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Keeping the promises to Olubayo

“We
will immortalise him”; “We will support the family”; “We will…, and
on and on the promises were poured out as the late Super Eagles
defender, Adefemi Olubayo made his final journey to interment last week
Thursday in Lagos.

‘Bayo’ as fondly
called by his fans played his way to the hearts of many Nigerians which
was obvious by the number of fans and well-wishers that thronged both
the indoor sports hall of the National Stadium in Lagos, venue of his
lying-in-state ceremony, and also the Atan Cemetery where his body was
finally interred.

Now that his body
have been committed to mother earth, signalling an end to his sojourn
on earth, the question on many lips is will Adefemi Olubayo not also be
a victim of empty promises like those footballers and athletes who have
been involved in accidents or even died before him?

A member of the
Beijing silver-winning Olympic team, Adefemi had the dream to play at
the World Cup, raise his own family amongst other things but all those
are no longer attainable.

More than ever,
Adebayo had a burning desire to touch lives, and consequent upon this
he was named as an ambassador to Nigeria’s Homeless World Cup team, who
are preparing for Homeless World Cup that will take place in Paris come
August 2011.

The breadwinner for
his family, Bayo had many who depended on him for a bright future; his
mother, brothers, sisters all clung unto the broad shoulders of the
25-year-old footballer and he was forever smiling for the
responsibilities thrust on him.

Happily though he
was given a befitting burial, worthy of a true patriot, a young
Nigerian committed to the course of his country and always doing his
best when called upon to serve as attested to by all and sundry present
at his final journey. It was therefore not surprising to see not just
officials of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) present but fans
from all walks of life came to pay their last respects with promises to
immortalise the fallen hero.

Empty promises to fallen heroes

While it might be
too early to doubt the sincerity of the country’s football officials,
previous cases like that of the late Samuel Okwaraji, Muda Lawal,
amongst others raises concern on the need for officials to keep to
their words.

Just like
Okwaraji’s teammates promised to get the Italy 1990 World Cup ticket
for their colleague back then – a promise that set of Eagles could not
keep, Olubayo’s teammates who were missing at the funeral owing to club
commitments have vowed to not only to win their next game against
Ethiopia but also qualify for the Africa Nations Cup, a tournament
Olubayo failed to participate in his short career in the national team,
from which he earned five caps.

Super Eagles
captain, Joseph Yobo lamented that the demise of Adefemi is shocking
because he wined and dined with the group a month ago during the Africa
Cup of Nations qualifier against Ethiopia and the international
friendly against Kenya, which took place in Abuja.

The Nigerian
captain has now promised that he and his teammates will ensure that
they beat Ethiopia in Addis Ababa in June as well as qualify for the
2012 Africa Cup of Nations.

“The big honour we
can give to Olubayo Adefemi is to go to Ethiopia in June and take the
three points and eventually qualify for the 2012 African Cup of
Nations,” Yobo stated.

Nigeria currently
trails current group leaders Guinea by a point in the race for
qualification to the 2012 Gabon/Equatorial Guinea Nations Cup and will
be playing away to Ethiopia on June 5.

Samson Siasia, who
could best be described as Olubayo’s mentor, as he nurtured him to
stardom, starting off from the Africa Youth Championship in Benin
Republic in 2005, then to the World Youth Championship, also in 2005 in
Holland and also to the Olympic football event in Beijing (2008), where
his team won a silver medal, also unveiled his plans for Olubayo’s
dependants.

The Beijing
Olympics silver-winning coach said he will meet with other Super Eagles
players to fashion how they could best support the family of Adefemi.

“As a team we
cannot force any of the players to do something special for the late
Olubayo Adefemi or to promise anything on their behalf, but we can
advise to that effect. What we will suggest and advise the players to
do, is to support the family of Adefemi in a way that it would have a
long, lasting and positive effect on his family,” said Siasia.

Adefemi died on
April 18, 2011, in an automobile accident in Greece. Greek police said
the 25-year old defender, who played for Skoda Xanthi, lost control of
his car on the Egnatia motorway while driving from Xanthi to Salonika
in the Kavala region of the country. He was reportedly on his way to
Nigeria to finalise details of his wedding when the accident happened.

May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace!

Sports

Bad break for Duque

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Bad break for Duque

Nine-time world
champion and current leader of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series
2011, Orlando Duque will miss the rest of the season after breaking his
ankle.

