Recently, Chief Allen Onyema revealed how land battles frustrated his efforts to site Air Peace’s multi-billion naira Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility in Enugu and Anambra. His lament is more than personal; it is an indictment of Ndigbo. And it is time we faced the truth without excuses: our greatest obstacle to development is ourselves.
Here was a once-in-a-generation project requiring 34,000 square meters, that is roughly 76 plots of land for infrastructure that would have created 50,000 jobs, saved Nigeria ₦360 billion in foreign exchange annually, and placed the South East on the global aviation map. Yet instead of rallying to secure it, communities bickered, families fought, and vested interests strangled the vision. Land disputes and selfish claims over airport lands became more important than regional progress. What a tragedy!
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) rapidly reshaping the global digital landscape, Professor Adewale Peter Obadare and Amrich Singhal, have strongly warned of a ticking time bomb if its not properly governed in Nigeria, reports ITREALMS.
The two who spoke at the 2025 Africa’s Beacon of ICT Merit & Leadership Award (ABoICT 2025), at the weekend in Lagos, urgently called for Nigeria and Africa to adopt a unified, governance-driven approach to AI development, stressing that trust, regulation, and cybersecurity are paramount, as they stressed that AI without governance is a 'ticking time bomb.'
A simple birthday celebration of one of the organic “Daily Times” icons who arrived on the 7th floor on April 1, 2025, Mr. Ndubuisi James Ugbede and the Minister of Information Alhaji Idris Mohammed Malagi’s remark in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, where he is attending the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show 2025, provoked a revisit of two old commentaries on this column in 2018 and 2023.
On Thursday this week, (April 10, 2025) at the Lagos Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Iyalla Street, Alausa Ikeja, a remarkable colleague Mr Lekan Otufodunrin and I were guest speakers at a symposium organised in honour of a former Director of Times Journalism Institute (TJI) under the aegis of Times Journalism Alumni Association (TJAA) now headed by Mr Clifford Agugoesi.
In a country as populous and diverse as Nigeria, healthcare challenges are a familiar reality. Yet, often overlooked in the broader healthcare conversation is the crucial role of eye care. Vision impairment and blindness affect millions of Nigerians, yet primary eye care remains underdeveloped and underappreciated. This situation calls for re-evaluating the role of optometrists, whose indispensable presence in primary eye health care can be the difference between sight and blindness for many Nigerians.
Globally, it is estimated that over 2.2 billion people suffer from some form of vision impairment, and Nigeria is no exception. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), at least one billion of these cases are preventable or have yet to be addressed. In Nigeria, the burden of visual impairment is staggering, with millions affected by conditions such as cataracts, glaucoma, refractive errors etc. What makes this even more concerning is that many cases could be prevented if treated on time and if there were adequate primary eye care services.
For the seventh consecutive years, Dangote Industries Limited, has again emerged as most valuable brand in Nigeria, leading other top brands like MTN, Airtel, Access Bank, Globacom and many others, reports ITREALMS.
The latest report of the TOP 50 BRANDS NIGERIA rankings, an annual celebration of the most influential and valuable brands in the country, revealed this.
The Oyo State governor, 'Seyi Makinde, has congratulated the Muslim Ummah in the state and across the world on the commencement of the month of Ramadan 1445.
The governor, who described the holy month as a blessed month in which Allah rewards the worship of the Muslim Ummah, charged Muslims to increase their prayers for the country and the state.
In recent years, the telecommunications landscape in Nigeria has witnessed exponential growth, with an increasing number of users relying on data services for communication and connectivity. Data service has become a tremendously successful market segment for telcos.
In Q3 2023, Nigeria's top mobile network operators, MTN and Airtel, collectively generated N403.2 billion from data services. MTN, the country's largest telecom operator, saw a 38.9 per cent increase, reaching N279.5 billion in data revenue compared to N201.1 billion in the same period the previous year. Airtel Nigeria experienced a 29.3 per cent growth, reporting N123.7 billion in data subscriptions for the quarter ending September 2023. Both telecom giants attribute this surge to heightened data consumption by their customers.
One of my earliest memories of a money fight was one between an alajo (thrift collector) and a borrower. The debtor was screaming at the top of his voice, 'na money I borrow I no kill person.' Then he added a clincher, 'after all Nigeria self dey owe.'
It took the intervention of the Baba Oloja at that time to resolve the issue. The Baba Oloja's intervention saved the day, prevented a fracas and led to the resolution.
Almost everyone has stories of someone who has made or lost tons of money from sports betting. A simple internet search will throw up tons of examples. There is the story of a popular Senior GP in the UK who was jailed three years for stealing £1.1m within a space of 3 weeks due to online gambling addiction. There is a block of four flats, off Ikotun Igando Road, that the rumours indicate was built from the proceed of sports betting success. The stories, whether of gain or pain, are endless.
Experts point to the increase in penetration of mobile telephony, widespread availability of broadband internet and growing global attraction of football leagues in Europe as the principal drivers of the ubiquity and adoption of sports betting across Nigeria. The engagement of popular influencers in sports betting marketing is also a factor here. Despite the deeply religious orientation of the citizens, sports betting has continued to gain ground across the length and breadth of the country.
The digital platforms in Africa should scale up to take advantage of the continent’s surging demand for creative content, said Africa Investment Forum Senior Director Chinelo Anohu, adding that the African Development Bank flagship entity is providing advisory services and investment support to creative players.
Anohu was speaking at a virtual “fireside chat” on Tuesday with Afreximbank President Benedict Oramah and Dean Garfield, Netflix’s Vice President of Public Policy.
If you are a gender champion, then you are familiar with the discussions around the glass cliff. The story of women eager to defy the odds, accepting leadership roles at times of crisis, when the chance of failure is the highest. The truth is that many bold glass cliff climbers have succeeded without falling off.
Two of such champions come to my mind: the former Xerox CEO Anne Mulcah and Tokunboh Ishmael, co-founder of Aliethiea IDF.
Mulcah, Ishmael and likeminded agents of change have already shattered the status quo. So, when the first Global Gender Summit held in Africa kicks off on November 25th in Kigali, Rwanda, the international community will hurtle towards heeding the calls to dismantle barriers to women’s full participation and advancement economic development on the continent.
Women make up over 40 per cent of African business owners yet only 2 per cent are able to access finance according to a Mckinsey report. One in four women globally who start in a business come from Africa (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor).
The Summit, organised by the Multilateral Development Banks’ (MDBs) Working Group on gender, will be held in Africa for the first time ever, from the 25th to 27th November 2019 in Kigali, Rwanda. This year’s summit is hosted by the African Development Bank in partnership with the Government of Rwanda and supported by other multilateral development banks as key partners.
Under the theme “Unpacking constraints to gender equality,” the Global Gender Summit will share best practices and seek innovative solutions that can be harnessed to empower women and girls in Africa and around the world.
