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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.

The Freedom of
Information bill (FOI), one of the oldest bills in the National
Assembly, which has once been rejected by lawmakers and former
President Olusegun Obasanjo, has resurfaced in the House of
Representatives for fresh considerations.

Lawmakers now hope
the bill, which was passed before but denied presidential assent in
2007, may after all be made law this time although they are not sure of
the time.

Yesterday, the
House recommitted the proposed law to two of its committees:
Information and National Orientation and Justice, revoking an earlier
decision which was seen as a death knell for the proposed Act.

“The House resolves
to rescind its decision of Wednesday, November 14, 2007 on the said
bill and order its re-committal to the joint committee on Information
and National Orientation and Justice,” reads a motion filed Thursday to
that effect and affirmed by the House without debates.

First introduced in
1999 as a non-member bill sponsored by Media Rights Agenda, the
document which has 34 sections was refused passage at the House as well
as the senate. It was recommitted in 2003 and eventually passed in 2007
towards the closing of the fifth session of the National Assembly.

Still, Mr Obasanjo
withheld his approval citing infringement on state security; a
possibility the administration said could be enhanced if certain
sections of the law were allowed as proposed.

The current session
of lawmakers received the bill anew in 2007 amid mounting opposition by
many members who have not concealed their disdain for the proposals. An
order has kept the bill awaiting plenary considerations since 2007.

Both chambers
announced ahead of their resumption weeks ago, that the FOI bill will
now be part of a number of delayed bills due for greater attention
before leaving office, others being the Petroleum Industry Bill and the
Anti-Terrorism bill.

The House yesterday
recommitted the FOI bill to the two committees for “thorough scrutiny”
withdrawing the order that kept it awaiting plenary considerations. It
did not state any date for the completion of work on the bill.

The decision came
about a week after the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, pressed
the lawmakers to accelerate work on the proposal.

Ita Enang, the Chairman House committee on Business and Rules, who
led 20 others to ask for the new decision, said “the need has now
arisen for the house to revisit the said decision on the bill in the
public interest.” Without a clear timeline, the new order neither
negates nor affirms an earlier position of chairman House committee on
Information, Aliyu Wadada who said the bill may not be passed before
lawmakers leave office in May.

A Federal High
Court in Abuja on Thursday restrained the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC), from accepting or recognising Theodore
Orji as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) in Abia State pending the hearing and determination of a suit
challenging his candidacy.

Presiding Judge,
Gabriel Kolawole gave the order after hearing, Niyi Akintola counsel to
Ikechi Emenike a governorship candidate in the state. Defendants in the
suit are; PDP; Haliru Mohammed; INEC and Mr Orji. He equally sought an
interim injunction restraining the incumbent governor from parading
himself as the standard bearer of the party. Mr Kolawole granted the
plaintiff’s leave to serve all the requisite court process on the PDP,
its acting national chairman, Bello Mohammed, INEC, as well as Governor
Orji himself.

The Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Thursday, in Abuja, said it
would roll out a continuous voter registration after the April
elections.
INEC chairman,
Attahiru Jega, disclosed this at the Civil Society Pre-election
Conference with the theme ‘Nigeria’s 2011 Elections: Challenges and
Opportunities’, organised by the National Democratic Institute.
Mr. Jega said the
inability of some eligible voters to come out at all and lateness of
others to the exercise was unfortunate. According to him, “immediately
after April elections we will roll out a continuous voter registration
and people who missed out can register.”
He said the reason
INEC bought 132,000 Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines, an estimated 10
per cent more of the projected polling units, was because the
commission knew the law provided for continuous voter registration.
“We will have the capacity to be able to effectively deploy these for a continuous voter registration,” Mr. Jega added.
The INEC boss said
the commission might not conduct the exercise in each polling unit,
adding that discussions on logistics and framework were under way to
see how best to do it. He noted that previously, the continuous
exercise was tried at the local government level, but it failed. He
said the commission was considering bringing it to the 8,809 wards,
saying many DDC machines will be deployed.
Mr. Jega further warned the electorate against multiple registration, promising to deal with electoral impunity.
The president of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Joseph Garba, said
lack of determination to prosecute political impunity has continued to
hamper the progress of the electoral process. He warned the public that
those who were caught with multiple registration would be charged to
court.

The Presidential
Candidate of the Social Democratic Mega Party (SDMP), Pat Utomi said
the Chief Justice of the Federation, Aloysius Katsina-Alu, should
resign his appointment and leave the position following the ugly
exchanges between him and Ayo Salami, the President of the Court of
Appeal.

Mr Utomi in a
statement issued on Thursday described the development as one that “has
greatly eroded the public confidence in the ability of the institution
to dispense unbiased justice.” According to him, “going by the fact
that a full-scale inquiry would be needed to fully ascertain the
veracity of all claims and counter-claims, we may not be in a position
to apportion guilt to any party.

“Still, it is a
fact that certain institutions, by the manner of functions they carry
out in the society, should remain unassailable by controversy and
engender the greatest confidence in the hearts of all citizens.

The Judiciary,
headed as it were by the office of the Chief Judge of the Federation
being a most important part of such institutions, it is a most
honourable thing for the Chief Judge of Nigeria to resign his
appointment at this time.” He said.

The statement
pointed out that “if the re-assigning of position to a higher one by
the Chief Justice could arouse such mistrust of intent from not only
the beneficiary of the position, but from other important members of
the Judiciary, it goes to point out the abysmal loss of confidence by
the members of the Judiciary in the Chief Judge.” Mr Salami whose
elevation to the Supreme Court was yesterday quashed by the National
Judicial Council had since gone to court to challenge the unsolicited
elevation, alleging through his counsel, Lateef Fagbemi, that the Chief
Justice of Nigeria (CJN) had expressly requested from him as the PCA,
the dissolution of the panel trying the Sokoto gubernatorial election
petition to the intent of compromising the verdict.

The National
Judicial Council had through a statement reversed the “elevation”
“because of the controversies it generated.” A Civil group, Access to
Justice has also called for an immediate investigation of the
allegations levelled against the Chief Justice of the federation.
According to Joseph Otteh, Executive Director of the group, “if the
allegations that the Chief Justice of Nigeria had sought to interfere
with proceedings before a Court by asking for the disbandment of a duly
constituted tribunal, or procuring the Court of Appeal President to
direct the outcome of the tribunal’s verdict is correct, it would be a
grave, grossly unethical and treacherous violation of the Code of
Conduct for Judicial Officers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“It would undermine
every precept about justice, fairness, due process, rule of law, the
independence of the judiciary, and transparency that the Judiciary
stands for. It would be perfidious, and a serious and profane fraud on
the administration of justice in Nigeria and on the eminent Office of
the Chief Justice who is the face of the Judiciary.” He said.

Protests

Meanwhile, Ayo
Arise (PDP Ekiti State) who represents Ekiti North Senatorial district
in the Senate also in an interview with Journalists said, “I got a
petition from the registered voters in Idosi, a signed petition by over
1000 in that local government complaining about disenfranchisement of
their persons and the fact that their votes did not count in the
governance of the people of Ekiti State simply by the action of
cancelling of all the results of all the voters in Idosi local
government and they prayed after alluding to so many irregularities
that has taken place in the court room of Justice Isa Salami.” He
alleged that the judgment delivered in Justice Salami’s court is a
tinted judgment “as far as they are concern and part of the prayers is
for this hallow chamber to begin impeachment move against justice
Salami, because the compulsion is that the judiciary under his watch
particularly the Appeal Court has now been brought to public ridicule.”