needs of the commission and sports brand directly to the body at all times. The Board must have representation from all the major geo-political zones or in the alternative representation should come from the “old” NSC zones.
- To re-create a National Policy for Sports to promote awareness for the general fitness of every Nigerian; to provide requisite fora for free and fair competitions for all Nigerians with a view to forging bonds of friendship and understanding; provide opportunities for persons with talents to excel in chosen sports as a means of self-fulfillment and the promotion of the national image and without prejudice to ethnic, religious or political affiliations or boundaries; and to provide national, continental and global opportunities for Nigeria to measure its strength against all other countries.
- Re- vamp the National Sports Festival and commit it to the original ideological take-off point of its founding fathers with changes mutatis mutandis.
- Special measures should be taken to re-invent schools sports. The current situation is undesirable, creating no real benefits beyond the comfort of the people in charge. Schools sports was until its barstadization the talent pool and conveyor belt for all the major sports in Nigeria. Better programming, direction and adequate funding from government (NSC and Federal Ministry Of Education) would produce great results.
- The National Institute Of Sports is moribund. It requires urgent visitation and surgery to bring it back to life and up to speed with Nigeria’s needs and global equivalents like the Australian Institute of Sports which drives that country’s sports and its numerous honors collection at the Olympics and world Sports. Beyond the desolate, isolated structure at the National Stadium complex, the N.I.S has to begin to function.
Sports administration and governance is not for the jejune, the otiose or the neophyte. It is also not the tuff for self aggrandizement or gratification, nor for anyone seeking social and political relevance. It is for the librated, the visionary, the informed, the pro-active, and the self- assured equipped with the right competences and an abiding passion for sports as well as unqualified desire to make a difference and add value to sports.
Brand Sports is in dire need of a pragmatic Captain, a very good mariner who knows the port he is headed. One who can play in the deep waters of international sports intrigues where huge decisions are made. Nigeria has almost zero representation in continental and global bodies because of self-styled and mendacious czars of Nigerian Sports who fielded their cronies and lackies all of very limited capabilities and have now been crowded into oblivion together with their masters.
Mr. President, please do not play Pontius Pilate with Sports. Give Nigerians and its Sport a good Minister, a good Captain. Thank you.
WE MUST PRODUCE OR DIE – NNANKE HARRY WILLIE
Godbless is a furniture maker. He was privileged to have attended one of the technical schools in the 1980s and upon graduation did his internship with one of the highly rated furniture companies existing then. He was retained and worked for that company until the late 1990s when he was sure he had garnered enough experience and saved enough money to set up his own outfit. Not long after he set up, he was literally smiling to the bank as corporate and individual clients kept inundating him with orders for cabinets, desks, chairs, settees, beds and so on. By 2005, Godbless finally agreed to the entreaties of his bankers and took up a loan to expand his business by acquiring more up-to-date equipment and a bigger property in the suburbs of Lagos for his factory. Things couldn’t have been better as cheaper good quality materials, input, accessories were coming in from China and his products could easily compete with products from advanced countries.
However, by the turn of the decade Godbless’s whole world had begun to crumble around him. His patronage had dropped by 50%, he was steeped in debt, owed a backlog of salaries and had to lay off 20 of his 30 permanent staff. Today, Godbless has laid off all but 2 of his staff and sold off his property and most of his equipment in order to free himself of bank debt. It would be appropriate to say that Godbless was not so blessed anymore as he was back to square one in his career. You may wonder what could be responsible for Godbless’ travails. It is simple. His patrons suddenly discovered cheaper albeit substandard alternatives dumped in Nigeria from China! Fully finished furniture of all types, including doors can be found in virtually everywhere you go in Nigeria, rendering hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers in that sector jobless.
It is no joke. Unrestricted imports and wanton smuggling of all manner of products into the country has become the single most important factor impeding against the growth of Nigeria’s manufacturing sector with the dumping of cheaper and mostly inferior alternatives in Nigerian markets. Godbless’ travails is a metaphor for many Nigerian companies.
In 2006, Dunlop Nigeria Plc abruptly shut down its N8 Billion production plant after producing tyres and rubber products in Nigeria for 45 years, and that was only four years after investing about N6.5 Billion on the plant technology in order to boost commercial vehicle tyre output. In 2007 Michelin Nigeria followed suit and announced its painful but necessary decision to close its manufacturing plants in the country, while retaining sales operations and maintaining its rubber plantations. By that decision, over 1,300 jobs were terminated. It was clear that cost competitiveness was one reason that led to Michelin’s decision.
Almost 4 years after Dunlop’s group managing director, Dr. Mohammed J. Yinusa, announced in December 2011 that their production lines may be brought back to life in 2012 following the federal government’s pledge at that time to review import duties among other factors, to encourage local production, the company’s factories are still in mournful silence because clearly, what they received was just the usual lip-service.
A visit to a textile and garment factory in the first week of June 2015 in the Surulere, Lagos industrial cluster area further brought home the dangerous slide in the fortunes of the manufacturing sector to me. This company which produced some world-class promotional branded polo shirts for one of my clients only a few months ago had been forced to close shop the previous week. Cheaper alternatives were being sourced directly from China. Over 200 staff had to be laid off in the process! The expatriate GM told me their next move was to source for buyers for their plant and equipment. Mind you, none of these companies folded up completely. They merely, shut their production lines and joined the league of ubiquitous traders to make easy money through importation to the detriment of the country.
The story is the same in virtually all productive sectors as factories and warehouses are shut down, and are either left lying fallow or are sold off to churches or converted to trading centres.
Ninety percent of the tomato paste in Nigerian markets are imported, the same applies to rice, spirits and wines, electronics, computers and IT equipment, beauty products, clothes, shoes, fashion accessories, paper, fuel, generators, tricycles, cars and even services such as health-care and education to list a few. In our foolishness, we have shut down keep shutting down most of our factories, industries and enterprises and unwittingly providing employment and creating wealth for millions of people across the world while consolidating our poverty. As a result, over here in Nigeria we are creating an army of unemployed youth and middle-aged adults whose frustrations will eventually lead to monumental social implosion if not urgently checked through the conscious execution of well-crafted, self-serving policies for the Nigeria nation-brand.
One of the good legacies of the Goodluck Jonathan administration is the establishment of The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) following the signing into law of the act on 22nd April, 2010.Some of the responsibilities the board include the following: increasing indigenous participation in the oil and gas industry, building local capacity and competencies, creating linkages to other sectors of the national economy and boosting industry contributions to the growth of our National Gross Domestic Product. It has become clear that Nigeria is in dire need of an adaptation of this sort of local content Marshall Plan to salvage our manufacturing and productive sectors. We must begin by wholly producing the products that we have comparative advantage in. This includes primary and secondary products. A whole lot of wealth is lost every year because we fail to properly harness our resources whereas a virile manufacturing and productive sector will spin-off robust opportunities for the supply chain, distribution chain and the services industry.
The President Muhammadu Buhari administration has a unique opportunity to ride on its “Change” mantra to steer us out of this treacherous slide. While it is not possible to be an island where we provide all that we need, it is pertinent to take a cue from the George W. Bush and Obama administrations that rushed to bail out their ailing industries during the recent global depression. Obama has since gone ahead to turn the US economy around by introducing policies and legislation that compelled American companies to bring back their production lines from Asia and re-launch America into a manufacturing hub for the world. We really have no choice because if we do not produce, use and sell our own products, we shall die as a people and as a nation sooner rather than later. Time is of the essence.
