Nigeria Content Online

When some four
years back, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
threatened to deploy digital data capture machines as part of the
review of the voters’ roll, a frisson of excitement ran through certain
sections of the country. The possibilities for change was in the air!
After all, many recalled, a central aspect of the reforms in Mexico
that led in 2000 to the victory of Vincente Fox’s National Action Party
(PAN), after almost 70 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary
Party (IRP), was the use of voters’ biometric data. These rendered
traditional rigging practices obsolete.

Apparently, so
unique are the whorls on our fingers, that properly implemented, poll
management software (currently available off-the-shelf) is able to tell
several iterations of an individual’s fingerprints, and correctly
programmed, it either consolidates all such impression as one vote, or
otherwise invalidates all the impressions. It can also determine the
non-human impressions of palm kernel nuts. Of course, this means that
the traditional restrictions on movement during voting (for fear that
some voters might, from a surfeit of enthusiasm for the polls, be
minded to impress themselves on more than one ballot paper) have become
unnecessary. We could also save money on the practice of daubing the
voting thumb post-ballot with indelible ink (which indeed is “delible”
applied on a film of cheap hand moisturising lotion).

Imagine then how
shocked some of us where, when it turned out that the machines deployed
by INEC then were neither online nor real-time. They were batching the
data collected for upload at some future period. It did not surprise
much thereafter that the fancy gadgetry didn’t leave up to
expectations, or that the results from that exercise were so badly
traduced in so many post-election court rulings. I have not registered
yet in the current exercise, in part because I think the interruption
of the school year on account of the registration exercise, another
pointer to the unrepresentative nature of our governments. However,
I’ve held off largely because of the concern to establish that the
much-touted direct data capture machines that INEC has procured this
time, at considerable costs to the commonweal can at least approximate
Mexico’s experience: allow every vote to count; and every vote to be
counted. A more transparent voting process, especially one based on
digital data, has clear implications for the economy. The easiest one
is that it allows us to start building a national database. We then
dispense with these time-consuming, resource-diverting regular voter
registration exercises, and instead, when adults come of voting age,
especially when they apply for their driving licenses (presumably after
taking proper driving lessons) they then process their voter
registration in tandem.

A more difficult
implication for the country of a transparent voting process was
underlined by an earlier experience of a different kind of process:
“Option A4”. I was in the vanguard of the opposition to what I then
felt was an atavism. How could we (Nigerians, i.e.) in 1993, be called
upon to line up, like badly behaved schoolchildren, before the symbols
of those we would have rule us? For this perspective, the runaway
success of the June 12 1993 election was moderated by the low turnout
at the polls. Of course, so we thought, with so many qualified voters
dissatisfied with the process, it was inevitable that turnout would be
low. Now, several years after, and upon reflection, a new narrative
recommends itself. First, the bare outlines of this new thinking.
Inevitably, the voter turnout should bear on adult population numbers.
Thus, if elections, which we all generally agree to have been plagued
by irregularities constantly produce results that agree with our
population figures, then, might something not be wrong with those
figures? Might the low turnout of voters associated with the “Option A”
experiment not speak to the authenticity of our population figures?

If this narrative
has even an outside possibility, then a proper voter registration
process might also help us prepare new parameters for the ten-yearly
censuses. Anyway, INEC is presented by the chance of getting this
registration process right, with a win-win opportunity.

As
the level of confidence in the Nigerian capital market builds up in the
banking subsector this year following government’s intervention in the
industry, trading activities in other sectors as well have shown that
investors are also seeking safe haven in Breweries and Food/Beverages
sectors.

Analysis
of trading activities in the two sectors, in terms of traded volume,
since transaction reopened at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) this
year, showed an increase of 45 per cent in Breweries’ stocks and an
increase of 250 per cent in Food/Beverages’ stocks when compared to the
volume traded fortnight to the end of last year.

Within
two weeks, trading in Breweries sector grew from 10.9 million shares to
15.8 million while Food/Beverages sectors moved up from about 58.1
million shares to 202 million.

Bola
Oke, a finance analyst at WealthZone Company, an investment management
firm, said equities in the Breweries and Food/Beverages sectors have
always been the toasts of retail investors as well as fund managers.

A
stockbroker at Eurocomm Securities Limited, Virginus Agada, said that
companies into fast moving consumable goods and brewery business are
good stocks to buy because “when people are happy they drink and eat to
celebrate and when they are sad they still drink and eat.” Mr. Agada
said, “Investors should buy more stocks in the breweries sector because
drinks will continue to sell whether in festive or depressed seasons.”

