Mind The Gap

Nigeria is losing an entire generation. We are touted as Africa's most populous nation, with over 60% of our population under 35. This seems like an obvious advantage, because these are virile strong men and women, who will charge ahead, building the future. There is an underside.

I felt them before I saw them. A pair of eyes, gazing plaintively at me and willing me to turn towards it. I did. The eyes belonged to the face of a young girl pressed against my window at the side of my car at the traffic light at Ikate, roundabout in Lekki. The lights were red, and as I sunk into a reverie, those eyes called me back to the present and willed me to notice them, as a voice faint through the window, beneath my radio blaring and the hum of my car air conditioner declared: "God bless you mummy, help me please, God will bless you…" and a string of other blessings and prayers in my favour. I felt irritated at the intrusion of the face pressed so close, only separated from my space by the glass of the window. As I looked around, there was another face at the window on the other side, and a few others by the cars ahead of me. The young ladies wore hijabs. At the side of the road, there were some older women, probably in their thirties or forties, seated on the floor in conversation, carrying suckling infants. They were probably the mothers or guardians of the children on the road. There were at least fifteen children at that light, male and female. They looked like they were between the ages of five and thirteen years. They worked the cars quickly, spending a minute or two at the window of each car before moving along to the next, depending on the response of the occupant. The lights soon turned amber, and the children scampered to the side walk quickly as the vehicles revved up before the lights turned green. This scene is repeated at virtually every light in Ikoyi and Victoria Island, all day, everyday.

At Oshodi, a major bus terminal in Lagos, there are young boys and girls, roaming around with dazed eyes, many high and dangerous. High on Tramadol, codeine, and whatever drugs are available. They lurk, ready to dispossess passers-by of their phones and valuables. They gather in gangs, armed with knives and sharp objects. The younger children  are (between eight and thirteen years old) more dangerous than the older ones when encountered at night. Perhaps because they cannot fully grasp the implications of their actions. In an epidemic that is going on in the streets of Lagos, many of the youth are caught in the quagmire of drug addiction, living violent lives on the streets. They are our strength, our youth and our future. These children are not going to school, they are not being educated nor prepared for the future.

Only about 39.4 percent of Nigerian children of primary school age were enrolled in school last year, according to a Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICs) 5, of 2016 and 2017 conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in collaboration with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and other partners, about 60 percent of children of school age are out of school.

 (https://guardian.ng/features/education/only-39-4-primary-school-age-children-currently-enrolled/). The research above ranked the Southwest second highest in enrolment, after the southeast which had over sixty percent enrolment. If Lagos (Lagos is located in the Southwest) is as bad as this, how would the children in the Northeast fare with an enrolment rate of thirty something percent?

This assumes that those enrolled are getting a good quality education. Most of them are not. I interview many job applicants and I cringe each time they say "furnitures" (about 98% of the time). I recently drove past an advertisement by Jiji.ng, on a bill board in Ikorodu Road. It said: "Lands for Sale", on the same day, I came across a Cowbell Milk billboard advertisement, it read: "We go the extra miles with you". I f you cannot see what is wrong with the grammar in the two sentences I have used as examples above, then I rest my case for the gravity of the situation. Basic primary education, when available is often of very low quality. Last year, I hired a twenty-three year old woman as domestic help. She could neither read nor write but was intent on getting an education. Since she was small of physical stature, we thought we would send her to a state-run primary school. We identified one called Ireti Primary School on Menkuwen Road, Ikoyi, Lagos. Very excited, she went to school the first day, but came back crest-fallen. She said the students played all day, while the teachers lounged and chatted. At the end of the school day, the teachers gathered the children who had paid them for private lessons and then began to teach only those ones. She never went back there. Only the rich can afford a good education, thereby widening the gap between rich and poor. Yet, education is one of the quickest ways for people to close this gap.

With a teeming population of ignorant youth (over sixty percent of Nigeria's population is under thirty five, this means we have over one hundred million youth), Nigeria is a ticking time bomb. unless the Federal and state governments declare a national emergency in education. There must be a path forward to engage and equip our young. Otherwise we will fall prey to propaganda, religious bias and tribal wars, which could lead to an implosion. We can no longer rely on oil. We need an alternative path because technology companies are rapidly displacing oil companies as the companies with the largest revenues, while oil companies are rebranding themselves as energy companies, and investing in alternative energy, the writing on the wall is clear: 'Knowledge is the new oil'. What must we do? I have listed out a few ideas below on how we can begin to tackle this situation.