We are excited to be bringing the world to Rwanda, a country that has set a strong example when it comes to promoting women’s rights and representation.
Rwanda was the first country in the world with a female majority in parliament, currently at 67.5 %, following October parliamentary polls. Out of a total parliamentary membership of 80, women occupy 54 seats. This feat puts the nation ahead of even the most developed nations.
From the massive financing gap for women-led enterprises, inadequate data, laws and cultural norms that negatively affect women, to a lack of representation in business and politics, the challenges are great.
But the opportunities are there too.
Discussions will focus on the main barriers to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, namely: scaling up innovative financing, fostering an enabling environment and ensuring women’s participation and voices. Sectors to be addressed will include climate change, the digital revolution, private sector and human capital and productive employment.
In Africa, women-led enterprises face a whopping $42 billion financing gap. One of the Bank’s flagship gender-focused projects is its Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA), which seeks to accelerate growth and employment creation across African economies, by closing the financing gap for women.
Over the next 5 years, AFAWA is expected to unlock $3 billion in private sector financing to empower female entrepreneurs through capacity-building development, access to finance as well as policy, legal and regulatory reforms to support enterprises led by women.
Our Fashionomics Africa initiative supports the African textiles and fashion industries by building the capacities of small and medium-sized enterprises in the textile and clothing sector, especially those run by women and youth. By using technology as a driver for the development of skills and capacity in Africa’s creative industries, the African Development Bank aims to stimulate job creation on the continent. At the summit, we will unveil an innovative online marketplace for designers across the continent.
That’s just some of the exciting news. We will use the opportunity of the Global Gender Summit to launch a number of initiatives to dramatically transform the landscape of access to finance for women across the continent.
These include the Africa Gender Index- a joint African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) report that assesses African countries on gender equality.
The launch of the AFAWA/AGF Risk Sharing Facility, which will de-risk lending to women through AGF’s partial, guarantees to financial institutions and its capacity development to women entrepreneurs.
As well as these continent-wide initiatives, we at the African Development Bank understand that change begins at home. That is why in 2018, the Bank rolled out its gender marker system to process, monitor, and promote gender mainstreaming in all its operations, with gender specialists as part of project teams and Bank operations.
By the end of last year, 40% of public sector Bank operations had been organised under the gender marker system, a major shift in the Bank’s way of doing business and commitment to gender mainstreaming.
We continue to support and build the individual power of girls and women across the countries we work in and never has the time been more urgent.
We expect the Global Gender Summit, to be a milestone event in the empowerment of women in Africa and beyond. See you there.
* This year’s Global Gender Summit, is hosted by the African Development Bank in partnership with the Government of Rwanda and supported by other multilateral development banks as key partners.
*Vanessa Moungar, Director of Gender, Women and Civil Society
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The next digital battle resides in the struggle to hide and seek your Password.
Relevant estimates show that, there are about 1250-2100 languages. Therefore, is the adoption of Local Language Password Code beneficial to a country? “Around a hundred languages are widely used for inter-ethnic communication. Arabic, Somali, Berber, Amharic, Oromo, Igbo, Swahili, Hausa, Manding, Fulani and Yoruba are spoken by tens of millions of people.” (Wiki).
The above question on adoption of Local Language Password Code is very inviting and critical to the digital-knowledge-of-things (DKoT). Indeed, there have been many illuminating debates on this subject with pros and cons - based on which part of the digital divide one is positioned. Applying digital common sense, using your local language does not only make sense, it is important, strategic and beneficial.
The main focal-point of this write-up can be summarized as follows: “In fact, using characters from a wider pool makes it harder for an attacker to guess your password by brute force. That said, making the password slightly longer generally does that more effectively than sprinkling "weird" characters into your password (obligatory xkcd link), so you should only use non-English characters in your password if you can type and remember them easily, e.g. because you speak a language that uses those characters”.
One thing to keep in mind as we further explore the subject-matter (with ASCII at the Background) is to note that initially, the Internet as we know it today was really not designed with digital security in mind. ASCII is a 7-bit character-set containing 128 characters ranging from the 0-9 numbers, forming the upper and lower case English letters from A to Z, and some special characters. The character-sets used in modern computers, in HTML, and on the Internet, are all based on ASCII. Luckily, Nigerian and most African Languages are alphabet-based.
Simply defined, ASCII (spoken as) ASS-kee), is an acronym which stands for “American Standard Code for Information Interchange”. ASCII is a model designed for character encoding standard to enable flexible electronic communication. Further illuminated, ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other Information Technology devices.
In general, there is no reason not to use arbitrary characters in a password, unless the system processing the password does something stupid with them (like removes them completely, leaving an empty password). History tells us that in the old days of language-specific character- sets, there was always the risk that passwords with non-ASCII characters might disappoint the user when you switched to a different computer.
This problem arises because standardized model has not matured and the system was encoding those characters differently. But today the system devices are much standardized on Unicode as the standard universal character-set – making password construct much admissible as far as it obeys the rules guiding usage of special characters. Some user experience have shown that in Cyberhacking, the attacker does not expect victims using their own local language and sometime mixed with foreign languages – hence, the penetration becomes more difficult for the attacker and delivers improved protection to the User..
Example of the adoption and use of local African Languages for Mobile phone access, email and Mobile financial and ATM transactions are in their millions. A User testimony attested as follows: “I used to have 'special' letters in my email address to combat spam. It worked greatly, I have not yet received a single email for that address”
Also: “Of course, we still have different ways of encoding Unicode characters into bytes, like UTF-8, UTF-16-LE/BE, UCS-32, etc., but at least those are generally pretty well under the receiving program's control, as opposed to depending on the user's OS and/or terminal settings like charset selection used to be. And, honestly, UTF-8 is becoming pretty well established as the standard Unicode encoding for I/O purposes, even if some software may use other encodings internally.) In fact, using characters from a wider pool makes it harder for an attacker to guess your password by brute force”.
That said, making the password slightly longer generally does that more effectively than sprinkling "weird" characters into your password (obligatory xkcd link), so you should only use non-English characters in your password if you can type and remember them easily, e.g. because you speak a language that uses those characters. Still, there are some reasons why you might sometimes not want to use non-ASCII characters in your password.”
Finally, “A word is enough for the wise: Choose, apply and use your local language (with numeric combination where possible) as your preferred Password protection it will safe you life troubles in the digital battle of the 21st Century.”
*Contributed by Chris Uwaje, former president Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON).
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If
you are an avid social media follower, one of the sneering comments from those
suspected to have been engaged to hound the acting chairman of the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Mustapha Magu, a police
commissioner, is one that portrays him as incapable of expressing himself.
Although Magu would be the first to admit that he does not really enjoy facing
the camera, the truth however is that he is lucid enough.
Even
then, the EFCC chairman is a police officer, an excellent one at that. He is
not a movie star! As a police officer he is trained in the art of bursting
financial crimes. Those who have crossed his path, especially his colleagues
and of course some thieving former governors—be they in the Senate or out of
political office—can attest to his incredible ability in sniffing out a crime
from afar. He is that good!
