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On March 8, 2011,
several events took place all over the world to mark the centenary of
International Women’s Day. Nigeria was no different and several
workshops, seminars and conferences celebrated the economic, political
and social achievements of women.

Traditional gender
roles historically presented household income from a perspective where
women were expected to stay at home and look after children. The
economic reality today is that to lead even the most modest existence,
more often than not, requires a two-income family. Most families have
to rely on incomes from both partners in order to meet family goals of
educating children, living in a decent home and planning for retirement.

Barack Obama, on
October 5, 2010, addressed the 2010 Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit
in Washington, D.C. where he honoured accomplished women from around
the world. He stated that women make up half of America’s workforce and
are primary or co-breadwinners in two-thirds of American families.

Women all over the
world are earning more than ever before, and many are contributing a
significant part of the household income, sometimes even assuming the
role of primary breadwinner. This social phenomenon is bringing about
profound changes and has financial, emotional and psychological
implications for both men and women particularly in a patriarchal
society such as ours with its traditional views of gender roles. Any
role reversal can be destabilizing, and this trend can lead to
frustration or resentment as an increasing financial burden is placed
on women on the one hand and potentially bruised male egos on the other.

Generations of
women have held the Proverbs 31 woman as their role model. Even though
she existed thousands of years ago, her approach to life and her
finances, is more relevant than ever for the 21st Century woman.
Proverbs 31 forms a veritable guide to all women of what we can aspire
to and with wisdom, determination and focus, today’s woman is capable
of making a success of both her home and her work. Here are some
practical financial lessons from her that we can imbibe in our own
lives.

She is frugal

“She is like the
merchant ships, bringing her food from afar.” She is prudent about her
shopping and is quality conscious. She will go some distance to ensure
that she gets value for money. We too can be frugal in our shopping,
and avoid impulse buying.

She invests wisely

“She considers a
field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard”. Apart from
working to earn a living, she invests carefully. She not only plans for
the short term but understands and seeks the benefits of long term
investments and income and contributes to the financial well-being of
her household. She is reliable and dependable and her husband trusts
her and has full confidence in her ability to make the right day-to-day
decisions and administer the family assets efficiently.

She plans ahead and is organised

“When it snows, she
has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet.”
She is an organised and energetic woman who manages her time
efficiently; she accomplishes more by starting her day early and
carries out her responsibilities with diligence and good cheer.

She is an entrepreneur

“She makes linen
garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes.” “She
sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at
night.” This woman runs a business from her home and has the business
acumen to be a successful trader in the marketplace. Her effort and
industry supplement the family income.

She is talented and industrious

“She stretches out
her hands to the distaff, and her hands grasp the spindle” She uses her
creative talents to earn additional income to support her family. She
is a wonderful example of diligence and industry. With a little
imagination and determination you can put your talent to good use. You
may be a great cook, have a special voice, or be a gifted tailor. How
can you develop these skills through diligent application to the point
where they can increase your income?

She is generous

“She extends her
hand to the poor, and stretches out her hands to the needy.” She is
generous; not only did she care for her family and her domestic staff,
but she also gave back to society and cared for the poor and needy.

She keeps fit and strong

“She girds herself
with strength and makes her arms strong”. We get the impression of a
woman who kept herself physically and mentally fit and well, through
exercise and an appropriate diet.

She is submissive

There are
misconceptions about the word ‘submissive’. To many ‘modern’ women, the
word has a negative tone about it as it connotes weakness. Yet, a truly
submissive woman is not feeble. She lays aside all negative
connotations to rest and sees the ideals of submission not as
subservience or as a threat to her identity, but rather, as a
partnership. It does not undermine her, her confidence or her position.
There is no contest about who is ‘in charge’. She is her husband’s
helper. Whilst submission may not be an easy or popular choice, it
brings harmony to a home. It is that admission of dependence upon one
another and an acceptance of our traditional roles.

