#Glocal #business #news bits

With these types of forums (Breakfast chats with seasoned founders and CEOs), we can share our experiences and fast track our growth - Deji Akinyanju (Founder, Food Concept - Chicken Republic) @Cc_HUB #BreakfastChat pic.twitter.com/qcRMsBsXmC

— Toun Tunde-Anjous (@TounAnjous) July 19, 2018

Congratulations @NOIweala and #Nigeria https://t.co/aempBeBV6d … pic.twitter.com/g6fOgPeFse

— African Business (@AfricanBizMag) July 20, 2018

Vote buying is now a worrisome trend in Nigeria's election. This practice is a dent on demanding accountability and also fuels CORRUPTION.

Reports showed voters received up to N10,000 new notes to cast their votes.

What's the way forward?#EkitiDecides2018

— BudgIT Nigeria (@BudgITng) July 14, 2018

voters

The story that keeps giving. #Ethiopia/#Eritrea peace. Ethiopians in Addis hold flags of both countries to celebrate Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki historic visit to Addis Ababa today, less than a week after the two nations declared end to a two-decade conflict.(Photo -AFP) pic.twitter.com/oWljljrmVH

— New African (@NewAfricanMag) July 14, 2018

"Corruption is not confined to government. To have a corrupt politician, there is an equally corrupt businessman. in many parts of Africa, it is business people who are initiators of corruption."#SouthAfrican mining business mogul Patrice Motsepe at #MandelaLecture #Mandela100 pic.twitter.com/um96X6pTlN

— New African (@NewAfricanMag) July 17, 2018

Barack Obama to the rich amid loud cheers: "What an amazing gift you can have when you help people...there is only so much you can eat, there is only so big a house you can have.. its enough..you dont have to take a wow of poverty to help out." #BarackObama #MandelaLecture pic.twitter.com/XL68ioRCuI

— New African (@NewAfricanMag) July 17, 2018

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Nothing new in the #news - The American presidency is still rubbish and the Nigerian presidency is still nonsense. #DumpTrump and #FireBuhari

“I have been unable to secure an appointment to see you despite very many attempts” Kachikwu to PMB . Disturbing letter pic.twitter.com/Dau4Qp9oL5

— Sadiq Mahmoud (@SMahmoud) October 3, 2017

This letter is too long for Buhari to read sha. Someone will just summarize it and say, "Kachikwu is only greeting you sir." https://t.co/GpDpjal54e

— Chidi Okereke (@Chydee) October 3, 2017

It is impossible for a professional to function effectively under a Govt of Nepotism and Kachikwu is yet another proof of this truth. pic.twitter.com/DysetN8m34

— Demola Olarewaju (@DemolaRewaju) October 3, 2017

My attention has been drawn to the fact that $26B scandal is rocking NNPC under Baba Buhari

As Kachikwu seeks a Transfer move to Wailers FC

— Ebube D Statesman (@akaebube) October 3, 2017

Biggest tragedy here is that Kachikwu is from Oil-rich N'Delta while the person humiliating him & the one he's appealing to are Northerners

— Mr Stanley Nwabia (@MrStanleyNwabia) October 3, 2017

Kachikwu a 5%er actually expects Baru a 97%er to get his approval before awarding contracts or making appointments in NNPC? 😂🤣

— Babasola Kuti (@SKSolaKuti) October 3, 2017

Everytime I see another respected professional being rolled around in the APC Govt mud, I remember this tweet and smh

It’s Kachikwu’s turn. https://t.co/8oxTtRiNXb

— Demola Olarewaju (@DemolaRewaju) October 3, 2017

Kachikwu Accuses NNPC GMD of Awarding $26billion Contracts Without Due Process.

A Diezanian under Buhari shocking!!! 😒😒😒 pic.twitter.com/EiWBLwOCGt

— Adetutu Balogun (@Tutsy22) October 3, 2017

Kachikwu says Baru humiliates and undermines him and awards contracts in NNPC without his knowledge or approval in a letter to Buhari.

— Jackson Ude (@jacksonpbn) October 3, 2017

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Sahara Reporters' Latest: How El-Rufai’s Wife, Children, Kaduna State Government Officials Shared N3billion Contracts

Despite ceaselessly advertising himself as an apostle of due process and transparency, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state, SaharaReporters has found, runs an opaque contract award system in his state. Documents exclusively obtained by SR show that the lack of transparency in contract awards is characterized by blunt refusal to advertise bids, as required by the Procurement Act; contract splitting, cornering of contracts through fronts-by members of El-Rufai’s family, cronies and officials of his government. 