Perhaps,
out of usual cynicism or orchestrated mischief, those decidedly against the
fight against corruption in the land pretend not to see how effective Magu has
become in his position as head of the anti-corruption agency, EFCC. Indeed, we
had to wait for foreign nationals and international organizations to nudge us
into the reality that we have in our hands a rare jewel leading the fight
against graft from the front at EFCC.
Baroness
Patricia Scotland, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, came around and
applauded Magu as a "dogged fighter" who is doing a fantastic job and
who in the last three years had recovered more money for the country than at
any other time; Thabo Mbeki, the former South African president is effusive in
his praise for the good work Magu is doing; George Opon Weah, the newly inaugurated
president of Liberia, is negotiating with Nigeria to have EFCC to help his
country to establish and mentor their own anti-corruption agency in the way
Magu is doing wonders; the Commonwealth Africa Anti-corruption Agency has
equally taken note of the exploits of the EFCC under Magu and therefore chose
him to lead this very important group on the continent; and at the last African
Union Summit in Addis Ababa, African leaders unanimously chose President Buhari
to lead the line in the fight against corruption on the continent. Those close
to the President gleaned that President Buhari openly admitted that his Addis
Ababa honour came from the good performance of the EFCC chairman!
Is
it not an indictment on the Senate that the man they claim on two occasions was
unsuitable for the office of the EFCC chairman continues to draw accolades from
home and abroad? Is the Senate really representing the Nigerian citizenry who
on daily basis continue to see Ibrahim Magu as the new champion of the masses?
Yes, it has to be because the poor, the hard working and the ordinary citizen,
bear the full brunt of the thievery going on in our country in the name of
politics. And anyone who is seen to be fighting the dangerous battle of
confronting the looters of our common patrimony like the EFCC chairman, easily
passes as a man of the people. Let allegedly corrupt politicians, especially in
the senate continue to whine; let them continue to sponsor counter narratives
against Magu, Nigerians are already seeing results of his dangerous assignment.
Make
no mistakes about this, it is not only in the Senate that the daggers are out
for the EFCC chairman. Even among President Buhari's appointees, there are many
who out of petty jealousy, rivalry and the frustrations of their own failure
are questioning what this Magu has done to attract all the public support and
endorsement. They are even wont to accuse the media of unnecessarily bloating
Magu up without any verifiable achievements. What other achievements do these
people want bigger than the fact that there seems to be a sense of normative
shift in the conduct of public affairs in our country today?
There
is equally a sense of action and consequences in the handling of public finance
in our country now. The days when public officials treat and handle public
funds as prebends are at least for now, gone. There is now this fear that the
big eagle eye of the EFCC is watching and public servants and even private
business people now know that they must conduct themselves in transparent and
less opaque manner in all their financial transactions or risk being arrested
and prosecuted. As a country reeling from the debilitating effects of past
wanton looting of the economy, this is a significant milestone.
And
talking about tangible and verifiable achievements, EFCC under Magu has earned
all the praises being heaped on it. Over N738.9 billion of looted funds has
been recovered in the last three years; 605 convictions have been secured; Magu
recently completed a magnificent office complex for the EFCC, an architectural
masterpiece which, Mrs. Farida Waziri, a former chairman, considered a big
"shock". And talking about convictions, cynics have questioned the
quality of the convictions alleging that only pickpockets and petty fraudsters
get convicted.
Although,
it is not the duty of the EFCC to pass judgment but that of the courts, in the
last month the EFCC has successfully prosecuted two former governors, Rev. Jolly
Nyame and Joshua Dariye, of Taraba and Plateau States respectively. The good Reverend
is now serving a jail term of 14 years and his colleague, until his conviction,
a serving senator of the Federal Republic, was jailed for 14 years.
Interestingly, both Nyame and Dariye are of the ruling APC. Does that send any
signal? Of course, those accusing Magu of going after only members of the
opposition will not like that fact! Lest we forget, Senior Advocate of Nigeria,
Joseph Nwobike, and Mohammed Dakingari, former accountant general of Kebbi State,
had earlier been convicted and sentenced to one month and 70 years,
respectively.
In
the weeks ahead, more convictions or acquittals may just come to us like the
thief in the night just as Nyame's and Dariye's did. This is so because some of
the corrupt cases involving high profile politicians have been slated for
judgment. This might be a huge harvest time for the EFCC and the Nigerian
people.
Although President Buhari and indeed activists like Mrs. Oby
Ezekwesili, Professor Akin Oyebode, Professor Chidi Odinkalu, Femi Falana, Jiti
Ogunye and civil society organizations have called out the judiciary to take
its rightful place in the fight to save this country from the vice-like grip of
corruption, I am told that there is nothing the judge can do when the
prosecution cannot argue a strong case. And the prosecution can equally do
nothing with a poorly investigated case.
As
Nigeria marks 19 years of democracy today after the return to civilian rule,
opinion is divided on how well the country has harnessed the dividends of democratic
governance.
While
a school of thought holds that the dark days of military dictatorship and
autocratic rule, which the return to democracy in 1999 put paid to, remains a
high point worth celebrating; there is a contrary view in many quarters that,
in spite of the switch from jack-boots to civilian attire, Nigeria remains mired
in a seemingly unending struggle to enthrone the values of true and
all-inclusive democracy.
On
May 29th 1999, Nigerians had witnessed a momentous change of guard; one which
finally saw the country shed its well-worn toga of a pariah state when Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo took office as President of Nigeria, the first elected and civilian
head of state following 16 long years of military rule.
Nineteen
years after, the jury is still out on whether our nascent democracy is
thriving…
One
area in which a sense of democracy has thrived and continues to thrive, however,
is the Nigerian e-commerce sector.
For
long regarded as a potential cash-cow, e-commerce in Nigeria has seen the
influx of a number of entrants or players, foreign and local, all of whom
capitalized on the freedom and democratization of access to take roots, spread
their tentacles and attempt to reap the windfall from an industry that has been
severally predicted to explode.
And
why not?
With
a booming youthful population, growing internet access and an aspirational
mindset among the majority of its populace, e-commerce in Nigeria is widely
regarded as the next big thing; an industry that could transform even the most
hopeless start-up to a multi-million-dollar company in a couple of years.
Experience,
nevertheless, tells a different tale.
A
tale of false starts, of shattered dreams, of the untold stories of many who
came, saw and quietly exited the scene.
The
Nigerian business terrain, democratic though it may be, is a tough one to
successfully navigate. Aside the near-absence of any form of government support
for the technology sector, in which e-commerce is firmly situated, start-ups in
this industry face a herculean battle to stay afloat. It is a battle akin to
swimming against a strong tide.
