A note to Whom Will Be or Will Remain President and Governors in 2011:
Here is what I will do on AGRICULTURE...
I will use it to create millions of jobs - permanent and high quality jobs. I will use it to anchor the health of Nigerians. I will use it to guarantee food security in the whole of West Africa. I will use it to revive, sustain and transform Nigeria's industrial revolution. I will use it to earn foreign exchange big time. I will use it to displace oil & gas as the mainstay of the Nigerian economy.
Here is how I will PROCEED...
I will create rural infrastructure and power supply - to retain and attract quality manpower upcountry and in the wetlands. I will produce local fertilizers - organic and inorganic. I will bring in equipment manufacturers cum assembly plants and fund local fabricators. I will create millennium farm settlements and marketing boards. I will deploy 60% of NYSC members to the Agricultural Sector every year. I will equip, fund and deploy the armed forces to unity farms; and Army Engineers to help construct rural infrastructure and housing. I will fund and utilize R&D. I will join the CBN in providing long term and accessible credit to all genuine farmers and agribusinesses. I will bring in Chinese, Israeli, Indian, Thai, Malaysian and Brazilian experts and investors to counterpart our own well-resourced operators. I will gun for 80% homeland utilization of all our produce within 5 years. Finally, I will protect Nigerian AGRICULTURE, whatever it takes!
Who will be president? Will you do this for us, please?
Who will be governors? Can you folks rise up to the plate, please?
The twist in all this is how long these low-hanging fruits have been begging to be plucked!
We wait and watch.
Showing posts with label Nigerian Banks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nigerian Banks. Show all posts
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
New Economy: Bring Back Our Old Bankers!
We've made many many mistakes in the past. We've done many faddish and rash things. We've copied ALL da wrong things and deferred too many right things. We've now come to da crunch: Where do we go from here?
Forwards, I scream! So, let's start with the economy. Nigeria has committed itself to a rigorous agenda: To become one of the world's Top 20 economies by the year 2020! Great. It will do so by, among other things, using the Financial Services Sector to drive the programme. Great. Or, is it? Yes, if the banks can rise up to the plate!
So, I have some thoughts...
Let's start with some enquiries: Some very basic questions on house-keeping, order and sanity. Mainly preparatory stuff most people can easily digest:
1) In Nigeria, is banking a profession, vocation or occupation?
2) Which laws and bodies ensure its utmost professionalism?
3) What are the official and unofficial levels of bad-debts and frauds?
4) What are the lessons of the consolidation exercise?
5) Have we done the SWOT Analysis of ALL the NEW banks, post-consolidation?
6) How many staff does each have, and how many are professional bankers?
7) What is the success level of their cards and e-banking forays?
8) What lessons from 1-7 above for branch banking?
9) Do they uphold the rudiments of banks' historical anchors: agric-finance, trade-finance, mortgage-finance, micro-finance and SME-development?
10) Where are we in women banking and youth enterprises - which were so promising before?
11) What are the annual numbers of qualified bankers from the CIBN "production line"!?
12) What are banks doing about capacity building, and getting their staff to become ACIBs?
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Bankers Committee, The Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) have all spoken out on the dearth of professionalism in the financial services sector, especially the in banks! Last week, the senate president reiterated this lament!! A visit to our banking hall will tell you just how poorly the levels have sunk!!!
Things are very very bad. Most of the staff have no idea what banking is. Many are "financial illiterates". You are told things by rote, not by reason or rationality! An independent survey is now inevitable - to shove da mirror in our face, as it were!
Global Warning...on Skilled Labour:
Anyone with enough attentiveness will hear the endless lament about shortages of good quality manpower in most developed economies, the rich world. People are living longer, and the baby boomers are staying healthier. In places like Japan and Russia as well as some European states, the populations are aging faster than they can replace/replenish the work force! The youths in many cases are abandoning their home towns and villages, sometimes countries, for good!