The full article and related pieces are here: Bazaar: How El-Rufai’s Wife, Children, Kaduna State Government Officials Shared N3billion Contracts


NEWSBUKA for all the burning topics in Nigerian politics and society.GeT FREE EmAiL UpDaTeS"

Clarity of thinking, by Nigeria's Sanusi

1. Exchange-rate talk has moved from the province of traders and bankers to...well, everybody: hairdressers, taxi-drivers, and the denizens of Naija-Twitter.  This is how somebody put it:

With Corruption Naira was 202 = 1 Dollar
Without Corruption Naira 405 = 1 Dollar#IStandWithCorruption

— Papi (@itspapibaby) February 20, 2016

With corruption a bag of pure water=80naira
Without corruption=150naira#IStandWithCorruption

— Papi (@itspapibaby) February 20, 2016

Charts: "Official exchange rate" and "exchange rate", click for sources: XE.com , MarkEssien.com

USD/NGN Fixed at ~198 since Q1 2015

but doesn't stop the real rate from marching along.  Will arbitrage happen?  Oh Yes.

2. Meanwhile, respected former head of Nigeria's Central Bank Lamido Sanusi has said [to the BBC that] the government should end its policy of trying to maintain the value of the currency, the Naira...the drawbacks of the policy far outweigh its dubious benefits.
How so? (Source)

• “This argument (on devaluation) I think has first of all been framed wrong, it’s not an argument about do we devalue or do we not devalue. The Naira has already been devalued,” he said.
• “What is the value of the Naira? It’s what you can get for it, what you can get for the dollar in a free market between a willing buyer and a willing seller – and it is not 197.
• “All that is happening is that the government has chosen to sell its own dollars at a subsidised rate to the private sector. That’s what is happening. So, if you’re lucky, you’d get something worth N300 for N200 and you save N100,” Sanusi added.
• He explained that, “for every $1 billion that the Central Bank sells, it has transloaded N100 billion to the private sector – that’s what is happening.
• “So you got a huge arbitrage opportunity, which either way undermines the government’s anti-corruption stance.
• “You also take so much money away from states and local governments, because this is money that from oil proceeds, from PPT, royalties, that should go to education and healthcare for the poor.
• “While the president is looking at the pain inflicted on the poor, by high prices of import, he also needs to look at the pain inflicted on them by taking away revenue that could go into education and healthcare.”

( Hey, I'm no former Central Bank Governor, but #IStandWithLogic  )

I'd listen to Grisha (Perelman) if I were you

While commending the President for transparency, removal of subsidy and other structural reforms, Sanusi said the Federal Government needs clarity of thinking in the handling of the foreign exchange policy.

“There has to be clarity of thinking. The government on the one hand says it wants to encourage domestic production, the Governor of the Central Bank says he wants to reduce import dependence, but one would think that the way to reduce import dependence is not to make imports cheaper.

“You subsidize exchange rate – you’re making imports cheap. So you’re actually pursuing a monetary policy that undermines structural objectives,” he said.

Also commending the Goodluck Jonathan administration, [Sanusi] said that the huge corruption that trailed that government was unprecedented, noting that systems have to be put in place to make it difficult for future leaders to steal:

“The thinking that has to be done is beyond looking for these people, beyond recovering the money, beyond prosecuting them. “What kind of institutional changes do we need to have in processes, in systems, that would make it impossible for the next president to do the kinds of things done in the past”, he said.

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How has the New York Times reported the Central Bank Governor's sack? And what are Nigerians saying about Sanusi's legacy?

Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank Is Fired After Warning of Missing Oil Revenue, by Adam Nossiter, NYTimes.com Feb 20, 2014

"President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria removed the governor of the country’s central bank from his post on Thursday, after the bank governor repeatedly charged that billions of dollars in oil revenue owed to the treasury was missing.
...

Oil yields 95 percent of the country’s total export earnings, and Mr. Sanusi has been saying for months that a substantial portion of the money was missing from public coffers...that the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, or N.N.P.C., had failed to turn over nearly $50 billion in revenue over an 18-month period, from January 2012 to July 2013, “in gross violation of the law.” Though oil prices were strong, official figures inexplicably showed declining revenue and falling reserves.

