04 Dec 2011
SIMON KOLAWOLE LIVE. Email, simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com
Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. These days, I spend most of my time thinking about unemployment is Nigeria. My heart bleeds anytime I hear an armed robbery suspect confess: “I graduated in 2005… I looked for job for years without success… Then a friend told me he would introduce me to another friend so that I could make money… and then… ” Every day, youths swarm on internet cafés sending emails all over the world asking for people’s bank accounts to stash Abacha’s $50 million. Boko Haram recruits its members from the jobless, hapless populace. Latest statistics show that there are 32 million jobless Nigerians, most of them youths. Thirty-two million! An idle hand, it must be said, is tempting the devil. Much less 32 million pairs of idle hands! Any wonder why insecurity in the land is not abating? Any wonder then that the population of hired killers, armed robbers, kidnappers, et al, is not dwindling?
There are times I ask myself: what if telecoms had not been deregulated and we were still stuck with NITEL? No MTN, no Glo, no Airtel, no Etisalat, no Visaphone, etc? What would unemployment be like in Nigeria today without the hundreds of thousands of jobs the telecoms industry has created in the last 10 years? Jobs for all categories of human beings—engineers, lawyers, accountants, journalists, recharge card sellers, phone importers, and so on and so forth. Many billionaires and millionaires have been produced by telecoms within a decade. I imagine that if the power sector is properly deregulated, we are talking about another employment boom with pleasant implications for economic growth, development and security. We would not only be talking of the massive boost stable power supply will bring to the economy, but also a sort of a new economy altogether. A well-thought-out deregulation of the petroleum industry even promises bigger economic and employment opportunities.
I worry about unemployment also because I’m involved. I have scores of CVs on my desk and dozens in my email, everybody looking for a job, either at THISDAY or somewhere else. I’ve had graduates asking me to help them get “any job”—even as cleaners! It breaks my heart. One of my greatest joys is when I’m able to help someone secure a job—but, my God, jobs are so difficult to come by nowadays! The economic environment is stifling—and the inadequacy of infrastructure is not helping matters either. I tell people that what we spend monthly on diesel to power generators at THISDAY is enough to employ at least 50 fresh graduates. Can you also imagine if telecoms operators don’t have to spend billions buying tanker-loads of diesel to power thousands of generators everyday (every cell site has two generators running “relays” round the clock)? Not only would tariff crash automatically, the operators would be able to expand operations faster, improve service, reach more communities and create more and more and more jobs.
That is why any initiative that creates jobs excites me. For me, President Goodluck Jonathan should focus his policies on creating the enabling environment for entrepreneurs to create jobs. Even government-financed projects must target jobs as well. There should be a job component. We need jobs badly. I know there are developments here and there but because of the enormity of our problems, they seem like drops in the ocean. My mood was brightened last week when Nigeria’s biggest industrialist, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, announced plans to expand production at the Ibese cement plant. Output is expected to double at the 6 million-metric tonne plant operated by Dangote Cement Plc. Dangote, rated Africa’s richest man with an estimated business worth of $13.8 billion by Forbes, is Nigeria’s biggest employer of labour with a workforce of 18,000. This figure will increase to 22,000 when his ongoing projects are completed. Obviously, he is the biggest tax payer in Nigeria. Dangote’s CSR spending this year alone is close to N15 billion, including supports for victims of riots and flood across the country.
Last night, THISDAY Board of Editors hosted Dangote (and Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke) to a dinner at Eko Hotel to celebrate the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON)—the second highest national honour—bestowed on him by President Jonathan. I was amazed that some people considered Dangote’s GCON award worthy of criticism. The conventional wisdom was that such an honour was reserved for serving and former vice-presidents, senate presidents and chief justices. But, as it turned out, GCON had been awarded to scores of Nigerians who were none of the above. But one clearly unique feature is that the other GCON awardees were government officials at one time or the other. No single private sector person had ever been so honoured until Dangote. I think he more than deserves it. I completely disagree with those who think only generals and politicians deserve to be honoured with the GCON. Dangote has certainly touched more lives than most of them.
Dangote, who surprisingly does not own any property outside Nigeria, started from a humble beginning. Some still remember Dangote as the importer of sugar and cement with very “brutal” trading strategies that stifled the competition. But Dangote has successfully transited from just an importer to a big manufacturer. This is how wikipedia describes him: “The Dangote Group, originally a small trading firm founded in 1977, is now a multi-trillion naira conglomerate with operations in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo. Dangote's businesses include food processing, cement manufacturing, and freight. Dangote Group has moved from being a trading company to Nigeria's largest industrial group, including Dangote Sugar Refinery (the most capitalised company on the Nigeria Stock Exchange, valued at over US$3 billion with Aliko Dangote's equity topping US$2 billion), Africa's largest Cement Production Plant: Obajana Cement, Dangote Flour amongst others.”
