SAM OHUABUNWA'S PARADIGM

 Last Thursday, President Muhammadu Buhari( PMB)launched the new National Orientation campaign called: Change Begins with me. That same day, INEC was ' compelled ' to postpone the Edo gubernatorial election. In his address at the launch, PMB said " We must resist the temptation to fall on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our Country for so long" I believe that postponing election for partisan reasons is one of those things that PMB was preaching about. Interfering with the independence of INEC,CBN and such other regulatory agencies is part of our 'poisoned' past. I am one of those who have called for a national reorientation and the broadening and deepening of the fight against corruption. I had fully agreed with former UK Prime Minister David Cameron that Nigeria was fantastically corrupt and opined that merely focusing on the alleged corrupt election funding of the former ruling party was only scratching the surface. So I ...

Last week, the cat was let out of the bag, the woman who had been hiding her pregnancy was delivered of a baby in a market square, leaving nothing to imagination. From a technical recession we emerged into a real, true and official recession. From a -0.36% contraction of GDP in Q1, we landed to a -2.06% contraction in Q2. Thank God for democratic governance and more for the integrity of President Muhammadu Buhari, and the professionalism of the NBS management,may be, the figures will have been dressed up, which was the fear of some people as it seemed to have taken the National Bureau for statistics( NBS), much longer time than usual to release the Q2 report. It was the 'jazzing' up of economic data that has led to the impeachment of the Brazilian President last week . Last week, before the official confirmation of the recession, I had advised on this column that we needed a single minded focus on Agriculture and Manufacturing as a means of working ourselves out of the reces...

... In an Economic recession,  it takes knowledge to survive. The Sam Ohuabunwa Foundation is bringing to you Experts to help businesses survive in this period. Find fliers for more details...

 That our economy is in recession has been established and the symptoms are crystal clear. I identified some of them last week. The question I believe that the government and the people of Nigeria must be asking is how do we recover from recession and restore growth to our economy?First, I believe that the bullish and reflationary 2016 budget( though some disagree that it is reflationary) was crafted with this in mind. The government clearly saw the direction the economy was going and decided to borrow to spend our way out of recession. With further decline in revenue the borrowing may be more than projected 2.2Trillion Naira if the budgeted goals must be achieved. But there are a couple of challenges. Are we actually able to find lenders within the time frame of Budget 2016?. How soon will the spending be done and how quickly will the impact be felt? . The rumored 'emergency powers' being sought by President Muhammadu Buhari must be directed to this end. If this is only to sh...

 Last week, I read the news that Nigeria has officially lost its position as the largest Economy in Africa,now humbled to the 3rd position, behind Egypt and South Africa. Our GDP climbed down from $ 568Billion in 2014 to $481 in 2015 and then $296B as at July this year.This is hardly surprising given the official massive devaluation of the Naira and the steady decline of the GDP from 2014, quarter after quarter till date. It has been established that our economy is in recession with evidence starring us all on the face. The macro-economy is in turmoil with inflation exceeding 17%, interest rate galloping ( 14% MPR) and the Naira depreciating everyday both at the interbank(N365/$) and the parallel market( N400/$). Companies are off loading excess staff to keep afloat, fuelling unemployment and underemployment which have reached 45% among the Youth, worsening poverty and social malaise. Nigeria's misery index has climbed to 47.7%, becoming the Country with the 5th highest misery inde...

 A couple of weeks ago we raised issues against the ill-advised order and threat issued by the Minister of Labour to the Banks to stop laying off excess staff or their licenses could be withdrawn. Some of us took great exception to what we believe was an unwarranted intervention of the government in purely private company affairs. We drew attention to the wrong signals that kind of action would give to the investing community, especially at a time one thought that Nigeria should be desirous of new investments. But recent happenings indicate that either our concerns fell on deaf ears or that we are mis-reading this government. We may actually be wrong in thinking that this government is interested in pursuing genuine private sector investment in the Nigerian economy at this time! Since according to this government "economic management is purely a government affair", we in the non- governmental sector may actually be wasting our time offering suggestions on how to bring our o...