...

The sprawling company acts as the country’s oil buyer, seller, explorer, producer, processor and regulator, and is “at the nexus between the many interests in Nigeria that seek a stake in the country’s oil riches,” according to a 2010 Stanford University study.

The study said that while the company “functions well as an instrument of patronage,” it is neither competent nor efficient in its many operations. Mr. Sanusi went further, accusing it this month of “illegal and unconstitutional acts,” including transferring income from government-owned oil properties to “private hands.” "

Read the full article

Meanwhile, the backpage column of Nigeria's ThisDay Newspaper today has 'How Would You Remember Sanusi?'  by Simon Kolawole. 

"Can we ignore the fact that Sanusi restored some sanity to the banking industry? Can we ignore the fact that the so-called billionaires, who were heavily indebted to the banks and living like kings were exposed? Can we ignore the fact that, although it cost us heavily, no bank was allowed to go down and no depositor lost one kobo during the crisis, unlike in the past?
Or can we ignore the fact that the rogue bankers are now facing trial, even if their crafty lawyers and the judiciary are working against justice? Can we ignore the successful intervention of Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) which, under Mr. Mustapha Chike-Obi, has done a good job of cleaning up the mess created by these rogues? Can we deny that the stock market is now back to life and this is a major achievement of the Jonathan administration? Can we deny that inflation is now at single digit and the naira has been stable – owing to CBN’s macro-economic management? 

...

If I were to advise President Jonathan, I would tell him not to waste this great opportunity to install and instil accountability in the oil industry. It is tragic that we sell so much oil but cannot account for every kobo that comes in. We give NNPC 440,000 barrels per day when it can only refine 80,000. We then engage in questionable swap deals that apparently short-change us. The NNPC dips its hands into funds that should go directly into the federation account. These are serious issues. In my opinion, we can fault Sanusi’s method but we should never fault the message: NNPC is a disgrace. This has been going on for decades and has to stop. If this controversy will serve as the turning point for the oil industry, so be it."

Read More Opinions of the Nigerian people Re: The Sack of CBN Governor Sanusi

Read More on the NNPC Thefts, Diversions, or Missing Revenue

Process thinking

I once worked in a place where things would often go wrong, and the question on the boss's lips would be "Who...?" as in "who did this?" "who was in charge of this..." so that the person would be in trouble and presumably the problem would go away.  

Engineering processes

As an engineer, I found this to be the most puzzling thing.  Why waste your time on such an irrelevant question as "who"?
Because the more important thing should be maybe "what" happened, and then "why" it happened, and then "why" that happened, and in that case you find yourself with the "root cause" which you can fix (along with the team, the who's that run the process) and then hopefully that issue would not crop up again.

Good engineers are lazy

 Along with the inclination to abuse the "stupid employees" was this baffling habit of designing stupid processes, ones that put a great deal of strain on the boss and the people, and that relied more on hard work than on intelligence, and still produced a high error rate in the results.
I think the missing knowledge was of something called Process Thinking.  Process thinking is important.  It will make you calmer, and make your work many times easier and your results a lot better.

Individual and society

So too in my country in Africa, we think relationships are key to everything.  In the name of basic relationships (what does my wife or my father think of me is the familiar question) we have institutionalized actions that harm self and harm the larger population too.
We think in small groups (I better pass my neighbour, God give me promotion) but ignore the self (does this make ME happy, can I sleep at night?) and ignore the whole too (is this the right thing to do, does it hurt somebody else?)
This mindset is understandable because we've come so recently from small worlds - small village, small ethnicity, small clan - but in the current world we all see that it doesn't produce very good outcomes.  Individuals are frustrated and the country is poor.  Working harder may not solve the problem.  Defeating your neighbour, "feeling rich", getting promoted, "achieving success" may not be the answer. 

Engineering systems

Even on the political front, have some not tried to solve our misidentified "leadership problem" by replacing people?  But we come to the realization that no, we must re-engineer systems instead.  We must fix a risk-reward system at the individual, group, and institutional level.  This is to say, we might think of a country or an economy as an abstract thing, or as an organism, or as a machine, in order to repair it. 