The 36-year-old
Colombian, who was taking part in a sky dive in Hawaii, underwent
successful surgery on Thursday, with the injury expected to keep him
out of action for between three and six months.

It’s a major blow
for Duque who had recently returned to some of his best form, but, if
his determination to return from previous setbacks is anything to go
by, then he will not be out of the water for long.

Backdrop of a career in diving

After more than a
decade of Olympic diving, he made the transition to what he calls “the
more natural form of diving.” Duque’s high diving career began in 1995
in Europe where he improved his diving skills, helped at the time by
coach Ken Grove, a former Olympic diver and one of the series’ judges.

In his first world
championships in 1999, he took second place and so began a hugely
successful cliff diving career, the highlight of which saw him become
the first World Series Champion at the series final in Athens, Greece,
in September 2009. The left-hander is a perfectionist whose dedication
is unswerving and, combined with the two new dives he has added to his
repertoire for 2011, the new season will be all the more interesting
and the challenge even greater – for him and his competitors.

Duque worked hard
during the 2010 off-season to recapture his past form and returned to
his dominant best at the start of this year, winning the first two
events, in Rapa Nui and Mexico, and had hoped to make it a hat trick of
wins in Greece on May 22.

With nine world
championship titles and two Guinness world records on his side, the
Colombian cliff diver has proved his tremendous ability over many
years, reaching a special position within the high diving scene over
the last fifteen years.

He was the clear
favourite for the World Series 2009 and of course he measured up to
expectations. He won three competitions, was off the podium only once
and took the overall title. In 2010, the 36-year-old had two new dives
in his programme, took six out of six podiums, including one victory
and finished second overall.

Duque said: “My
plan is to win the title back next year (2011). I will practice a lot,
get back to the gym and do my homework,” was The Duke’s immediate
reaction, after losing the World Series title to Gary Hunt, “but Gary
is going to do exactly the same.”

It left no-one in
any doubt that the fight for the crown had started right after the last
prize-giving in Hawaii. But unfortunately ‘the Duke’ will not be able
to dive to his aims.

But after winning the inaugural Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series
in 2009, Duque ended a testing year in 2010 as the runner-up to Gary
Hunt.

Sports

RED CARD: Of beggarly football federation and defaulting states

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RED CARD: Of beggarly football federation and defaulting states

Finally,
the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) had the good sense to do what it
ought to have done at the beginning. We read on Thursday that it had
taken over the welfare of the U-23 team, which had camped in Benin for
some time now.

The story goes that
the team handled by Austin Eguavoen, had been going through a hard time
following the abandonment of the team by the Edo State Government,
which had undertaken to be responsible for their welfare. According to
the report, the shabby treatment meted to the team had necessitated
their change of accommodation to a less than befitting place.

Emmanuel Ikpeme,
NFF deputy general secretary (Technical), who was in Benin to see
players and officials in Benin, said the poor treatment of the team
arose as a result of the Edo State Government’s preoccupation with the
just concluded elections.

“I just returned
from the team’s camp on Sunday after holding a very important meeting
with the technical crew and management. I think the issue has been
settled and the federation has taken full charge of the team’s welfare
since the government of Edo State could not continue with its earlier
agreement to take care of the team in Benin,” Ikpeme said.

I suppose the NFF
expects a pat on the back for doing this. Well, they shouldn’t. If
anything they deserve censure for making an exhibition of themselves in
the first place.

For some years now,
the football federation has been going round the country cap in hand
like a beggar begging states to foot the bills of our national teams
engaged in one competition or the other. This reason for this has been
because given the credibility deficit in the federation; no decent
organisation has been willing to do business with it.

With a marketing
department that exists only in name and a marketing consultant content
to idle away, only to show up asking for its ‘cut’ when a sponsor turns
up seeking to do business with the NFF, the football federation, has
always found itself in a bind financially.

Not that it should
be so anyway, because a lot of things still need to be explained to
Nigerians about exactly what the NFF has been doing with funds it gets
from the federal government, FIFA and its sponsorship deals with the
companies that have kitted the national teams in the past.

If a former
president of the federation and two other high ranking members of his
executive committee find themselves on trial for misappropriation of
funds, does that not say something about the way business has been
conducted at the football house all these years?