It is far too easy
to place the Proverbs 31 woman up on a pedestal as if to try to emulate
her is an unattainable goal. In examining the characteristics of this
remarkable woman, as we pass through our diverse and complex
lifestyles, juggling family, home, work, career and business, let us
see if we can come any closer to this ideal in our own lives and as
traditional gender roles evolve.

The inflation
numbers for February are in, and they do surprise. Prices, it seems,
are not growing as fast as they did two months ago. According to the
new numbers, consumer prices in the country rose by 11.1% in the year
to February, down from 12.1% in the year to January. Why? The most
basic problem with inflation statistics in the country is its failure
to tell a coherent story.

Before the 12.1% in
January, the Composite Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 11.8% in
December, and 12.8% in November. Try as hard as you may, it is well
nigh impossible to make sense of these movements, still less predict,
on this basis, the inflation trajectory over three months.

In an election
year, there were reasons galore to imagine that government spending was
going to be a major source of pressure on domestic prices. Pork-barrel
politics is almost unavoidable in a democracy as young as ours, and
with its lack of proper political party/electorate connections. The
structure of government spending is an additional consideration. For a
while now, the bulk of it has been on consumption.

So, if government
was going to spend more in an election year, invariably it was going to
do this at a time when its failure to spend money to improvie domestic
productive capacity has limited supply responses across every sector of
the economy. Moreover, did it matter for relative prices in the local
economy that this is a government that has, since coming into office,
made a poor fist of staying within its spending commitments? Maybe!

The new inflation
numbers upend this logic. Strange though this is, it would seem that
government has not spent as much as most commentators had anticipated.
That somehow, its spending has been sufficiently sterilised.
Alternatively, that because domestic prices have become insulated from
government over-spend, and with both consumer spending and business
investment in the doldrums, inflation is well contained.

There is a
different possibility. Monetary policy may just be working a lot better
than we give the process credit for. Beginning at its September 2010
meeting, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s rate setting committee (the
Monetary Policy Committee – MPC) signalled a lower appetite for
inflation when it added 25 basis points to the policy rate to move it
from 6.0% to 6.25%.

This concern with
“continued high inflation rate” was re-visited at the MPC’s November
meeting, where, even though it agreed to keep the policy rate unchanged
at 6.25%, it included “fiscal consolidation and the continuation of
comprehensive economic and structural reforms to remove supply-side
bottlenecks,” as necessary conditions to relieve the build-up of
pressure on domestic prices. January this year, MPC members voted 11 to
1 to put up the policy rate by another 25 basis points. “Perceived
inflation risks in the near term” was again the main worry of the
monetary tightening process.

Giving this effort,
what chance is there that the CBN’s signals may have worked to moderate
the adverse effects of fiscal excesses on domestic prices?

The apex bank
itself will not pretend that it has a firm enough grip on the
relationship between its base rates and domestic prices, that it then
takes comfort from any of this. The best that can still be said is that
by tinkering with its policy rate, the CBN can nudge interbank rates
along certain tracks for some distance.

But by how much it
can do this is still moot. Anyway, the CBN’s efforts cannot matter that
much, given that the industry through which its rate increases ought to
affect domestic prices, has very tenuous linkages with the real economy.

That said, there
are still questions arising from the inflation numbers. The National
Bureau of Statistics indicates that “Average monthly food prices rose
by 2.9% in February 2011 when compared with January 2011 figure. The
level of the Composite Food Index was higher than the corresponding
level a year ago by 12.2%. The average annual rate of rise of the index
was 13.9% for the twelve-month period ending February 2011”.

Thus, prices did
come under pressure, and significantly too. What the new numbers allude
to is that compared with the figure for the corresponding period last
year, domestic prices have not risen as fast.

Union Bank has signed a memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the African Capital Alliance Consortium (ACA Consortium ) to invest N112.5 billion ($750 million) in the bank. This is sequel to the earlier announcement that the bank had entered into negotiation with a core investor.

A release from the bank signed by its spokesperson, Francis Barde, added that the MOA will in the main, provide a framework for the process by which the bank will be recapitalised.