Heineken acquisitions

While the Food/Beverages sector may lose one of its blue chip stocks,
Nigerian Bottling Company, bottlers of Coca Cola drinks, following the
company’s plan to delist, the Breweries sector may get more patronage
following the recent acquisition of some breweries by Heineken, the
majority shareholder in Nigerian Breweries.

Heineken,
last week, announced that it has strengthened its platform for growth
in Nigeria via the acquisition of two holding companies from the Sona
Group. The two acquired businesses have controlling interests in each
of the Sona Breweries, International Beer & Beverages Industry,
Benue Brewery, Life Breweries Co., and Champion Breweries.

Tom
de Man, President ,Africa & Middle East of Heineken, said the
company’s interest in the nation’s beer industry is because “Nigeria is
one of the world’s most exciting beer markets and one of the most
important countries for Heineken.” The spokesperson for Heineken
Nigeria, Edem Vindah, and his counterpart at Nigerian Breweries, Yusuf
Ageni, could not comment on why Nigeria has been chosen as the
destination for beer market. Efforts to contact George Toulantas,
investor relations manager of Heineken in Greece, were also not
successful as calls and text message to his phone number did not go
through.

Meanwhile,
a report by Renaissance Capital, an investment bank, said, “Nigeria is
the second largest beer market in Africa with an estimated production
capacity of 17 mn hl in 2009, representing 15 per cent of the African
market’s estimated total beer production capacity of 92 mn hl.” “In our
view, Nigeria is a good first point of call with its strong
demographics: a population of 156 mn and estimated gross domestic
product (GDP) per capital growth of 8.6 per cent,” the report said. It
further noted that Nigeria remains one of the least penetrated beer
markets in the world, particularly in terms of its strong demographics.

“Because
of this, we believe that growth in beer consumption will be driven by
rising per capita income and GDP; an increase in per capita beer
consumption; Nigeria’s young population and its steady population
growth, and a gradual change in cultural factors, as a bar culture
arises among the younger population,” it said.

In
the mean time, the report said that this “aggressive move” by Heineken
should be “a cause for concern for other players in the Nigerian
market, like Diageo (through Guinness Nigeria) and SAB Miller,” adding
that follow-up reactions to this development is expected by other
competitors.

Nigerian businesses
seeking to attract foreign investors must begin to pay attention to how
it treats its employees. According to studies conducted by Corporate
Initiatives Group (CIG), an affiliate of the Great Place to Work
Institute based in the United States, the way companies take care of
employees is indicative of how well an organisation is run.

“Making your
organisation a great workplace increases your bottomline. These are the
things that foreign investors will look out for,” said Kunle Malomo,
managing partner of CIG. He said his firm is partnering with the Great
Place to Work Institute to evaluate companies to determine Nigeria’s
top companies to work for from the perspective of the employees.

“The ‘Great Place
to Work’ model is based on the key relationship between employees and
management and with other employees and their job.” According to him,
creating a good work environment for employees reduces employee
turnover and cost of training new hands and results in increased
customer loyalty and profitability.

Corporate structure

“A lot of
organisations are looking for foreign investors and one of the
dimensions that foreign investors look at is corporate structure. How
well managed your organisation is and when there is no data it becomes
very difficult for them to make investment decisions. This becomes one
very crucial point to look at in evaluating what an organisation is
doing.” He said the venture will enable Nigerian businesses benchmark
with other world class companies using the same criteria, since a
similar survey is done annually to determine the 100 best companies to
work in the US and 31 other countries.

“How well do you
make your employees productive? We are linking great places to work to
productivity and so it should be one of the things organisations should
look at in evaluating corporate governance.” Mr. Malomo said
participating companies in the survey would be drawn from about 300
companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and would not
necessarily consider their financial base. “We are going to gather data
first hand. So there will be category of publicly traded companies.
Then there will be another category of multinationals. Then we will
look at the category of small and medium scale companies and category
of government and quasi-government agencies. The important thing is
that it is a self nominating process. The companies will indicate that
they want to participate.”

Micheal Burchell,
vice president for global business development for Great Place to Work
Institute said to evaluate companies to determine how they fare in the
survey will be from the employee perspective and the management
perspective. “We look at the employee perspective. What people who work
for participating companies say about their workplaces. The five common
themes that we explore are credibility, respect, fairness, pride and
camaraderie.” From the management perspective, he said the culture of
the company is the principal focus.

The National
Biotechnology Development Agency said it is working on a new technology
that will help Nigeria protect and conserve its environment through
re-vegetation and remediation.