What the Nigerian economy needs urgently is more Dangotes. More entrepreneurs. More investments. More jobs. What the government needs to do is make the environment friendly. I don’t expect electricity to be stable overnight, but I expect urgent, concentrated and sustained action, pursued with all sincerity, to improve the situation. This is as urgent as yesterday! The need to fix the transport infrastructure is as urgent as yesterday! Nevertheless, we didn’t have these perfect conditions before a Dangote emerged, so while we await the more suitable environment, we can still make some progress in spite of the odds. There have been many Nigerians who have benefited from government patronage or support over the years like Dangote but would rather go and buy property in London and Dubai than invest a kobo in the Nigerian economy. I do not even want to talk about those who loot the economy and then go to South Africa or wherever to set up refineries.
Of course, I do not try to deceive myself by saying the only problem militating against job creation is infrastructure. Government policies also matter. Consistency is important. Policy summersaults often discourage investment as you are not sure what will happen next. There should also be incentives, which, as we have discovered, are usually abused in Nigeria even if the intention is clean. One moment, government says only those who are investing in the downstream sector that should get fuel import contracts; the next you see the names of even hair salon operators on the list of beneficiaries. This can only be counterproductive.
We often ask this question: what really is the problem with Nigeria? Ask a million of us and you'll get a million answers. It's Lord Lugard, it's colonialism, it's corruption, it's the economy, it's PDP, it's revenue sharing formula, it's leadership, it's the police, it's the military. Someone once told me the problem was lack of resource control in the Niger Delta. Another said it's the media. It is not just one problem, though. It’s a plethora of problems which we can argue and articulate in volumes of books. Personally, I've always believed and argued on this page that the economic situation is the biggest contribution to tension and rot in the land. I do not intend to deny that our peculiar political structure is deficient—neither do I ever seek to argue that we are getting the leadership right.
In the meantime, while we await the resolution of our problems, our people need jobs. We need to get them off the streets, off crime, off militancy. President Jonathan should focus all his energy on creating the enabling environment for job creation. We need more Dangotes.
AND FOUR OTHER THINGS...
Farida’s Fall
I was never a fan of the ousted chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mrs Farida Waziri. It was nothing personal. The circumstances that led to her appointment in 2008 were too tainted: there was a desperate bid to get rid of Malam Nuhu Ribadu by some crooked politicians who then nominated Waziri as replacement. And she never hid her mission from day one, doing everything possible to protect her benefactors, including writing THAT infamous letter to the British authorities absolving a former governor of all corruption allegations.
Her appointment was one of the early crises faced by the President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. But at the end of the day, you could hardly blame Farida; political intrigues are part and parcel of the contradictions dogging the anti-graft war. Politicians always seem to have the final say. She did her best, obviously, but the original stain stuck like a badge.
Enter Lamorde (Again)
You will never witness a bigger irony than that of Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde’s fate at EFCC. When Malam Nuhu Ribadu was eased out as chairman by Yar’Adua, Lamorde became the acting chairman and handed over to Mrs Farida Waziri. Now Waziri has handed over back to him as acting chairman, pending confirmation by the senate as required by law. Lamorde, who is regarded as a tough policeman, is seasoned in the anti-graft war, having been part of the pioneer team at EFCC in 2003. As Director of Operations, he was a big unseen hand in the successes recorded by Ribadu. The EFCC chair is very hot and Lamorde will soon begin to face his own battles. He will either be accused of being too harsh or too soft. Or that he is fighting a “selective” war. I have only one piece of advice for him: talk less and do more. He should never crave those sensational newspaper headlines.
Adieu Ibru
I never met him. I never worked for the The Guardian. But I always admired Mr. Alex Ibru from afar. When he founded the newspaper in 1983, his dream was that it would become of the top five English newspapers in the world. I’m not too sure his dream has been fulfilled yet but he surely built an institution that has groomed and produced many fine journalists. Ibru also managed to keep the newspaper off any political leaning, a trait that almost cost him his life 16 years ago when, as Minister of Internal Affairs, he was expected by the murderous Sani Abacha regime to paint Guardian in the colour of the junta. He left the cabinet instead. He was later shot by the junta’s marksmen in a failed assassination attempt. He lost his eye but never lost his sight—or his foresight, for that matter.
Tears for Yasmin
Last Sunday would qualify as one of the most depressing I’ve ever had. As I prepared to watch the English Premier League match between Swansea and Aston Villa, I learnt of the death of Wales manager, Gary Speed, who apparently committed suicide. He had had an encouraging start to his coaching career and, at 42, a bright future was ahead of him.
I was still grieving over this tragedy when I heard the news of the death of Yasmin, the cerebral daughter of Malam Nasir el-Rufai. To think she died at 25—when she was about to launch fully into life with a clutch of impressive degrees—is all the more painful. My only prayer is that God will comfort her parents and the other members of the family at this trying period of their lives.
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