Of journeyman and jesters

I have often said
it that the vast majority of the men who run football in Nigeria have
no business anywhere near the glass house and I repeat it here again.

When before the
August 26, 2010 elections, some sycophants looking for a foothold on
the slippery glass house took pot-shots at some of the former Nigerian
internationals interested in getting into the federation declaring that
their having played the game was no guarantee that they would make good
administrators, I had shaken my head in amusement.

The reason was
because I had taken a good look at the men who were vying for positions
into the board and had only seen about two people that inspired my
confidence; the rest were just journeymen looking for a huge jackpot in
the casino that the NFF has become.

Now, these men are
there and the NFF with football, a game that keeps the adrenalin of the
average Nigerian, regardless of age, tribe or creed, pumping and they
cannot market it well enough to raise funds. Instead, the leadership of
the federation is genuflecting before every state governor, begging for
handouts.

If the men at the
NFF had any sense, how could they expect Adams Oshiomhole, a man whose
party was seeking to improve on its fortunes at the national level, to
distract himself with a U-23 team engaged in Olympic Games (not World
Cup) qualifiers?

Again, if their
marketing consultant, who so happens to come from Edo State, cannot
prevail on his governor to look in the direction of the team, is it any
wonder why the NFF has been lagging behind in marketing matters?

The leadership of the NFF should stop embarrassing the country
before the world by finding ways of funding its activities. Football
has a lot of goodwill in this country; they should exploit it and not
keep rolling on the floor like court jesters seeking to ingratiate
themselves with royalty.

Sports

Laila Dogonyaro: 1944 – 2011

Laila Dogonyaro: 1944 – 2011

One of the foremost women’s rights
activist and politicians in Nigeria, Laila Dogonyaro, died on Thursday
at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano after a short illness.

Mrs. Dogonyaro, who was 67 years
old, was one of the founding members of Jam‘iyar Matan Arewa, the first
women’s group in the North which was established in 1963 to help the
less fortunate women in their community, with the assistance of Ahmadu
Bello, who was the Premier of the North.

The group later expanded to
establish a nursery, primary and secondary school, which is also a
centre for WAEC and NECO examinations.

She vigorously campaigned for
female child education and women’s suffrage. She also greatly encouraged
women participation in politics.

Described as the “Queen of Modern
Northern Politics”, when asked how people react to the fact that she is a
Muslim woman involved in politics, she responded: “What has religion to
do with it! Why should the fact that I am a Muslim woman surprise
anyone?”

Mrs Dogonyaro’s campaign on
sensitization and economic empowerment of women led to the establishment
of the Women’s Development Centre. She also held the position of
President of the National Council for Women Societies in 1998.

However, she was also very
traditional and held some pretty conservative views. For instance, she
opposed what she said was the show of nudity, the Miss World Pageant
which was supposed to be held in Nigeria, but was abruptly moved to
London in 2002 following protests over an article published by a
newspaper.

Laila Dogonyaro’s accomplishments
gained her the Nigerian Merit Award: Officer of the Order of the Niger
(OON) and a traditional title, Gakuwar Garki, among many other awards.

She was survived by her four
children: Mohammed Ahmed, Mairo Hassan Hussein, Binta Dogonyaro, and Isa
Dogonyaro and grandchildren.

She was buried in her village, Garki, Jigawa State, on Friday.

newstoday

‘Life is not easy’

‘Life is not easy’

Standing on the edge
of a sun-scorched ridge overlooking her broken farm, 68-year old
Philadelphia native Norma Perchonoc–who has lived in Nigeria for all of
her adult life–sums up the personal impact of the ongoing political,
religious, and economic strife in the country’s heartland.

“Life is not easy,”
she says simply, in one of many understatements during a tour of her
farm, which she says has gone virtually bankrupt in the aftermath of
terrible intercommunal violence in January 2010 in the once-thriving
“Middle Belt” region of Africa’s most populous country.

The farm is tucked
between outcrops of stones and squat hills on an elevated, table-like
plateau that resembles the southwestern deserts of the United States but
boasts a Mediterranean-like climate. The tan soil is sandy and
stubborn, but the weather and a good water supply left over from
extensive industrial tin mining in the area made central Nigeria’s
Plateau State a veritable Eden where farmers and traders, locals and
expatriates, coexisted in what some called the “microcosm of Nigeria.”
Local farmers generally supported themselves growing Irish potato and
other subsistence crops. Perchonoc’s Zamani Farms grew a cornucopia of
specialty produce, from Chinese cabbage to butternut squash to rocket
lettuce to strawberries and mulberries, catering partly to the wealthy
diplomatic corps in the capital city of Abuja. The harsh soil somehow
sprung to life under the tender watch of Perchonoc and her dedicated
staff, yielding fresh produce the staff could be proud of–and earning
salaries they could support their own families with.