Solomon Bamidele,
Director General of NABDA said on Wednesday in Abuja at a sensitisation
workshop on management of non degradable wastes that the project
entitled “Establishment of Centers of Excellence on Environmental
Protection and Conservation through Re-vegetation and Bioremediation”
embraces the major environmental problems that affect all parts of
Nigeria from the farthest North to the extreme Southern part of the
country.

“The Environmental
Protection and Conservation through Re-vegetation and Bioremediation
project is a multi institutional project involving the University of
Port-Harcourt (bioremediation), University of Maiduguri (combating
desertification), University of Nigeria, Nsukka (Gully soil erosion)
and NABDA ( non- biodegradable waste materials); NACGRAB(Tissue
Culture),” he said. “The project is an imperative step taken by
environmentalist and scientists alike to forestall degradation in the
environment.” He said biotechnology has a significant impact in the
bioremediation of polluted lands by breaking down oil molecules into
useful organic soil components; as well as in combating desertification
through the propagation of sustainable plantlets.

“What they plan to
do is use the technology to develop trees that can survive in the
desert and make the area more habitable. They will also come up with
trees that can stand erosion and also grow in an oil spill environment.

Unprecedented
population growth and emerging technologies have placed pressures on
the biophysical environment resulting in degradation that can sometimes
leave permanent impact on the environment.

The rapid growth of
urbanisation in addition to industrialisation has brought astronomical
increase in anthropogenic activities with their attendant huge
generation of wastes, thus the need for a systematic management of an
ever-increasing trend of municipal solid waste generation complicated
by complex waste characteristics has become an urban challenge.

The agency said it
is also looking at using biochemical processes to convert non-
biodegradable plastics to ethanol. This, the DG said will go a long way
in contributing to economic growth in the country.

Explaining further,
Christy Onyia, Director of Environmental Biotechnology at NABDA who
gave an overview of the project said management of non-degradable waste
materials, particularly plastic wastes in Nigerian environment is a
challenge.

According to her,
some of the problems involved in process of managing solid waste in the
developing world like Nigeria include huge solid waste generation from
all sectors of economy, absence of framework for waste collection,
transportation and disposal and inadequate solid waste dump sites.
Others are absence of engineered dump site, non-sorting and non
segregation of solid waste, legislative issues and enforcement of
regulations and limited available standard analytical laboratory for
research and development in environmental research and sample analyses.

“Now we are
introducing proper research and development into waste management in
Nigeria. We have a plant for biodegradable waste. We are now proposing
for this biodegradable waste gasification. It is another plant that
gasifies non biodegradable waste and produce ethanol from it. At this
stage it is at pilot scale.” The project is funded by the Science
Technology Post Basic (STEP-B) programme of the World Bank.

The Federal
Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has said that it will continue
with the grounding of domestic carriers indebted to it as the week
progresses.

Explaining that
airline operators in Nigeria are not responding positively in paying up
their dues, the airports authority disclosed that it will not hesitate
to shut down the operations of persistent defaulters in the sector,
adding that the grounding of airlines negatively impact on the
travelling public.“They are responding but the response is not
impressive, which means if we are not satisfied during the week days,
we will strike again,” said Akin Olukunle, General Manager, Public
Affairs for the authority on Sunday, adding, “we don’t want to keep
shutting their operations for it affects the industry, it affects the
stakeholders particularly the passengers.”

Mr Olukunle
disclosed that the authority had to carry out a temporary halt on the
operations of some indigenous carriers at the weekend, as he noted that
the affected airlines have the choice to commence flight services as
soon as they clear their debts.“It was a temporary action on our part;
it’s just a suspension, so they can resume anytime as far as they come
and clear themselves with us,” he said.

According to
reports, FAAN during the early hours of Sunday suspended the operations
of Aero Contractors, Dana Airlines, Chanchangi and IRS Airlines over
their inability to pay up their debts to the authority.

The grounding of
airlines last Sunday by the Federal Airports Authority became the
fourth time the agency would halt operations of domestic carriers in
Nigeria over issues of negligence in the prompt and adequate payment of
their debts.The issue of airlines’ indebtedness to various agencies in
the sector has been brought before the Airline Operators of Nigeria on
several occasions, and the association, while pleading on behalf of its
members, had called on the carriers to comply. The perpetual debt and
adamant nature of some of the carriers made the Nigerian Airspace
Management Agency (NAMA), another regulator in the sector, to embark on
what it called pay-as-you-go for terminal navigational charges.

Mr Olukunle,
however, disclosed that the authority will keep dialoguing with the
airlines until a meaningful outcome is achieved.“We will give them
enough room so that this will not disrupt total operations and
passengers will not be affected, but we are pleading with the concerned
airlines to pay up so that we can improve our facilities,” he said.