“However, the entire process will be subject to the approval of the bank’s shareholders, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Nigerian Stock Exchange, and the Federal High Court,” Mr. Barde further said.

The ACA Consortium is a group of institutional investors led by African Capital Alliance (ACA), a leading independent private equity firm investing in West Africa, principally in Nigeria and Gulf of Guinea.

The ACA Consortium was founded in 1997 with a mission to build Africa’s premier private equity investment firm by mobilising capital, technology, and management resources from local and international sources to unlock Africa’s private sector potential.

The ACA Consortium, which will invest as Union Global Partners Limited, consists of ACA B-Holding Limited, (comprising an ACA managed fund, FMO Netherlands, an international development financial institution, and other co-investors), TRG Management LLP, The Keffi GroupVIII LLC (comprising the Keffi group and other United States-based institutional investors), ABC Holdings Limited (Bank of Botswana) and the Discovery Group.

Status enhancement

The bank said its recapitalisation by the ACA Consortium will enhance its liquidity, corporate governance, and capital adequacy and restore its strong competitive position.

Union Bank is among the banks rescued in 2009 by the CBN, and the chief executive officers sacked. The regulator then injected about N120 billion to save the bank from imminent collapse.

At a meeting held with shareholders in October, the various interest groups in Union Bank agreed that the management should pursue its recapitalisation plans in order to restore the bank to its prime position in the Nigerian banking industry. They agreed that the new core investor should have been in existence for years, with known financial pedigree and global clout that will give the bank leverage in the industry.

“The forum also suggested that the board and management should involve credible shareholders with substantial holdings to be part of the engagement processes with interested investors,” according to a statement signed by Mr. Barde.

This capital injection is so far the most outstanding progress in the effort of the Central Bank of Nigeria to get new core investors for the rescued banks.

Apart from Afribank, which announced the signing of memorandum of understanding (MoU) recently, none of the five other rescued banks have disclosed progress in its agreement with new core investors.

The other banks namely Oceanic Bank, Intercontinental Bank, Bank PHB, Spring Bank, Finbank, Equitorial Trust Bank are yet to announce appreciable success.

Aggrieved shareholders of Bank PHB last week secured a court injunction against the planned sale of the bank to Habib Bank of Pakistan.

The
federal government at the weekend expressed disgust over the attitude
of some financial operators to consumers, which include failure to
provide useful information on their new products.

Ify
Umenyi, director general, Consumer Protection Council (CPC), gave the
charge during a financial services stakeholders’ meeting marking the
2011 World Consumers’ Day in Abuja.

The
DG, described the recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directive to
micro-finance banks to acquire information technology infrastructure
before the end of the year as a move which would further protect the
interest of consumers at the market place.

Speaking
further on consumer education, Mrs. Umenyi lamented that “this outright
neglect of corporate responsibility has caused untold harm to
consumers, who often fall prey to some unscrupulous fraudsters that
exploit their ignorance to defraud them.”

She
said that the council is not comfortable with the zero level of
consumer education on these new services, stressing that this obvious
lack information placed a lot of statutory burden on sector regulators.

The
meeting, which was attended by sectoral players and various agencies of
government in the financial sector, has as its theme, ‘Consumers for
Fair Financial Service’.

“Much
as we appreciate many innovations brought into the industry by
operators to make financial service attractive to consumers, we are of
the firm belief that it is the responsibility of the operators to fully
educate the consumers properly on the new services and how to maximise
the services.

“This
development underlines the need to adequate financial service literacy
and therefore, places a statutory burden on sector regulators such as
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Nigerian Deposit
Insurance Corporation (NDIC), and others to raise tighter policies and
ensure adequate enforcement to guarantee a safe and satisfactory
financial service,” Mrs. Umenyi said.

While
commending the CBN on the directive to microfinance bank on IT
infrastructure, the CPC boss noted that the establishment of the Card
Fraud Arbitration Committee by the apex bank to provide a card fraud
arbitration framework for speedy resolution of card fraud complaints,
was a step in the right direction as it would help to look into the
various anomalies relating to the use of Automated Teller Machine (ATM).