All these are informing and driving immigration policy around the world. Now, most developing nations are the hunting grounds of the rich countries for skilled labour! Professionals from doctors to nurses, from ICT experts to chemical engineers, from university dons to microfinance practitioners, are now joining masons and beauty therapists in da New Brain Drain!
Hallo hallo, even Eastern Europe (ask Poland!) is been drained by the West!!
Clever companies and governments are recalling old hands, delaying retirement or extending the mandatory age limits, even as many countries are now incentivising employers and citizens alike, to address the problem. France's cabinet is currently working on its own major shake up: expected to be bold and revolutionary!
But here in Africa, our people are complacent. Nigerian leaders were busy retrenching, sacking and re-sizing staff, from both public & private sectors, without adequate preparations or quality succession, in the last eight years! In a depressed economy, health and education plunge. So is it with Nigeria. Our system is churning out half-baked graduates and unskilled professionals. The youth service scheme has been virtually paralysed by lack of funds and scandalously diminished placement/posting opportunities: companies are folding up, governments are downsizing. What a double blow!
It be from this milieu, dear thinker, that we are just crawling - after the damning shame of da last elections - hoping to regroup, recoup and rebuild. Where then are the professionals that will staff and sustain the banking system? And thus help da financial services sector drive and power the economy to its 20-20-20 summit?? Big question.
Trusting Nigerians and the me-too mentality of our public officials, the new policy of using microcredits/microfinance to drive the anti-poverty agenda and power wealth creation through MSMEs, will witness a proliferation of schemes and sorrows pretty soon. Every government, every excellency, every NGO, every community will soon start its own bank or scheme! Very little thoughts will be given to sustainability and success, especially the issue of professionalism.
The Global Dimension
Crisis is in the air! The US subprime mortgage crisis is creating ripples around the world. This week, the UK will know if the Northern Rock, its No.5 mortgage bank, will survive the run on it!
One reason the world financial system is now quaking is because all sorts of fancy products and services, including predatory financial engineering, have crept into - if not taken over! - banking.
People are simply figure-crunching, bundling & unbundling sterile assets, securitising strange & questionable mortgages, and refinancing an opaque miasma of debts & equities, with amazing ease and at da speed of light! Real banking is about PEOPLE. These days it's about FIGURES!
Very strange, indeed.
Hedge Funds have happened upon us like a thief in the night, and we are all wondering what hit us! Even the G8 found it too hot an issue to touch, let alone tackle, at its last meeting!! When this
remorseless but exciting phenomenon runs its course or "curse", may it not cost us in blood and tears!!! We warn, we pray.
Which is why the sensible call for Nigerian banks to recruit from the international labour market must be heeded with caution, and handled with care. We must recruit, but we must produce the bulk of our manpower in the long-run.
Part of the Solution...is...Past Players & Old Bankers!
To achieve some measure of sanity and stability, the banking system must seek out and bring back old hands: These are qualified professional bankers, experienced former staff, and former lecturers in banking & finance.
Once they are in good health and of no criminal records, re-hire them and retrain them fast! It will be magical what this will do for the sector.
WARNING!!!
If the banks delay, may someone tell them that the microcredit hawks are both in the running and swooning! Trouble is, when those ones politically mushroom and vocationally wither, we will still be stuck with da real banks - warts and all!
Forwards, I scream! So, let's start with the economy. Nigeria has committed itself to a rigorous agenda: To become one of the world's Top 20 economies by the year 2020! Great. It will do so by, among other things, using the Financial Services Sector to drive the programme. Great. Or, is it? Yes, if the banks can rise up to the plate!
So, I have some thoughts...
Let's start with some enquiries: Some very basic questions on house-keeping, order and sanity. Mainly preparatory stuff most people can easily digest:
1) In Nigeria, is banking a profession, vocation or occupation?
2) Which laws and bodies ensure its utmost professionalism?
3) What are the official and unofficial levels of bad-debts and frauds?