Now, on the brink of
bankruptcy, Perchococ’s farm–her “retirement project” after she spent
decades teaching anthropology at two universities in northern
Nigeria–is one of several commercial farms overrun with financial and
logistical problems–not to mention trauma–that have ensued in the
aftermath of the bloodbath that occurred on its doorstep.

“We have many
problems since the crisis. Things are not the way they are supposed to
be,” she said, leathery-skinned, work-weary hands on hips as she
surveyed the scenic and haunted landscape.

A bloody crisis

Locals use the vague
euphemism of ‘crisis’ to refer to a series of brutal tit-for-tat
massacres across the verdant plateau region early last year. In the
village of Kuru Karama, a five-minute walk from Zamani Farms, a gruesome
day-long killing spree left more than 150 Muslim residents–including
babies and women–dead, according to initial reports by Human Rights
Watch. The Red Cross later removed scores more corpses, some of them
burned or buried alive, from wells throughout the village.

Not a single Muslim
from the Hausa ethnic group remains in the village today, which was
formerly home to around 3,000 people, both Christians and Muslims, from
several ethnic groups. It is now little more than a burned down ghost
town where artisanal tin mining done by new migrants to the area has
sprung up on formerly residential land. Subsequent reprisal attacks by
Muslims on Christians rippled throughout the Plateau region, with
hundreds of Christians deaths between January and March last year.

It is another
understatement to say that the violence struck close to home for
Perchonoc and the 30 Nigerians who worked on her farm. About half of the
workers and their families were murdered or are now unable to live or
work in the area because of their religion or ethnicity.

Zamani Farms is a
half-living memorial to the violence, a hollowed out shell of a
once-prospering and promising business. The starkly beautiful land that,
though challenging, once held the promise of good crops and good
business, now harbors disturbing memories of massacres and family
members turning against each other, suddenly split along sectarian lines
too deadly to cross.

The farm’s only
van–used in the past to transport crates of fresh fruits and vegetables
twice weekly to customers in the Nigerian capital of Abuja–fell into
disrepair earlier this year. Perchonoc does not have the money to get
the vehicle fixed, and besides, she says, the car mechanics in the
nearby city of Jos have either fled the city or been killed. She
struggles to get manure to organically fertilize her strawberry fields
because the cattle herders that used to move through the area refuse to
come near the farm after their cows were slaughtered en masse during the
wave of violence, killed by the same armed young thugs rumoured to have
been hired by the local government to execute a planned assault on
minority populations in the state.

Ethno-religious rifts

Perchonoc says she
is unable to employ farm workers of the same caliber as her dedicated
staff who were massacred or forced to flee and, more than a year later,
fear returning to the area. “Some are in hiding from their own family
members, who have threatened to kill them,” she says, evidence of the
apartheid-like split between formerly integrated Muslim and Christian
communities that caused displacement and migration of whole communities
after last year’s violence.

“Before the crisis,
there were Hausa and Fulani workers on the farm, both Muslims and
Christians, and we had no problems,” says Abdullahi Hashimu, 46, the
short, muscular marketing manager of the farm whose house was burned
down in the violence and whose family ran for their lives. Hashimu had
been in Abuja delivering produce for the farm when the killing sprees in
the nearby city of Jos erupted and spread to villages including Kuru
Karama. “We are now living in an environment where Muslims don’t go to
areas where Christians are, even the markets,” he said quietly.

“Since [the
violence] last year, we are not back to normal on the farm,” Perchonoc
says. Work stopped completely at Zamani Farms for three months after the
massacre in Kuru Karama, as Perchonoc first attempted to help her
traumatized workers seek treatment for their machete-wounded children,
among other problems. Some of the crops such as the farm’s specialty
lettuce, which require daily watering and a labor-intensive irrigation
system, fell fallow in the meantime. In order to keep her customers, who
include the British High Commission and other embassies and the Hilton
and Sheraton Hotels in Abuja, she bought tomatoes and other produce from
other local farmers while she tried to pick up the broken pieces of her
own business. She remains in debt to these farmers, unable to pay more
than the salaries of her workers and petrol for her decrepit 4×4
vehicle.