When all is said and done, Atiku Abubarkar , former Vice President, is easily one of the most sophisticated politicians in Nigeria. He is also one of the most experienced, and perhaps since MKO Abiola, one of the most cosmopolitan politicians in Nigeria with tentacles and connections across the length and breadth of Nigeria. Particularly, he seems to be one of the most prepared political leaders of this Nation after the first generation political leaders like Zik, Awolowo and Sir Ahmadu Bello. But since Nigeria's democratic top political leadership seems to often go to the most unprepared, Atiku has been a serial Presidential aspirant, forcing him to criss-cross carpets  so often. But to be sure Atiku remains an important constant in contemporary political equations of our Country.  If he has not yet made a great success of his political ambition to lead the Nation at the highest level, he has shown great success in his business pursuits and is actually perceived as a very s...

  I have been on vacation in the United States of America( USA) in the last couple of days and have been sucked in by the elaborate process of Presidential primary elections which culminated in the Republican National Convention, a week earlier and the Democratic National Convention last week. The two conventions produced billionaire Donald Trump and Former Secretary of State and former First Lady Hilary Rodham  Clinton as their respective presidential candidates to stand for the November Presidential elections. The Democratic convention was particularly electrifying. I was completely blown by the testimony of former mayor of New York City, billionaire Michael Bloomberg who literally called Donald Trump a Con man. That was the most devastating blow and seemed to persuade me that Hilary Clinton may be on her way to making multiple history. She already made one as the first woman to be nominated as a Presidential candidate by a major political party in the USA. She had bettered...

Last week I had a taste of the renewed and intensified effort of The Lagos State government to increase its internally generated revenue. Lagos has long been acknowledged as perhaps the only State that can survive without Federation account. I understand that Ogun State is strongly on the heels of Lagos. During the reign of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as governor of Lagos, very strategic decisions were taken, to make Lagos financially viable and independent. The first was the lagos version of the Land Use act called Land use charge,which compelled all land owners to pay tax on their property across the state. This was stoutly resisted especially by the organized Private sector,leading to court cases. It was eventually resolved in favour of the State, following government's agreement to reduce the tax rate. Today this has become a major revenue for Lagos. So what oil should be for oil bearing states is what land is for Lagos! Then there was the sales tax, which again was fought by the busine...

I may be wrong but I believe that something is going wrong in the World. Any where you turn, there there is anger, there is violence. Almost everyday there is a new breaking news on Television about the break out of violence in one part of the World or the other. Global terrorism is growing daily and assuming unimaginable dimensions. Sectarian conflicts are growing and racial violence is resurgent. Human life is becoming meaningless all over the World. Are we loosing our humanity or are we coming to the close of the age or what really is happening?     In our Country, I am having increasing difficulty to understand what is happening.The Boko Haram Insurgents ravaged our Nation over the last six years, bombing, killing and maiming. Not satisfied with that, they began to take territory and threatened to overrun Northern Nigeria and possibly the entire Nation. What was their anger? No one could really say, though it was alleged that they hated western education and wanted...

Nigeria is technically in a recession. Gross Domestic product plunged from 6.3% growth in 2014 to 2.7% in 2015. Specifically it went from 2.84% in Q3 2015 to 2.11 in Q4 2015 and then dropped off the Clive to -0.36% in Q1 2016. So without waiting for the official Q2 2016 report which is not expected to do much better, we have had two consecutive quarters of GDP decline. National productivity which rose between 2010 and 2014, began a decline in Q1 2015 and has maintained this course up to date. In the component of Labour productivity, Nigerians are known to be hardworking but productivity of its labour force is often questioned. The labour productivity in emerging Countries like Russia($24) Brazil ( $10.7) and turkey($28.9)is much higher than Nigeria's. In Q4 2015, Nigeria's labour productivity declined to $3.55 from $3.86 in Q3 2015 and the decline has continued since then approaching the 2011 level of $2.98 or less  The fall in GDP is blamed on the precipitate fall in the p...

 Last week, I was driving down the Mobalaji Bank- Anthony Road in Ikeja, Lagos, when I noticed some confusion around the vicinity. I heard some shouting and then I saw some people running towards where we were. I noticed that they were Street hawkers- those young men and women who sell Bottled and canned drinks, packaged food, chewing gum, sweets, boiled groundnuts, newspapers & magazines, handekerchiefs, windshield wipers and sundry items to commuters any where the traffic slows down. I wondered what was amiss. Then I saw some men wearing long sleeved green shirts on brown trousers, with beret caps on their heads, armed with long sticks, pursuing and beating the fleeing Street hawkers. I asked who are this? and my driver said, they were KAI Operatives. That they pursue street hawkers, seize their wares which they often confiscate or they extort money from them in order to release the goods. I shook my head in sympathy and continued our snarl down the road.   A few minu...