4) What are the lessons of the consolidation exercise?
5) Have we done the SWOT Analysis of ALL the NEW banks, post-consolidation?
6) How many staff does each have, and how many are professional bankers?
7) What is the success level of their cards and e-banking forays?
8) What lessons from 1-7 above for branch banking?
9) Do they uphold the rudiments of banks' historical anchors: agric-finance, trade-finance, mortgage-finance, micro-finance and SME-development?
10) Where are we in women banking and youth enterprises - which were so promising before?
11) What are the annual numbers of qualified bankers from the CIBN "production line"!?
12) What are banks doing about capacity building, and getting their staff to become ACIBs?
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Bankers Committee, The Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) have all spoken out on the dearth of professionalism in the financial services sector, especially the in banks! Last week, the senate president reiterated this lament!! A visit to our banking hall will tell you just how poorly the levels have sunk!!!
Things are very very bad. Most of the staff have no idea what banking is. Many are "financial illiterates". You are told things by rote, not by reason or rationality! An independent survey is now inevitable - to shove da mirror in our face, as it were!
Global Warning...on Skilled Labour:
Anyone with enough attentiveness will hear the endless lament about shortages of good quality manpower in most developed economies, the rich world. People are living longer, and the baby boomers are staying healthier. In places like Japan and Russia as well as some European states, the populations are aging faster than they can replace/replenish the work force! The youths in many cases are abandoning their home towns and villages, sometimes countries, for good!
All these are informing and driving immigration policy around the world. Now, most developing nations are the hunting grounds of the rich countries for skilled labour! Professionals from doctors to nurses, from ICT experts to chemical engineers, from university dons to microfinance practitioners, are now joining masons and beauty therapists in da New Brain Drain!
Hallo hallo, even Eastern Europe (ask Poland!) is been drained by the West!!
Clever companies and governments are recalling old hands, delaying retirement or extending the mandatory age limits, even as many countries are now incentivising employers and citizens alike, to address the problem. France's cabinet is currently working on its own major shake up: expected to be bold and revolutionary!
But here in Africa, our people are complacent. Nigerian leaders were busy retrenching, sacking and re-sizing staff, from both public & private sectors, without adequate preparations or quality succession, in the last eight years! In a depressed economy, health and education plunge. So is it with Nigeria. Our system is churning out half-baked graduates and unskilled professionals. The youth service scheme has been virtually paralysed by lack of funds and scandalously diminished placement/posting opportunities: companies are folding up, governments are downsizing. What a double blow!
It be from this milieu, dear thinker, that we are just crawling - after the damning shame of da last elections - hoping to regroup, recoup and rebuild. Where then are the professionals that will staff and sustain the banking system? And thus help da financial services sector drive and power the economy to its 20-20-20 summit?? Big question.
Trusting Nigerians and the me-too mentality of our public officials, the new policy of using microcredits/microfinance to drive the anti-poverty agenda and power wealth creation through MSMEs, will witness a proliferation of schemes and sorrows pretty soon. Every government, every excellency, every NGO, every community will soon start its own bank or scheme! Very little thoughts will be given to sustainability and success, especially the issue of professionalism.
The Global Dimension
Crisis is in the air! The US subprime mortgage crisis is creating ripples around the world. This week, the UK will know if the Northern Rock, its No.5 mortgage bank, will survive the run on it!
One reason the world financial system is now quaking is because all sorts of fancy products and services, including predatory financial engineering, have crept into - if not taken over! - banking.
People are simply figure-crunching, bundling & unbundling sterile assets, securitising strange & questionable mortgages, and refinancing an opaque miasma of debts & equities, with amazing ease and at da speed of light! Real banking is about PEOPLE. These days it's about FIGURES!
Very strange, indeed.
Hedge Funds have happened upon us like a thief in the night, and we are all wondering what hit us! Even the G8 found it too hot an issue to touch, let alone tackle, at its last meeting!! When this
remorseless but exciting phenomenon runs its course or "curse", may it not cost us in blood and tears!!! We warn, we pray.