Mrs.
Umenyi also commended the efforts of Lamido Sanusi, the CBN governor,
over his policy which stipulates N50, 000 fines on banks and e-payment
companies that breach its guidelines on the operation of ATM.

In its bid to
diversify Nigeria’s foreign reserve base, the Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN) has begun training of staff and operators in trading in the
Chinese Yuan.

Lamido Sanusi, CBN
governor, has always made a case for diversifying the country’s foreign
exchange reserve, with a small shift into Asian currencies, in
particular the Chinese Yuan.

“If anything is
changing from a strategic perspective, it is that we’re looking towards
the Asian currencies. If you look at surpluses in China and if you look
at where the RMB (Yuan) is today and the likely future direction of the
Chinese economic policy … we believe some position in RMB would be
good,” he told Reuters last year.

Nigeria’s foreign
exchange reserves, which currently stands at $34.9 billion, is held
more than 80 per cent in US dollars, 10 per cent in Euros, and the rest
in other investments including gold.

Introducing Chinese Yuan

The introduction of
the Chinese Yuan forms part of the CBN strategy to reduce demand for
dollars and thus reduce pressure on the naira. In a circular to
operators on March 7, the CBN offered free training to authorised
currency dealers.

“The Commerz Bank
Representative Office (Nigeria) Limited has offered to train staff of
the CBN and senior level treasury officers of Nigerian banks on the
Chinese Yuan,” the circular stated.

However, some operators are sceptical about how much the introduction of the Yuan would take the pressure off the dollar.

Akin Oladeji,
managing director of Futures and Bonds Limited, a financial advisory
and trading services firm, believes trading in Yuan would deepen the
foreign exchange market.

“As you are aware, Nigeria is gradually becoming a major trading point with Chinese, hence more investment will be encouraged.

“There will be more
volatility in pricing, since the currency trading power will be tied
indirectly by the purchasing power of dollar,” Mr. Oladeji said.

He said demand for the dollar will reduce to the extent of demand for Yuan.

“However, this will not be immediate since there will be lag effect for adjustments to market dynamics,” he further said.

No significant effect

Razia Khan,
regional head of Research, Africa, Global Research, at Standard
Chartered Bank in London, also said the introduction of the Yuan may
not significantly affect the dollar demand on the long run.

“Is the Yuan fully
convertible at the international market? So, the demand for dollar is
not going to be affected by introducing the Yuan,” she said at a news
briefing in Lagos last week.

A currency trader, who did not want to be named, said so far, the CBN has not demonstrated enough willingness to pull it.

“Has CBN told anybody that it is going to sell Yuan at the WDAS? They have never sold anything but dollars at the WDAS.

“So if they make
Yuan an authorised currency doesn’t really mean anything. I am not even
sure the Yuan is fully convertible. It is not a big deal,” he said.

The recent public
presentation of the book, ‘The Ogbunigwe Fame’ by Felix Oragwu brought
up memories of the technological innovations that kept the Biafran
dream alive from 1967 to 1970.

During the vicious
civil war, Biafra was blockaded and starved of access to resources
ranging from domestic goods to industrial products. Necessity thrust
upon Biafra the need to innovate and to create. It was in this mode
that the nascent nation built and ran crude oil refineries and also
produced missiles or bombs, then known as ‘ogbunigwe’ or ‘Ojukwu
buckets’. These efforts were driven by the inescapable urge for
survival.

In the past few
years, there has been an emergence of what many term ‘bush refineries’
in the oil fields of the Niger Delta. These are spots in the swamps and
creeks where local people, mostly youth, produce petroleum products
using crude oil obtained from either already leaking pipelines or from
spots broken into by crude oil thieves.

These refineries
pose serious health hazards to their operators as they have no clue
about the toxic nature of the products and do not have any sort of
protective clothes, boots, or gloves. These young folks bear the
extreme heat from the flames of the belching dragons in order to
produce litres of semi-refined products that pose additional threats to
the end users.