Perchonoc and her
staff rightly call last year the worst of their lives. She and Gumbo
Adamu, the man she calls her “right hand” on the farm, were briefly
kidnapped in an incident related to the ongoing insecurity and local
tensions in the area. Everyday brings new challenges that did not
afflict the farm before violence began blazing through the Middle Belt
and tearing it asunder. Everyday brings rumours of “silent killings” or
planned attacks or new deals between selfish politicians rumored to be
perpetuating the crisis for their personal gain.

Adamu is a tall
gentle-looking man who saw his community and his years of hard work to
build Zamani Farms fall apart in one fell swoop. He blames the local
religious leaders for fanning the flames of the now intractable problems
between former neighbours.

“The pastors and the mallams are causing this crisis,” said Adamu. “When this crisis is over, we’ll prosecute all of them.”

newstoday

Anatomy of violence

Anatomy of violence

There is a bomb explosion in Borno State
almost every day, according to residents. Sometimes, two bombs go off
in one day, and then there are the executions by guns. Last Saturday,
around 10.30am at the Kasuwan Shanu junction where officers of the joint
task force called Operation Flush have a checkpoint, a bomb went off,
and the officers had to dive into a gutter. The next day at Abaganaram,
Railway junction, a witness said two gunmen went into a Vitafoam
dealership shop and killed the owner, while one of them walked to a
drawer and removed a parcel. On the eve of the governorship election on
Monday, two bombs went off on the outskirts of the city. On Tuesday, at
Umarrari Street, Boko Haram reportedly executed a young man who claimed
to have removed their bomb. On Wednesday, after election results were
announced, Boko Haram reportedly burned down a security post at the
renovated prison. On Thursday, at Kaura Mela, there was a bombing and a
shooting.

“Nothing has happened this Friday yet,”
says a journalist who has lived in the city for 10 years. “But then the
day is not over.”

According to a source close to the police, most of the bombs are planted by young boys known as Almajiris.

“They are not educated, they are
gullible and they have nothing to lose,” he says. “It is a
bastardisation of the learning process enjoined in the Qur’an. Their
parents dump them with the mallams, who send them out to beg for food,
which leaves them open to strong influences.”

According to an officer at the police
headquarters, police are frustrated by the fact that the boys recruited
by Boko Haram have no addresses.

“When you arrest them and ask where they
are from, you hear things like, ‘They brought me here from Katsina,
they brought me from Yobe’, et cetera. Where do you go from there?” says
the state police commissioner. “Some of the boys arrested told me they
could manufacture the improvised explosives themselves. So I tell you,
if all these boys can manufacture explosives, then we are in trouble…
Maiduguri is a warfront.”

On where the Boko Haram recruits get
these skills, Mr Zuokumor says that he has his theories but no hard
evidence. “It all started with the establishment of Boko Haram, but I
cannot pinpoint where yet,” he says. NEXT has learnt from sources that
some of the killers that have been hired for high profile jobs have
largely come from Somalia and the Middle East.

newstoday

Labour-trade union feud still pending in court

Labour-trade union feud still pending in court

The feud between
the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC)
over the two factions of the Association of Senior Staff of Banks,
Insurance and other Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) is still pending
at the National Industrial Court.

The two unions are
embroiled in a battle of wits over where the union belongs. A faction
claims it belongs to NLC while another is claiming affiliation to the
NLC.

Sunday Salako,
president, ASSBIFI, under the TUC, said the NLC ASSBIFI faction,
especially those in Union Bank “left our camp since 2004 and have since
been on their own. When they were here, they used to have the highest
number of staff members then, so there was this thinking that they must
produce the president of the association during any elections and then
there was a fall out. They say they are with NLC, and we are not. So
that is what happened.

He said the workers
withdrew from the association when they anticipated that because they
had the largest unit of attendance, they should always produce the
president of the union and hence, there have been legal issues over why
they still maintained the name of the union, instead of getting a new
one.

The matter, along
with other subsisting disagreement, was referred to the Industrial
Arbitration Panel (IAP) for arbitration. The IAP confirmed the
existence of inter union dispute in ASSBIFI and advised both parties to
return to the 2007 agreement.