Which is why the sensible call for Nigerian banks to recruit from the international labour market must be heeded with caution, and handled with care. We must recruit, but we must produce the bulk of our manpower in the long-run.
Part of the Solution...is...Past Players & Old Bankers!
To achieve some measure of sanity and stability, the banking system must seek out and bring back old hands: These are qualified professional bankers, experienced former staff, and former lecturers in banking & finance.
Once they are in good health and of no criminal records, re-hire them and retrain them fast! It will be magical what this will do for the sector.
WARNING!!!
If the banks delay, may someone tell them that the microcredit hawks are both in the running and swooning! Trouble is, when those ones politically mushroom and vocationally wither, we will still be stuck with da real banks - warts and all!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Building & Construction In Nigeria: Create New Firms
PART I.......(HOUSING)
Now that the nation has seen the emptiness and hypocrisy of the past, it is time to take our destiny in our hands, anew!
There are too few players in Nigeria's construction business. And it is still very lacking in local content and indigenous investment. Over the years, corruption has kept our own people from winning major contracts from our own governments! As is being reported from Europe and the United States, many multinationals simply bribe their way to sumptuous and salacious contracts in the third world, including Nigeria. In the bidding, if there was bidding, no local entrepreneur stood a chance in heaven or hell! In several cases, the foreigners procure "local" businessmen and politicians as puppets - to beat indigenisation policies or affirmative action.
No transfer of technology or know-how ever takes place, and no reinvestment either - profits are repatriated, over-invoicing be state-of-da-play, and the multinational simply smile to their bank in an orgy of obscene capital flight!!!
For decades now, Nigeria has been a dishonourable showcase and unpatriotic case-study in this regard. The advent of democratic governance held so much promise for change. But, alas, our politicians at all levels out-competed themselves in furthering the shameful practice, and often introduced mind-boggling varieties that have baffled our development partners, friends and anti-graft agencies!!!
The RESULT? Collapse of national infrastructure. Collapse of local contractors. Loss of pride. Unemployment. Upsurge in crimes. Social and Economic Discontent. Decline in national capacity. High import dependency. Inflation. Sick national currency. More corruption. Etc. Etc.
A NEW BEGINNING
I believe in borrowing and buying for abroad. We are in a global village. And it is impossible for Nigeria to develop otherwise. So, here is how we may proceed...
a) To tackle our HOUSING challenges, create 109 Burnt Bricks Firms/Factories - one per senatorial district - that will make us proudly use local materials
b) To provide all our wood-products/materials create 3 Mega Sawmills per LGA at raw material sources nationwide, plus 12 Furniture & Fittings Firms/Factories per state
c) Encourage states to invest in cement production, especially in the raw material zones
d) Create 1 Mega Paints Manufacturer per state
e) Create 1 Mega Nails & Binders Manufacturer per geo-political zone
f) Create 1 Mega Roofing Materials Firm/Factory per geo-political zone
g) Create 1 Mega Electrical Materials Firm/Factory per geo-political zone
h) Create 1 Mega Plumbing Materials & Pipes Manufacturer per geo-political zone
i) For marbles, stones, sand, granite, etc., each state should license quarries and micro-miners
j) Establish 12 Integrated Full-range Solar Energy Manufacturing Firms/Factories
k) Create 12 Mega Home Appliances & Office Equipment Manufacturers nationwide
l) Each Zone should establish a World Class Joint Venture for Full-range Construction/Building Equipment Assembly/Manufacture (6 nationwide)
To operationalise all these, international joint ventures with local majority stakes and foreign technical partners/investors is the way - especially from Asia and South America. Successful Family Businesses from Europe and North America should also be attracted. Only "born-again" multinationals should be considered!!!
FUNDING DA DEAL!