Many deaths related
to kerosene explosions have been recorded and these may have resulted
from the use of the uncontrolled products from these contraptions. The
dire poverty in the oil region is often cited as justification for the
existence of these bush refineries.

Regrettably, the
response from the government, as well as from the political parties
seeking control of the federal government after next month’s elections,
is nothing beyond the provision of physical infrastructures in the
region. While these are essential, the most urgent need of the region,
and indeed the entire nation, is the detoxification of our environment.

As we have often
argued, the average Nigerian will take care of her basic needs if the
physical environment supports her livelihood-generation efforts. This
means that the urgent first step is an audit of the environmental
situation of the region, as could possibly be exemplified by the
current study of Ogoni by the United Nations Environmental Programme
(UNEP).

A factor that could
be perpetuating the bush refineries is the dislocation of the social
infrastructure of the region. This includes the loss of communality,
the rise of individualism, and the deep corruption that has been
entrenched by key players in the oil industry sector. These systemic
ruptures must be structurally addressed.

We cannot ignore
the efforts of security agencies in combating the menace of the illegal
refineries. But merely combat posturing only gives the trigger-happy
security men cover for extortion and further human rights abuses of an
already traumatised people.

However, it must be
acknowledged that the continued operation of these bush refineries is a
disservice to the local people and a huge shame to the government.

‘Ghost’ bush refineries

Going by figures
from the Joint Military Taskforce operating in the Niger Delta,
hundreds of these bush refineries have been destroyed. By mid-December
2009, the JTF reported that there were over 1000 “illegal refineries”
in the Niger Delta and that within two months to that time they had
destroyed 600 of the refineries in different parts of the region.

Sarkin Bello, the
General who commanded the JTF at that time, made an important point
that just as other ills had started in one part of the nation and
spread to other parts, there was a chance that such refineries may pop
up in other areas of the country – especially those through which oil
pipelines passed.

Months later, Mr.
Bello bemoaned the resurgence of the bush refineries, as was widely
reported in the mass media. It was not exactly surprising when a
fortnight ago, the JTF announced that they had detected 500 bush
refineries in the Mbiama area on the border between Rivers and Bayelsa
States.

It was not
surprising because the refineries have been operating more or less
brazenly, with law enforcement agents sometimes accused of exacting
tolls or illegal taxes from the operators. So they probably destroyed
600 in 2009 and the ghosts of the levelled plants resurrected soon as
the security agents left the scene. These bush refineries are huge
tourist attractions for foreign journalists and you do not need a space
rocket to gain access to their locations.

We have heard some
politicians claim that the bush refineries cannot be eliminated because
the youth cannot find alternative avenues of employment. Quite
specious, that form of reasoning. It is illustrative of the ineptitude
of persons in power who ought to provide employment and keep people
away from practices that are harmful to them, the environment, and the
economy.

There are untold
dangers related to operating these bush refineries. The poor youth who
work these refineries, covered in crude, standing in the searing heat
and continually inhaling toxic elements can hardly be in a position to
enjoy the fruits of their labour. These refineries may put some kobo in
their pockets, but they are essentially condemned to poor health and
truncated lives.

It is a shame that
a government that trumpets amnesty for people who took up arms against
state structures would not consider extending the same largesse to
these poor lads who are killing themselves. Could they not benefit from
some technical education and other benefits extended to the militants?

A point that we
must underscore is the fact that despite the large number of these bush
refineries and the fact that they refine products that are illegally
obtained, their operations do not lead to a reduction of the crude oil
output of Nigeria. Why is this? It is simple to see.

Large-scale illegal
bunkering with international dimensions has gone on unchecked for
decades and many top guns obviously benefit from it. The large-scale
crude oil theft in Nigeria has gone on alongside the continual meeting
of the production quota of the nation.

The bush refiners
may have been inspired by the fact that between the oil wells and the
export terminals is a bottomless pit in which thievery is highly
rewarded. Efforts at halting the petty stealing for bush refining will
not be successful if the cancer of mass oil theft by the high and
mighty is not tackled.