In
addition to being a cost-intensive venture, cracking e-commerce in Nigeria
requires a large dose of local knowledge; not only of the peculiar business
terrain but also of the cultural nuances and predilections that shape the
shopping behavior of the average Nigerian.
One
of these shopping traits is the uncompromising desire of every Nigerian for
genuine quality.
You
may claim to offer the best prices unmatched anywhere else but as long as the
item or product in question is fake or sourced from a grey channel, you had
better not waste that marketing budget.
Here
in Nigeria, e-commerce is democracy; a democratic rule governed by offering the
average shopper a range of shopping platforms, online and offline; a
multiplicity of payment options: cash, online payment, e-wallet, etc. and
delivery solutions that guarantee no late delivery stories.
Above
all, you must provide access to genuine products and take responsibility for
it.
In
reality though, a pertinent question worth asking: how many e-commerce
companies in Nigeria can claim absolute responsibility for the quality of
products they carry? How many can trace the source of their items to the
Original Equipment Manufacturers? And how many can boast of owning warehouses
for stocking large volumes?
Perhaps,
only one stands out…
Recently,
smart Nigerians have begun pushing a movement to enthrone quality democracy in
their shopping activities; a democratic insistence on quality.
It
began like a whisper that started catching on in social circles and has now
gained currency among many.
ITRealms recalls that Konga Me, is a phrase that brings to life the determination of every Nigerian shopper to get
only the very best quality. Put in another way, Konga Me is a new universal language for genuine products only. It
is a term that has become popular, not only among young ones, but among adults
and trendy youths to differentiate quality products from fake ones sourced from
unreliable platforms.
Used
to refer quality-minded shoppers to Konga, the e-commerce giant that emerged
from the merger between Yudala and Konga after the latter’s acquisition by the
Zinox Group, Konga Me is also used to
request for quality gifts or favours from friends, family and associates.
As
Nigeria marks 19 years of democracy today, Tuesday May 29th 2018,
there is no better time to insist on quality product democracy…Indeed, no better time to Konga Me.
The recently
proclaimed 198 million populations by the office of National Bureau of
Statistics, has been described as a waiting time bomb if not well managed, especially for family planning capable of engendering positive development,
reports ITRealms.
This caution
was sounded by the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Leadership Newspapers, Mr
Dele Fanimo, when he received at the Lagos office, a delegation of Family
Planning Media Advocacy Working Group (FPMAWG) led by its chairperson, Mrs.
Chioma Umeha.
For him, the
latest Nigerian population at 198 million has an implication on the country in
all aspects of the economy, decrying that a session of this population, is the
size of some African countries within the sub-region.
“A quarter
of this population is almost twice the population of Republic of Benin. The
central of this is uncontrolled birth,” he said.
Fanimo pointed
out that the implication of the Nigerian huge population could lead to increase
in crime and prostitution, stressing that with social dislocation associated
with such population explosion, results to underdevelopment and a failed
nation.
“Uncontrolled
birth is unacceptable because when a man has a big family he cannot cater for,
he will have to deny child A to send child B to school, leading to more
miscreants, thieves, thugs and hoodlums on our streets and the vicious circle
continues,” he said.
In addition,
Fanimo described population explosion as a huge problem, for the promotion of
family planning, insisting that families must ensure they have children they can
cater for.
Earlier in
her address, the working group chairperson, Mrs. Umeha, noted that Family
Planning (FP) has been a worldwide issue, hence the reason why world leaders,
local and international donors and advocates from around the world gathered at
an FP Summit in London on July 11, 2017 to discuss efforts to reach the FP 2020
goals and ensure that more women and girls around the world are able to plan
their families and their future.
Nigerian
government, she pointed out, made a commitment to increase the Contraceptive
Prevalence Rate (CPR) from 15 percent to 27 percent by 2020 at that meeting,
stressing that government at both the Federal and State have shown commitment
to the provision of free FP services to the entire women of child-bearing age
in the country.
The reason
for this is not far-fetched as different statistics and surveys conducted
around the world, have revealed that FP program when effectively done, can lead
to a reduction of maternal deaths by up to 34 percent and newborn death by
about 15 per cent.
The chairperson was
accompanied during the advocacy visit by some members of FP Media Working Group,
including Chioma Obinna of Vanguard Newspapers, and Remmy Nweke of DigitalSENSE
Africa Media, publishers of NaijaAgroNet and ITRealms; Pastor Olusegun Omotayo Adeboye as well as Mrs Shotomiwa
Olubunmi, both of Lagos Advocacy Working Group (LAWG) and Public Health
Sustainable Advocacy Initiative(PHSAI), while the acting General Manager,
Southern Operation at Leadership, Mrs. Angela Tony Iji, was also on attendance.
For the third time running, Shell has
won the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Games (NOGIG), posting a commanding
victory streak in the history of the 30-year old triennial competition, reports ITRealms.
At the
end of the week-long NOGIG 2018 in Lagos, Team Shell topped the medal table
with 11 gold, 12 silver and 11 bronze, leaving the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Chevron in second and third places
respectively.
Today, Wednesday, 7th June,2017 marks the third year remembrance anniversary of Prof. Dora Akunyili, writes Chris Uruakpa.
To many, she was an icon, to others she was a source of
inspiration. Prof. Dora Akunyili was a brilliant pharmacist, pharmacologist, an
erudite scholar, a seasoned administrator, a visionary leader, an embodiment of
grace, a woman of substance, unequalled character who brought respect and glory
to the nation.
She was fearless, proactive and was a role model to a lot of
Nigerians. A physical embodiment of what it means to truly serve and honour the
people who entrusted you with power.
Akunyili rose to the corridors of power through a
combination of sheer honesty and by dint of hard work. Even from a distance, one
could sense her commitment and share in her dream.
Like a star in the dark firmament, she was the shining star
that could not be shut out. When she started her job as the Director-General of
National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), she
trawled drugs market, hospitals and clinics, and she was horrified at what she
discovered. From Idumota to Onitsha and Kano open market distribution channels,
Prof. Dora Akunyili went to the "den of counterfeiters" and made
known to them that it would not be business as usual, advising them all to look
for alternatives means of survival.
I must say here that before she held sway at NAFDAC, hospitals
in the country used fake and contaminated drugs, surgeons used fake adrenalin
to re-start the heart, and anesthetists gave sub-strength muscle relaxant to
patients in their operating theatres. When the public saw the dragons she
slayed, counterfeiters fought back.
They burnt some NAFDAC offices, she suffered two
assassination attempts and also threatened to kill her children. She chalked up
points for Nigeria globally and redeemed her image. Akunyili was everything.
She was fearless, incorruptible, bold and principled. She was a patriot, a
nationalist and a completely detribalized Nigerian.
At a time when her mates were chasing the mundane, the woman
with the simple Ankara fabric worked very hard to stamp her feet. Akunyili
seemed to have her time cut out for her in public service. Her birth in Makurdi
made her a Pan-Nigerian. There was no Igbo, Hausa or Yoruba, for her there was
only one Nigeria.