Obukese Orere,
general secretary of the NLC faction of ASSBIFI, had earlier said the
constitution allows people to belong to any union they choose and that
people who say TUC is the umbrella body for senior staff are not
totally right.

Delay not healthy

The delay in
resolving this issue, however, has been proven to be harmful to member
banks and ultimately, the welfare of bank workers.

In February, the
dispute between both parties reached its peak when Union Bank banned
its chapter of ASSBIFI on grounds that it was not properly affiliated.

At the height of
the bank’s misunderstanding with its workers, it issued a statement
that “Following the unlawful operations of UBASS (Union Bank
Association of Senior Staff) and ASSBIFI (Association of Senior Staff
of Banks, Insurance and other Financial institutions), Union Bank of
Nigeria Plc has withdrawn its recognition of the above named trade
union bodies with immediate effect. All concerned have been duly
advised. The general public should please take note.”

Following this, the
NLC embarked on a nationwide picketing of the 94-year old institution,
basically disrupting its operations for several days. The Congress said
it is not the duty of Mrs Osibodu to de-recognise ASSBIFI, its
affiliate, or any industrial union since there are statutory bodies in
place to regulate trade union activities.

“On the legality or
otherwise of ASSBIFI, we wish to unequivocally state that the dispute
is still pending at the Industrial Arbitration Panel (AIP) and no
judgement has been delivered up to this moment to warrant the
unfortunate and totally contemptuous decision of the Union Bank
management,” the labour union had said.

The matter was,
however, resolved after the minister of labour waded in and advised the
bank to accede to the demands of the union.

Industry watchers and banks have said they would not be part of what is happening until the issues are legally addressed.

Money

Farmers settle N5.8bn in loan repayment

Farmers settle N5.8bn in loan repayment

A total of N5.85
billion was repaid as loans by Nigerian farmers under the Agricultural
Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) last year. The highest repaid
amount of N769.15 million, representing 13.15 percent of the total, was
made by Delta State, followed by Katsina and Adamawa states with
N667.21 million and N532.64 million, respectively. Ekiti had the lowest
repayment figure of N15.7 million, trailing Abuja, which repaid N19.12
million, and Bayelsa, which repaid N19.18 million.

According to data
released by the Developmental Finance department of the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN), the funds were disbursed to finance 50,119 projects
across the country, with Katsina State topping the list at 7,184
projects, followed by Kogi and Sokoto states with 6,877 and 5,618
projects, respectively. Abuja had the least number of projects with 50
while Ekiti and Bayelsa had 111 and 120 projects, respectively.
Nassarawa State did not record any projects.

Since its establishment in 1978, the ACGSF has granted around 692,716 loans valued at about N41.34 billion.

The ACGSF was
formed solely to encourage financial institutions to lend funds to
those engaged in agricultural production and agro-processing
activities, with the aim of enhancing the export capacity of the nation
as well as for local consumption. The fund is set up with the sole
purpose of providing guarantees in respect to loans granted by any bank
for agricultural purposes.

Interest Drawback

Likewise, N694.67
million has been repaid to farmers under the Interest Drawback
Programme (IDP) of the ACGSF. The IDP was set up in 2004. Under the
IDP, farmers shall borrow from the lending banks at market-determined
rates and after the liquidation of the loan, they shall be entitled to
interest drawback at the pre-determined IDP rate. The IDP has an
authorised capital fund of about N2 billion and is funded jointly by
the federal government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in the
ratio of 60:40.

Under the IDP, the
highest amount paid during the period was made last year when N227.44
million was paid out. According to the CBN, the repayment trend is
encouraging. “A trend analysis of the loan repayment performance of the
ACGSF over the years shows that the IDP has impacted positively on the
operations of the scheme as it induced clients to repay on time,” the
CBN stated.

To be eligible for
the loan drawdown, a farmer must have repaid both loan principal and
interest within the agreed tenure. However, a grace period of three
months for repayment may be allowed but drawback entitlement shall be
calculated only up to the scheduled date for the final repayment of the
loans. This means that interest accruing during the grace period will
not be part of the amount to be refunded.

“Farmers that liquidate loans after the expiration of the guarantee
certificate/grace period are not eligible and shall be disqualified,”
say the CBN guidelines. “A loan for which repayment period is extended
after the expiration of the original guarantee certificate shall not
qualify to benefit under the IDP.”