Our 25 (so far) consolidated banks should return every 3 years to the capital market for cheap equity cash. Right now, we should design a unique matrix of syndicated loans and MSME JVs, including new and specific incentives, to fund the deals.
The federal government will, on behalf of Nigeria, invest US$10bn in a special trust fund to drive the portfolio.
State governments will, on behalf of their people, invest between Naira 10-20bn in special mortgage trusts to drive the housing agenda.
If well done, I suggest that in just 10 Years we will be exporting housing, expertise, products and prosperity to our African Brethren!
Now that the nation has seen the emptiness and hypocrisy of the past, it is time to take our destiny in our hands, anew!
There are too few players in Nigeria's construction business. And it is still very lacking in local content and indigenous investment. Over the years, corruption has kept our own people from winning major contracts from our own governments! As is being reported from Europe and the United States, many multinationals simply bribe their way to sumptuous and salacious contracts in the third world, including Nigeria. In the bidding, if there was bidding, no local entrepreneur stood a chance in heaven or hell! In several cases, the foreigners procure "local" businessmen and politicians as puppets - to beat indigenisation policies or affirmative action.
No transfer of technology or know-how ever takes place, and no reinvestment either - profits are repatriated, over-invoicing be state-of-da-play, and the multinational simply smile to their bank in an orgy of obscene capital flight!!!
For decades now, Nigeria has been a dishonourable showcase and unpatriotic case-study in this regard. The advent of democratic governance held so much promise for change. But, alas, our politicians at all levels out-competed themselves in furthering the shameful practice, and often introduced mind-boggling varieties that have baffled our development partners, friends and anti-graft agencies!!!
The RESULT? Collapse of national infrastructure. Collapse of local contractors. Loss of pride. Unemployment. Upsurge in crimes. Social and Economic Discontent. Decline in national capacity. High import dependency. Inflation. Sick national currency. More corruption. Etc. Etc.
A NEW BEGINNING
I believe in borrowing and buying for abroad. We are in a global village. And it is impossible for Nigeria to develop otherwise. So, here is how we may proceed...
a) To tackle our HOUSING challenges, create 109 Burnt Bricks Firms/Factories - one per senatorial district - that will make us proudly use local materials
b) To provide all our wood-products/materials create 3 Mega Sawmills per LGA at raw material sources nationwide, plus 12 Furniture & Fittings Firms/Factories per state
c) Encourage states to invest in cement production, especially in the raw material zones
d) Create 1 Mega Paints Manufacturer per state
e) Create 1 Mega Nails & Binders Manufacturer per geo-political zone
f) Create 1 Mega Roofing Materials Firm/Factory per geo-political zone
g) Create 1 Mega Electrical Materials Firm/Factory per geo-political zone
h) Create 1 Mega Plumbing Materials & Pipes Manufacturer per geo-political zone
i) For marbles, stones, sand, granite, etc., each state should license quarries and micro-miners
j) Establish 12 Integrated Full-range Solar Energy Manufacturing Firms/Factories
k) Create 12 Mega Home Appliances & Office Equipment Manufacturers nationwide
l) Each Zone should establish a World Class Joint Venture for Full-range Construction/Building Equipment Assembly/Manufacture (6 nationwide)
To operationalise all these, international joint ventures with local majority stakes and foreign technical partners/investors is the way - especially from Asia and South America. Successful Family Businesses from Europe and North America should also be attracted. Only "born-again" multinationals should be considered!!!
FUNDING DA DEAL!
Our 25 (so far) consolidated banks should return every 3 years to the capital market for cheap equity cash. Right now, we should design a unique matrix of syndicated loans and MSME JVs, including new and specific incentives, to fund the deals.
The federal government will, on behalf of Nigeria, invest US$10bn in a special trust fund to drive the portfolio.
State governments will, on behalf of their people, invest between Naira 10-20bn in special mortgage trusts to drive the housing agenda.
If well done, I suggest that in just 10 Years we will be exporting housing, expertise, products and prosperity to our African Brethren!
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