Going down memory lane, I remember when she broke down and
said tearfully "fake drugs have been used to massacre innocent lives and
it is a crime against humanity". We can protect ourselves against AIDS, but
we can do nothing against a deadly drug.
For the records, Akunyili a consummate and passionate
regulator will remain a regulator extraordinaire in the annals of the nation.
On a day like this, Nigerians still remember the late Prof. Dora
Akunyili and miss her in the defiant moments when she stood her ground resolute
in her faith, commitment and purpose. Nigerians are still singing her praises.
Dora, you lived and worked like no mere mortal, but we are
all mortals. In an environment steeped in corruption, it was not an easy road.
Conclusively, we remember Prof. Dora today with a great
sense of fulfilment for a life well lived. A life of service to humanity. Prof.
Dora, we won't forget you.
May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed
through the mercy of God continue to rest in peace, Amen.
Message of His Holiness Pope Francis at the occasion of the
51st World Communications Day, 2017. Excerpts.
Fear not, for I am with you (Is 43:5):
Access to the media – thanks to technological progress –
makes it possible for countless people to share news instantly and spread it
widely. That news may be good or bad, true or false. The early Christians
compared the human mind to a constantly grinding millstone; it is up to the
miller to determine what it will grind: good wheat or worthless weeds. Our
minds are always “grinding”, but it is up to us to choose what to feed them
(cf. SAINT JOHN CASSIAN, Epistle to Leontius).
I wish to address this message to all those who, whether in
their professional work or personal relationships, are like that mill, daily
“grinding out” information with the aim of providing rich fare for those with
whom they communicate. I would like to encourage everyone to engage in
constructive forms of communication that reject prejudice towards others and
foster a culture of encounter, helping all of us to view the world around us
with realism and trust.
I am convinced that we have to break the vicious circle of
anxiety and stem the spiral of fear resulting from a constant focus on “bad
news” (wars, terrorism, scandals and all sorts of human failure). This has
nothing to do with spreading misinformation that would ignore the tragedy of
human suffering, nor is it about a naive optimism blind to the scandal of evil.
Rather, I propose that all of us work at overcoming that feeling of growing
discontent and resignation that can at times generate apathy, fear or the idea
that evil has no limits.
Moreover, in a communications industry which thinks
that good news does not sell, and where the tragedy of human suffering and the
mystery of evil easily turn into entertainment, there is always the temptation
that our consciences can be dulled or slip into pessimism.
I would like, then, to contribute to the search for an open
and creative style of communication that never seeks to glamourize evil but
instead to concentrate on solutions and to inspire a positive and responsible
approach on the part of its recipients. I ask everyone to offer the people of
our time storylines that are at heart “good news”.
Good news:
Life is not simply a bare succession of events, but a
history, a story waiting to be told through the choice of an interpretative
lens that can select and gather the most relevant data. In and of itself,
reality has no one clear meaning. Everything depends on the way we look at
things, on the lens we use to view them. If we change that lens, reality itself
appears different. So how can we begin to “read” reality through the right
lens?
For us Christians, that lens can only be the good news,
beginning with the Good News par excellence: “the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son
of God” (Mk 1:1). With these words, Saint Mark opens his Gospel not by relating
“good news” about Jesus, but rather the good news that is Jesus himself.
Indeed, reading the pages of his Gospel, we learn that its title corresponds to
its content and, above all else, this content is the very person of Jesus.
This good news – Jesus himself – is not good because it has
nothing to do with suffering, but rather because suffering itself becomes part
of a bigger picture. It is seen as an integral part of Jesus’ love for the
Father and for all mankind. In Christ, God has shown his solidarity with every
human situation. He has told us that we are not alone, for we have a Father who
is constantly mindful of his children. “Fear not, for I am with you” (Is 43:5):
these are the comforting words of a God who is immersed in the history of his
people. In his beloved Son, this divine promise – “I am with you” – embraces
all our weakness, even to dying our death.
In Christ, even darkness and death
become a point of encounter with Light and Life. Hope is born, a hope
accessible to everyone, at the very crossroads where life meets the bitterness
of failure. That hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured
into our hearts (cf. Rom 5:5) and makes new life blossom, like a shoot that
springs up from the fallen seed. Seen in this light, every new tragedy that
occurs in the world’s history can also become a setting for good news, inasmuch
as love can find a way to draw near and to raise up sympathetic hearts,
resolute faces and hands ready to build anew.
Confidence in the
seed of the Kingdom:
To introduce his disciples and the crowds to this Gospel
mindset and to give them the right “lens” needed to see and embrace the love
that dies and rises, Jesus uses parables. He frequently compares the Kingdom of
God to a seed that releases its potential for life precisely when it falls to
the earth and dies (cf. Mk 4:1-34). This use of images and metaphors to convey
the quiet power of the Kingdom does not detract from its importance and
urgency; rather, it is a merciful way of making space for the listener to
freely accept and appropriate that power. It is also a most effective way to
express the immense dignity of the Paschal mystery, leaving it to images,
rather than concepts, to communicate the paradoxical beauty of new life in
Christ.
In that life, hardship and the cross do not obstruct, but bring about
God’s salvation; weakness proves stronger than any human power; and failure can
be the prelude to the fulfilment of all things in love. This is how hope in the
Kingdom of God matures and deepens: it is “as if a man should scatter seed on
the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should
sprout and grow” (Mk 4:26-27).
The Kingdom of God is already present in our midst, like a
seed that is easily overlooked, yet silently takes root. Those to whom the Holy
Spirit grants keen vision can see it blossoming. They do not let themselves be
robbed of the joy of the Kingdom by the weeds that spring up all about.
The horizons of the
Spirit:
Our hope based on the good news which is Jesus himself makes
us lift up our eyes to contemplate the Lord in the liturgical celebration of
the Ascension. Even though the Lord may now appear more distant, the horizons
of hope expand all the more. In Christ, who brings our human nature to heaven,
every man and woman can now freely “enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,
by the new and living way he opened for us through the curtain, that is,
through his flesh” (Heb 10:19-20). By “the power of the Holy Spirit” we can be
witnesses and “communicators” of a new and redeemed humanity “even to the ends
of the earth” (Acts 1:7‑8).
Confidence in the seed of God’s Kingdom and in the mystery
of Easter should also shape the way we communicate. This confidence enables us
to carry out our work – in all the different ways that communication takes
place nowadays – with the conviction that it is possible to recognize and
highlight the good news present in every story and in the face of each person.
Those who, in faith, entrust themselves to the guidance of
the Holy Spirit come to realize how God is present and at work in every moment
of our lives and history, patiently bringing to pass a history of salvation.
Hope is the thread with which this sacred history is woven, and its weaver is
none other than the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. Hope is the humblest of
virtues, for it remains hidden in the recesses of life; yet it is like the
yeast that leavens all the dough. We nurture it by reading ever anew the
Gospel, “reprinted” in so many editions in the lives of the saints who became
icons of God’s love in this world.