Money

Banks risk exclusion from automated clearing

Banks risk exclusion from automated clearing

The
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday set end of June as deadline for
full compliance to the proposal for the implementation of uniform
customer bank account numbering system in the country.

By
that date, only banks with the Nigeria Uniform Bank Account Number
(NUBAN) codes and validation test pass would be allowed access into the
automated clearing system by the apex bank.

The
apex bank said yesterday the present account numbers and NUBAN codes
would co-exist in the electronic payment and cheque clearing systems
till June 2011, after which customers in all the 24 deposit money banks
(DMBs) are expected to be integrated into the new system.

The
apex bank had, in August last year, issued guidelines on the NUBAN
scheme designed to achieve a uniform customer bank account numbering
structure in the country, as part of efforts to help resolve the myriad
of problems observed with the current electronic payment system by
commercial banks, particularly those relating to specification of wrong
beneficiary account numbers.

Similarly,
it directed banks to provide the relevant information to their
customers in-clearing systems to enable them distinguish NUBAN codes
from old account numbers while processing inward cheque items and
electronic payment instruments during this transition period.

“The
deadline for full NUBAN compliance is June 2011. Therefore, only
instruments (paper and electronic) that carry NUBAN codes and pass the
NUBAN validation test (that is, instruments with correct check digit)
would be allowed in the automated clearing system as from this date,”
the CBN said.

Working to comply

But
there appears to be various levels of compliance by the banks to the
directive, as most of the banks spoken to yesterday either were
ignorant of the new numbering system or were yet to do anything about
it, while others said they had commenced the process and are on course
to meeting the deadline.

At
Afribank Plc, the spokesman, Moshood Isamotu, said its management had
since January this year complied with the directive, as all its systems
have been upgraded to accommodate the new digital platform required for
the effective operation of the NUBAN system throughout its network of
branches.

For
Udo Igwe, the head, brand management department of Springbank, it had
started the process already and hopes to complete it before the June
deadline.

However,
responses from officials in most other banks gave an indication that
they still have a long way to go in meeting the deadline, as some of
them said they were either not aware, or have not commenced action on
the directive.

In
its recommendation to facilitate the smooth implementation of the
scheme, the Cheques and Automated Clearing House (ACH) Working Group
(CAWG) recently recommended the issuance of a special NUBAN check
number code for all banks and customers accounts.

The
NUBAN account serial number, according to the apex bank, would be
preceded by a three digits code assigned by the CBN to the bank, with
the last number in the serial representing the NUBAN check digit
required for account number validation.

The
3-digit codes assigned by the CBN to the banks in the Bankers Clearing
System , according to the operational guidelines issued in Abuja
yesterday, include Access Bank (044), Fidelity Bank (070), StanbicIBTC
(221), Afribank (014), Finbank (085), Standard Chartered Bank (068),
Citibank (023), Guaranty Trust Bank (058), and Sterling Bank (232).

Others
include Diamond Bank (063), Intercontinental Bank (069), United Bank
for Africa (033), Ecobank (050), Oceanic Bank (056), Union Bank (032),
Equitorial Trust Bank (040), BankPHB (082), Wema Bank (035), First Bank
(011), Skye Bank (076), Zenith Bank (057), First City Monument Bank
(214), SpringBank (084), and Unity Bank (215).

The
NUBAN code of a typical customer bank account would be derived through
the summation of the bank’s assigned 3-digit code in the Bankers
Clearing System with the NUBAN serial number, less the last digit for a
module of 10 to arrive at the check digit for number validation.

“All
Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) are advised to adopt this uniform algorithm
to obtain the check digit component of the NUBAN codes of their
customer account numbers,” the apex bank said yesterday, urging bank
managements to communicate the NUBAN codes to their existing customers,
while all new bank accounts should henceforth be provided with the new
codes.

Under the new arrangement, only NUBAN numbers/codes are supposed to
be featured in place of the customer account number field in the cheque
Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) code line in all cheques
issued to customers.

Money

BRAND MATTERS: Free brand trial and consumer engagement

BRAND MATTERS: Free brand trial and consumer engagement

One of the several strategies adopted by companies to entrench
their brands in the minds of consumers is free trial.

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The benefits of free trial are enormous, as it generates a
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