School for intelligence

This is why I respect a good engineering education.  It's one of those things that (hopefully) prepares you to understand systems (like the human body, the global economy, or the market for films) and processes (like the workflow at a branch office, the election of a president, the Arab spring).

a sketch of a helicopter by Leonardo da Vinci 500 years ago

A decade ago, I read that engineering was "the new liberal arts" degree. Along with whatever specific facts and knowledge it might give a student, it would develop his/her critical thinking, systems understanding, process thinking, and design ability.  Then also it should broaden knowledge of the world and importantly of self.  It is a good training for an uncertain job title in an interesting life. 

Cartoon showing laziness as the mama of invention

 Links for more learning
Lazy engineers: Unusual habits of good engineers
Process Thinking: It can make you happier at work and at home
Policy analysis: The Nigerian subsidy example, The technocracy example

Born Rich, a film by Jamie Johnson

Born rich was described as a documentary on the children of the insanely rich, directed by one of their own, Johnson & Johnson heir Jamie Johnson. - Wikipedia: Born Rich
You'll be glued to your screen, just watch.
Jamie Johnson also made a documentary film titled The One Percent, and wrote a (hilarious) column for Vanity Fair.

Battle time in transformation land

Nigeria has come a long way from April when I was frustrated about Delays in Power, the Petroleum industry bill, even the systems of business grants and buses that were promised as a palliative measure after the partial roll-back of subsidies on fuel importation.  We've seen the buses, we're glad about YouWIN, but there are still some problem spots:

Power - As at September, and even until now, the use of available power infrastructure was improved such that many homes + businesses started getting the highest level of "nepa-on" that they've seen in years.  This is a  fantastic development that gives us hope that we can complete the journey in electric power provision.  Note that the improvement so far - from over 2,000 to around 4,000 MW on a max capacity of 5 or 6 thousand - is little compared to what we are really hunting for (in the tens of thousands).
Power Privatization progress is that
1. the generation companies finally got new owners / operators (except for Afam, connected to the resignation of the former Minister of Power, Barth Nnaji)
2. The preferred bidders for the distribution companies have been announced (some bidders complained about the process, but it seems they don't really have a case)
3. the transmission company got new management three months ago, but on paper only.  Business Day reports reveal vested anti-privatization interests in the upper ranks of the privatization process, if that makes any sense.
This is probably why the Minister of State for Power (not to be confused with Minister of Power, still a vacant seat) was moved to the Niger Delta portfolio, and a woman, Zainab Kuchi, erstwhile Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs, brought to replace him.
Current Battlepoint: Install Manitoba as an independent manager of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, that is free to apply its considerable technical base in the growth and management of Nigeria's electric power industry.
If this fails, it may be "cheaper" for the country to allow/license private concerns to develop new transmission infrastructure (natural monopoly or not; there are situations in which such redundancy is normal) and perhaps to weaken the need for the transmission company by allowing local/regional power projects. 

----------------------------
Security - Our people are still being killed in the name of Boko Haram.  A recent study highlighted that the strong-arm response of the military is making the problem worse.  Well, we learn everyday.  I know that Nigeria will use this feedback to work on ensuring our security. 
Current Battlepoints: Ok this one is not a battle, it may need a long-term strategy.

----------------------------
Petroleum - After the subsidy protests, there were four panels set up, including one charged with speeding up the passage of the PIB.  Poor bill, it is being debated still.
Now it turns out that the other three panels had their reports hidden/junked for months, then one was leaked, and now finally the reports will be seen by the President.  It will be fantastic if the reforms they suggest can be taken seriously.
I know that there are political reasons why some may not want these common-sense reforms. For example, in the absence of an alternative system for funding political parties and campaigns, a transparent petroleum revenues account means you're killing the funding for one party.  Many are focused on the idea that the reforms would dilute the power of the individual who holds the Minister of Power portfolio.  But clearly you can't be Minister of Power forever, so there must be a higher reason, right?    
At any rate, I would advocate that we favour light over darkness.  Let's not cover up the cover-ups.  Let us instead work through the issues and find ways to truly make Nigeria progress and prosper.
Current Battlepoints: Finalize the petroleum industry laws so that the players know what's up. 


----------------------------
Power, again: What the hell is happening in Lekki?  On the one hand, they probably demand a lot of power per person.  On the other hand, why are they not getting improved power supply in Lekki of all places?  My guess is that high corruption is taking place to ensure that Lekki residents continue to spend on generators and fuel.  Somebody needs to be fired, but who?

What we want