Today too, the Spirit continues to sow in us
a desire for the Kingdom, thanks to all those who, drawing inspiration from the
Good News amid the dramatic events of our time, shine like beacons in the
darkness of this world, shedding light along the way and opening ever new paths
of confidence and hope.
The National Coordinator of Certified Computer Manufacturers of Nigeria
(CCMON), Mr. Bode Pedro, has explained why the group has to debut at this time,
reports ITRealms.
CCMON, ITRealms gathered was formed by the top-five Original Equipment
Manufacturers (OEMs) in Nigeria comprising BETA Computers, BRIAN Integrated
Systems, OMATEK computers, VEDA Technologies and ZINOX Technologies. Pedro who also is the chief executive officer, Veda Technologies disclosed
that CCMON was berthed to strengthen local content advocacy in the country,
stressing that their joining of forces have been in the works for a period, but
they were waiting for the appropriate time to debut. He equally said that CCMON would work with the government to grow the local
content in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the country. “The main objectives of CCMON included working with all relevant
stakeholders to grow the capacity of Nigeria computer manufacturers that will
generate increased employment, strengthening the Naira and ensure the growth of
local economy,” he said. Pedro further said that in line with the aforementioned objectives CCMON is
determined to collaborate with the National Information Technology and Development
Agency (NITDA), Office for Nigerian Content in Information Technology (ONC), Ministry
of Communications and office of the Vice President (VP) that leads the nation’s
economic team. This position, he said, will ensure that the commendable objectives of the federal
government on local content adoption are realized to the benefit of the nation. ITRealms recollects that in 2002, then president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo,
through the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF),
issued a circular dated March 7th, 2002 to all Ministries, Departments and
Agencies (MDAs) to ensure that only locally manufactured computers, certified
to be of acceptable quality standard should be patronized by all federal
establishments. This directive, ITRealms gathered, was followed up during the last administration
of President Goodluck Jonathan with the establishment of the ONC in ICT to
drive this process deeper to ensure increased implementation monitoring,
compliance and value addition to all stakeholders.
Rasheed
Adegoke is the Group Head,
Information Technology (IT) at First Bank of Nigeria plc. In this exclusive
interview REMMY NWEKE, he says FBN would reduce transaction time to two
minutes. Excerpt:
Let’s start by you telling us how your team has been using
technology to drive FirstBank’s services?
As you are probably aware,
First Bank is the leading institution in terms of deployment of technology and
the use of technology to deliver superior banking services to its customers. In
the past few years we have actually focused on what you would call a second
phase of our transformation efforts which started from the Century Two project
that saw us deploying modern technologies way back in the early part of the 21st
century, around 2000 to 2002.
Now, what we have done in the last three years is to focus on a
coordinated transformation of the business with technology again being at the
core of that transformation effort. So, in the last three years, we have
improved our technology infrastructure to generally improve the reliability of
our services across channels; both at the branch and our electronic delivery
channels.
If you relate that to the growth that we’ve also seen in the
numbers that First Bank is churning out, you will see that there is consistency
and a direct correlation between the improvements that we are achieving in the
technology and service delivery space and the customer patronage and growth in
our business both in terms of size or volume and profitability.
Therefore, in the last three years we have doubled our balance
sheet and we have also increased our customer numbers from under 5 million to
over 7 million accounts today and that also has translated into the share of
wallet that we have of each customer. We have also been able to generate a lot
more transactions from our existing customers in that process.
Other statistics that points to the impact of the transformation
of our technology include things like volumes of transactions across electronic
channels and you would see that First Bank leads other providers. We have more
than 30 per cent share of the issued cards volume in the market space and we
also process more than double the volume of transactions of the number 2 bank
on the industry’s payment switching network.
That basically summarizes the impact that technology
transformation has made on First Bank operation in the last few years. I think
I will end that by saying what underscores our usage of technology in First
Bank is the award we got last year which was tagged the Innovation Award from
the Bankers Magazine, that award came out of a number of initiatives but
the core initiative then was the introduction of the biometric ATM. We are the
first bank and still today the only bank that have biometric ATM services,
although we have not extensively rolled-out, but we have deployed it in a
number of our branches.
For the benefit of the ordinary Nigerians, can you give us some
insights to what you mean by biometric ATM?
Rasheed Adegoke
Well, the biometric ATM essentially like any other ATM except that
we have enhanced it with the ability to read fingerprints as an additional
security feature to protect our customers against fraudsters. Basically, what
happens when you go to an ATM today; you need your card and a PIN number.
Although there has been a lot of effort on the part of the industry to improve security
like the change in card standard which is not limited to First Bank alone. It
was an industry wide initiative to move from the Magnetic Stripe card which was
what was initially introduced into the Nigerian market, and which is also a
relatively insecure platform to the Chip and PIN platform, which essentially is
a much more secured card than the Magnetic Stripe card that could easily be
cloned by fraudsters.
So, the industry has done that move, however we at First Bank are
“upping the game” and saying that there are a number of our customers that are
in the rural areas, maybe that’s also because First Bank has the spread that
most other banks do not have, and we have the experience of serving both the
urban rich as well as the rural poor.
Some of the rural masses are not too good with numbers so when you
say they should choose a PIN number, you won’t be surprised if someone chooses
1111 and so, if that person misplaces his or her card, it is very easy for a
fraudster to guess the PIN number, so for such customers you also have to get
their fingerprint with a biometric ATM. That’s the extra level of protection
that we have introduced into the market place.
Most banks in the country presently, including First Bank seems to
fall in line for foreign of IT applications, and from your own perspective,
what would be your rating of local applications in Nigeria, basically?
Well, I will be very frank and objective, treating it like a
balance. I think you would say that we do have skills within the Nigerian market
place to manage IT. We have skills to do software development, however what
tends to happen within the software space itself is that there are various
categories of software, from the system software which are like the operating
systems like Windows, UNIX, and the iOS that runs on Apple platform to business
applications starting from simple human resource management, payroll
applications to very complex systems like the ERPs that manage entire
manufacturing operations or core banking software that are used to run banks.
Now, we are not playing at all in the system software space so we
do not have, for instance, the operating system developed by Nigerians, even
though you might have a few Nigerians contributing to the development of
operating systems because each of the big players like Microsoft do have a
reasonable population of Nigerians within their employ.
We also do have freelance programmers that contribute to open
source software like Linux development and some of them are Nigerians. However,
when it comes to actually having or owning a branded operating system product,
Nigeria is not playing in that space. Now when we come to business application
space we also have a number of Nigerian companies that have played very well in
building human resource applications, small scale ERP solutions, and one
company comes to mind easily, Systemspecs with their human manager application
which have been highly successful by all means.
