Nigeria Content Online

In a nation like
ours that loves clichés, proverbs and sayings, I often hear the phrase,
“time is money” but I have very rarely seen evidence that we really
believe that to be the case. Businessmen especially epitomise this
worldview by applying extraordinary pressure on their staff. It takes
twice or three times as long to get something done here than in
developed countries. Why? It must be something to do with our mindset.

We seem to value
time in cyclical phases and seasons rather than in minutes and hours.
We know the value of childhood, adulthood and old age and we accord
each stage of life its due respect.

We recognise the
benefit and importance of our rainy season and dry season and the havoc
it creates when the season starts late and/or ends early. For some
reason that I cannot fathom, we do not seem to understand, recognise,
agree or value linear time measured in minutes, hours, and days….and
this is demonstrated most markedly in the phenomenon that we call
Nigerian time.

Nigerian Time

We are by no means
the only nation that operates by two clocks – Greenwich Mean Time and
national time – but we are particularly bad about keeping our promises
as they apply to timekeeping. We have a built-in variance of up to 2
hours plus for any appointment. This means that participants can expect
a 9am meeting to start LATEST at 11am. It means that if I am invited to
speak at a 3pm event and I arrive at 3.30pm, I am ON TIME. It means
that when you make an appointment with a government official or a
business tycoon for a 15 minute meeting, you need to block out your
entire morning because you don’t know when they will see you.

Your appointment
does not refer to time, it reflects the agreement to receive you.
Operating by Nigerian time also means that if you turn up at a party at
the advertised time, you are EARLY! How much is Nigerian time costing
us?

Recently, at the
launch of my father’s autobiography, it was remarked by several people
that the guests who were over 65 years of age all arrived early or on
time. The under 65s trickled and straggled in, some of them arriving
just 5 minutes before the advertised end of the event. For the older
generation, it was important to show their support by keeping the
appointment and participating in the whole event from start to finish.
To the younger generation it seemed more important to show their face,
rather than to participate, even if they missed the event itself.

And that attitude is reflected in today’s workplace. Presence is given priority over performance.

Staff generally do
not arrive at work early unless they live very far away and wish to
avoid the early morning rush, in which case, they arrive over an hour
earlier than resumption time then proceed to catch up on their sleep at
their desks. We arrive slightly late or very late, and take between 15
to 20 minutes to settle in to work – putting our bags away, starting up
equipment, greeting colleagues, getting a drink, rushing out to the ATM
to get money for some personal errands that need to be done that day –
really the first 30 minutes after arrival are not spent in productive
work. If the employees are dissatisfied or have low morale, it is even
worse! Real work may not commence for over an hour.

For companies who
make their money on billable time, it is easy for them to calculate how
much money each employee’s time is worth, and how much lack of
punctuality by themselves or their clients and customers is costing
them. They can multiply 15 minutes late, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year
(with vacation time removed) and, hey presto, that time has a value.

According to an
article in HR Magazine in November, 2005, chronic lateness costs US
businesses more than $3 billion dollars per annum in lost productivity,
across all types of jobs, office, factory, casual, and professional.

Why are people late?

Research has shown
that it is a combination of low self-control, lack of discipline,
people who like risk-taking or the excitement of rushing, and poor
time-management skills.

What is the cost to
the individual of poor time-keeping? Always being late has a ripple
effect and threatens what a person has planned to achieve in a day.
That danger of not being able to do as much as possible with the
available time through no one else’s fault but your own causes health
and management problems – Anxiety, stress, pressure, extra work,
extra-long workdays, resentment toward management for insisting that
staff stay at work till however late until they finish their work.

In 2003, the
Americas edition of the Economist reported on a national punctuality
campaign in Ecuador, South America. The country’s Olympic walking
champion,

Jefferson Pérez launched the campaign that was promoted by Participacíon Ciudadana, an NGO that calculated that ‘Ecuadorian time’ was costing the South American country $724m per annum (4.3% of GDP).

Over fifty percent
of social and public events start late with government ministries being
the worst offenders. It seems that time keeping was also linked to
self-importance with greater self-importance leading to greater waiting
time.

The government
backed the campaign with personal leadership by President, Lucio
Gutiérrez, who led by example by managing to get to the launch on time.
A massive advocacy effort was run with posters on time-keeping,
time-consciousness, and time/meeting policies handed out to offices and
schools enjoining and scolding Ecuadorians for wasting other people’s
time, and it worked.

Local councils and
airlines committed to keep to time. Latecomers were locked out of
private and public meetings. Public officials who arrived late at
events were named and shamed in local newspapers.

I think Nigerian time needs similar treatment. If lateness costs a
country like Ecuador close to N150 billion per annum, I wonder how much
it is costing us in money, in stress, in high blood pressure, in
corruption, in respect, and in relationships? We need to take a long
hard look at Nigerian Time. Just the way the ‘no broken windows’ policy
in New York led to a drastic reduction in crime, perhaps, a ‘no
Nigerian time’ policy here will lead to a drastic leap in productivity
and wealth. We have nothing to lose by trying and everything to gain.