On enterprise applications, we also have a number of players that
have attempted to play in that space and not all have been equally successful,
but we have some players that have stayed upwards of 20 years in that space so
you would say they have achieved some level of success and again a name that
comes to mind is Computer Systems Associates; they have a core banking software
which has been sold not just within West Africa but also in East Africa and
other emerging markets that actually needs their solution. They have also sold
a version to microfinance banks within Nigeria.
Now coming back to the question of whether Nigerian software
companies have matured to the point of developing robust core banking software,
I would say it’s a yes and no. Yes, to the extent that the basic skills to do
it are there, and I’ve given the examples that prove that those skills are
there if we focus well enough.
However, in terms of mindset, we’re not yet there. Software
business is a long term business, so, you have to make investment for the long
term. Nigerian investors on the contrary are mostly short term investors. So
you don’t go into software with the mindset of getting back your investment in
six months or twelve months. That’s what has actually not made made-in-Nigeria
software to mature to that scale where they can easily compete with internationally
developed applications because if you are investing for the long term, it means
that you need to be able to retain certain skill set for the long-run.
If you have business architects and software architects that are
working within software companies and the turnover of your staff is maybe every
eighteen months, you have to recruit new staff because the good staff have
left, you won’t be able to actually go for the long run and these are some of
the issues that the local software developers or investors are still dealing
with.
On the other hand, you need some level of capitalization to be
able to hold on for that long in terms of being within the software development
line so that you are not hitting the market place with an under-developed
products that you want to start earning from. By and large, if we change our
focus, if we change our investment mindset and focus on software as a long term
business we can actually compete with other internationally developed
applications in Nigeria.
Earlier on, you made mention of First Bank running on Finacle 10,
what was the business decision behind this?
First Bank essentially, has four key drivers of growth or four
pillars of the business strategy; one focus on growth, the second is on
improving service delivery and attaining service excellence, the third is
talent management being able to retain the best talent within the industry and
the fourth is performance management, both at the individual level and the
group level.
If you look at those pillars, central to it is service excellence
because every business exist for one purpose only and that purpose is to
recruit and retain profitable customers, that’s why businesses exist, so if a
business is not able to meet the needs of its customers both now and into future,
that business will not be a sustainable business.
So as a service enterprise, we need to continually improve our
service platform, as you know infrastructure is central to most things. If you
use the nation as an analogy, we are where we are partly because of failure of
infrastructure so one of the key service delivery infrastructure for a bank is
a core banking software, because really a bank’s business if we all think of it
not as much managing money but a bank’s
business is actually managing information.
Whether you are talking about ensuring that you properly keep the
information for 7million accounts and ensure that there is no mix-up in the
management of that information or you ensuring that the information required to
dispense cash at the ATM is readily available for the ATM to work. That’s what
banking is about; it’s about managing information, so we need to continually
improve that platform for managing information which is a core banking
infrastructure.
Presently, we have set aggressive target for ourselves in the area
of service excellence and our existing platform which is the Finacle 7 cannot
continue to serve us to meet those aggressive targets, so we want to be able to
be quicker in introducing new products into the market place, that’s what
Finacle 10 would give us as an edge over Finacle 7. We want to reduce the time
it takes to process the withdrawal transaction, currently we spend an average
of four (4) minutes; a customer will spend not more than four minutes in front
of a teller officer to do a withdrawal transaction, we want to halve that to
two minutes.
Yes, we have improved our infrastructure; our back-end
infrastructure, so our processing facilities are faster, but we also need to
improve on the underlining software that runs the process. We also want to
simplify our processes further in the front end such that the teller spends
less time trying to post transactions and spend more time interacting with the
customer, that will mean some improvement of our core banking infrastructure,
so all of these are the business drivers that has lead us to say we need to
upgrade to Finacle 10, because it’s going to give us much more flexible service
delivery infrastructure that would enable us achieve that level of service
excellence that we set for ourselves.
I would like to know your take on the cash-lite Lagos and eventual
deployment across the country, and what is First Bank’s readiness in the long
run?
First, I would say that the cashless or cash-lite drive is the
right move, we at First Bank have been moving in that direction before CBN
(Central Bank of Nigeria) came up with the policy in order to drive it across
the industry. Which is why, if you go back to my initial summary, some of the
highlights that I made were the investments we made in actually enhancing our
electronic delivery channels which has translated into us, I mean First Bank
achieving a larger share of the market space for electronic transactions.
We had actually been quiet clear with our own strategy as First
Bank in driving towards a cash-lite situation, because we have been trying to
move or migrate our customers to the electronic channels, so that they deal
less with cash. Now, having said that, it’s a good policy, it’s something
that’s going to help the economy because the velocity of transactions will be
much faster if you are using electronic means, and you can imagine that we have
move significantly forward from a situation whereby upcountry clearing was 21
days.
I don’t know if you still remember that there was a time in
Nigeria when it took 21 working days to clear a cheque if that cheque is not a
local cheque and local cheque itself took about a week for you to be able to
get your money to where we are today which is we have a turnaround time on
clearing items which is still T+2 and that has been shortened further to a next
day.
What do you mean by T+2?
T+2 means the day you
submit the cheque for clearing you add two days and on the third day you are
going to get credit in your account but that is being shortened further to a
next day clearing which by next month actually we should be having a taste that
fully. That is what has happened within the clearing system and we have seen
that, that has actually impacted the volumes of transactions that go by the way
of cheques rather than cash exchange.
Also, what has happened which we didn’t note is that it was like a
first phase of the movement towards less cash because if it takes 21 days for
you to get value for money, you would hardly do any transaction through that
channel. Now, what debit card have done, because debit card by their nature are
actually cheque replacements because cheques are instruments by which you
access your account; debit cards are also instruments by which you access your
account for payment.
With the introduction and wide-spread adoption of debit cards, we
actually have gotten a faster mode of rendering payment which doesn’t even have
to go through clearing, so you could say you have instant clearing with debit
cards. So, if I actually want to transfer money to you, if I have a portal that
allows me to debit my account using the security on my debit card and transfer
money to your own account, then I would basically be giving instantaneous
credit into your account, so that’s like instant settlement, what CBN has done
is to try to focus us on that platform, the cash-lite policy is essentially
trying to focus us on the efficiency of the platform that is built around the
card and the mobile payment which it has also introduced a license for, and
which are all instant settlement platform.
Essentially, what we do with exchange instrument is largely payment,
exchange of value so if we are able to do payment faster, transaction velocity
increases and therefore we can actually ensure that the economy becomes a lot
more productive. One of the reasons which CBN has also used as a justification
for the policy which is a valid reason, is the sheer cost or waste that is
going into handling cash because we all know how much it takes to print one
naira note and if you are frequently using it, you need to replace the note
more frequently, that’s a cost that goes into CBN’s account. Besides that the
bank that handle cash needs to employ people to do the cash counting and they
need to pay insurance to secure the cash that is held in their vault, we know
the risk of armed robbery in the country and some time the loss of lives that is
associated with the easy access to cash.
So, as a policy, we agree that’s the way it should go and what we
are doing at First Bank is that we are ensuring that as you adopt the
alternatives to cash, you basically do not get services that are less than what
you will get with the use of cash.
Our platforms are very reliable, we have moved from less than
2,000 active Point of Sale (PoS) terminals to over 8,000 that we have deployed
and we do intend that by the end of the year, First Bank alone will have
deployed more than 20,000 PoS is we are looking at focusing on Lagos area.
Across the country we will be talking of bigger numbers, but we are focusing on
Lagos because the focus this year even by the industry is really around Lagos,
so we are focusing on Lagos and we are saying that Lagos can really take that
depth of PoS deployment. There are a lot of places we go, all we do is go to
the nearby ATM, withdraw cash so that we can pay at the point of sale, why do
we need to go through that when you can swipe your card at the point of sale
and actually get value.
Why is it that some of the PoS are not working?
Those are the problems that we had initially, because the industry
had not focused on that. You know, there was also a time that an average bank’s
branch, the chances are that the network would be down was high, or if you go
to the bank’s ATM the chances that the ATM would not be online was high but
when we focused on that as an industry you see that those cases are very
remote; it’s not perfect right now but they are remote because most banks have
multiple links, most ATMs have multiple links and the same thing is happening
to the PoS right now where you have PoS that are deployed before having only a
single connectivity, today we are having PoS that have multiple connectivity,
multiple GPRS – Global Packet Radio Service, and all of that.
What causes some of the hiccups in transactions from time to time,
especially on the issue of ATM, from your professional perspective?
You talked about challenges, we cannot operate within a vacuum, we
know the state of infrastructure within the country, a lot of what we are doing
right now has to ride on the infrastructure that we have; communication links,
unreliable electricity.
If you actually want to run a branch that you would have an ATM
and that ATM needs to be available for 24-7, it means that even when the branch
has closed there must be power that is powering the ATM, we have gone ahead to
install inverters to protect those equipments and ensure that there is power
around the clock, so having put that background there, you would understand
that there is some point of failure that could actually arise, what tends to
happen is that we do have sometimes the communication links for instance in the
middle of an ATM transaction so a customer has slotted in the card and the pin,
and the transaction was about to take place and there is a failure of
communications.
What the ATM has been trained to do is that it would actually
reverse the transaction that has just failed because before parting with money,
the ATM will debit the account to be sure the money exist and then dispenses
money to you. However, let’s assume that the ATM had debited your account and
the link fails, the ATM will wait for an acknowledgement that the debit has
actually happen and then it doesn’t get, so it would return your card and also
automatically it would raise a credit back into your account. We all experience
it and I’m sure you have also experienced it.
If you are a First Bank customer and I hope you are, what happens
is if you slot in your card and have failed transactions you would get two
alerts almost at the same time, you will get the debit alert and you will get
the credit alert immediately, which shows that there is no human being manually
reversing the transactions because the system itself is automated to know that
something has failed and to credit you back with your money.
However, sometimes that automatic process doesn’t kick in and
that’s why we set up a dispute resolution mechanism which ensures that within
24 hours after such incidence of failure of the automatic reversal, someone in
the back office is able to credit you back, so there is not any instance that
we know, for instance, at First Bank and I believe across the industry really
that someone’s account has been debited and the money is not been credited back
except where people have been defrauded, because we are aware of cases of
people losing possession of their cards or compromising their PIN, and in such
cases there are also incomplete transactions on those account.
I am sure you know that bulk of electronic transactions rides on
networks, which in-turn depends on Internet Protocols (IPs) to deliver,
therefore what are banks doing on migration, especially are we looking forward
to having FBN as the first Nigerian bank to hook to IP version 6?
Let’s first define the IPv4 and v6, essentially the Internet
Protocol version 4, let’s keep it simple is just an addressing scheme, just
like you going into a street in Lagos and you will see old number 5, new number
16, IPv4 and IPv6 are numbering schemes. IPv6 was introduced because the
address space on IP version 4 was actually now more or less fully used because
of the rapid growth of the internet when countries like China started trooping
in and rapidly acquiring internet addresses.
Now, it doesn’t mean that all the addresses on IPv4 becomes
invalid, there is no organization that is getting shut down because they are on
IP version 4, and there is a transition plan that would actually allow people
to have both IPv4 and IPv6 work side by side. So for my internal network for
instance, I probably do not need to change the addressing scheme to IP version
6, because the number of devices and equipments that I have on my internal
network can still be managed with IPv4. And as it is today, even today on the
IP version 4 addresses are still able to communicate with any other hosts,
right, because there is that transition management process that has been set up
for a transition into IP version 6.
So, we do have a plan for a transition to IP version 6 but is
really not something that is going to give us any particular edge. It is not
something as you would say is quite strategic; it is not something that is
going to give us an edge. Everybody will ultimately transit to IPv6 if we
stretch into the very long future so but it’s not something we need to rush
into, we do have a plan to ensure that there is clearly no disruption to our
business due to the adoption of IPv6.
What would be your advice to Nigerians, especially First Bank
customers and what’s First Bank doing in providing facilities like loan for
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and encouraging those in the IT sector?
When we began, I told you that First Bank basically have the
broadest operation in Nigeria serving the very rich and large institutional
customers to the rural poor and how do we do that, we have our business
structured around segments, so the SMEs would fall under our retail segment and
we do have a group which happen to be the largest group accounting for about 50
per cent of our balance sheet which is actually the retail group, for them to
be 50 per cent of our balance sheet, means that we are actually lending to
them.
If you look at all the key sectors, First Bank is not just playing
there but we are also leading even in lending within those sectors. If you look
at agriculture, First Bank is one of the few banks that got the CBN
intervention fund and that’s because of the quality of lending that we are
doing within the agriculture sector and the fact that we have demonstrated to
CBN that we have the processes to actually understand and support that sector.
If you look at telecoms, when the telecoms industries took off
with advent of Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications, most people
didn’t believe in it; we were one of the first players in that space, not just
lending to the operators but also lending to their distributors and those in
the downstream of the telecoms operations.
Any
sector you look at, especially the SMEs that you are talking about, we are
basically very strong players there, as First Bank. But when you look at the
group it even get more interesting, because we do have First Funds, which also
provides what you could call seed capital type of investment. It’s more like I
won’t call it a straight venture capital vehicle but is close to it, we do take
equity investment in some of the SMEs that have proven that they have a viable
business plan that’s through First funds because you need to appraise those
funds differently from the way you appraise loans. Then, we have the
microfinance, the FBN Microfinance that also caters to the everyday rural
business person that needs N50,000 in order to be able to move tomatoes from
Mile 12 to Ajangbadi and have a viable business. So, we cater to the lowest of
the SMEs and also we cater to the large customers.