1. I believe that the first thing the government needs to do is to increase the budget for education. In a 2011 article, The Independent featured the eleven best school systems in the world ( https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/11-best-school-systems-in-the-world-a7425391.html) Most of the governments in these country invested heavily in education and most of the students went to state-run schools. (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.PRIM.PC.ZS?view=chart)
2. Secondly, Nigeria needs to elevate the status and reward for teachers, making it attractive to be an educator. In her book, "The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got that Way" by Amanda Ripley, the author attributes much of Finland's successful educational system to the selection process for teachers and the rigorous training teachers are given. The smartest people go into teaching and they are highly honoured and highly paid. Some of the schools for teaching only accept twenty percent of their applicants.
3. Actively look for partnerships and provide further incentives for the private sector in education, also provide more incentives for investment in education.
4. Set up regulated teacher training colleges, with cutting-edge teaching methods
5. Invest in research on education and teaching methods.
6. Develop home-grown methods of education that takes into account the varying cultures of Nigeria (e.g. How to educate nomads, or perhaps business certificates after junior secondary three for those that want to pursue a career in trading)
7. Incorporate compulsory teacher-training courses into every curriculum in the universities, so every graduate has a certificate in teacher training by the time they graduate.
8. Rejig the National Youth Service Corps to cover only teaching and healthcare. We have about one million eight hundred thousand graduates per year in Nigeria, according to Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/157886-1-8-million-nigerians-enter-job-market-yearly-says-okonjo-iweala.html). If the graduates are posted as teachers and healthcare workers (for those in the health professions only), to the thirty-six states in Nigeria, we would have an influx of about fifty thousand graduates in each state already with teacher-training to start bridging the gap.

As Bill Gates succinctly put it to Nigeria: "The most important choice you can make is to maximize your greatest resource, the Nigerian people. " (https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/speech-by-bill-gates-at-the-national-economic-council.html). We as a nation need to think strategically at this pivotal moment. As we go to the ballot box next year, we need to examine our options carefully and see who has a strong plan for education. If you are thinking of running for office, you must have a clear path out of this emergency. Without a strong plan for education, even with a prosperous economy, Our strength could very well be our undoing. We must mind the gap, and close it.

Tax in Disguise

On the 1st of February 2018, it became a law for all non-food goods that are retailed in Nigeria to have a Product Authentication Mark (PAM) sticker to show that they are authentic. The sticker can be obtained from the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), at the rate of three naira (N3) per sticker. The DG of SON claims this will be a blessing to manufacturers, and then goes on to elaborate the reasons why (http://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2017/12/15/son-launches-pam-to-check-substandard-products/).

Upon careful review, it is very clear that this sticker is nothing but an additional tax to further cripple the manufacturing industry and burden the Nigerian consumer who is already reeling over the load of sporadic fuel supply, near absent electricity, high price of food in the market. It is also an unfair reward to an agency that has failed as the gatekeeper of standards in Nigeria, even though it was already equipped by law (See the Standards Organization of Nigeria Act, 2015 Act No. 14) (http://www.son.gov.ng/son-mandate/). It is also a failure of the government to enforce a very well thought out law, and instead take the lazy way out by punishing the citizens for its inability to enforce existing laws.

The premise of the new law is that the stickers, equipped with QR codes, will be a stamp of quality to assure consumers they are not buying counterfeit products. The claim is that the sticker is needed to save Nigerians who are dying every day from the failure of counterfeit products. This logic is flawed for many reasons. Let's dissect the premise. I believe we can all agree that counterfeit products cost the Nigerian economy billions. Let's look at something as simple as a phone charger. How many phone chargers do you have to buy before you get one that works? What about fires due to low quality electrical appliances? Substandard bulbs in the market that cease to light up a few days after purchase; scores of people dead from substandard tyres failing on the road; the list is endless. For the food and drugs aspect, the NAFDAC (National Food and Drug Agency) number covers this area adequately, so we will not address that in this piece. The challenge I have with this law, is that it is touted as a blessing to manufacturers and consumers. However, in many of these cases, made-in-Nigeria goods in life-threatening areas are vastly superior to the counterfeit imported goods, because the local industries must self-regulate to maintain their customers custom. In the construction industry, Nigerian wires are vastly superior to imported wires. Similarly, the most sought-after aluminium casement profiles are from a Nigerian brand. I believe the deaths and multiple issues are not caused primarily by made-in-Nigeria goods.

My point is that majority of the issues and deaths are caused by importation of substandard products, by unscrupulous traders. It is often substandard electronics, low gauge steel structural members, substandard auto parts that result in deaths when they erupt in fire, or explode, or simply fail.  Why then would I oppose a sticker to authenticate goods? Because these importers have a lot of help from none other than SON. How?

It is already mandatory for all regulated goods that are to be imported into Nigeria, to undergo mandatory testing.  See below, the information on Intertek's website. Intertek is one of Nigeria's designated testing agencies with labs all around the world: "Every consignment of imported goods which contains regulated products must be accompanied by a Certificate of Conformity (CoC)issued by an independent accredited firm, such as Intertek. The CoC is electronically transmitted to SON's portal who will then generate the SONCAP certificate on the basis of the CoC and will hand it over to the importer or Importer's agent against the clearance of goods in Nigeria." (http://www.intertek.com/government/product-conformity/soncap-importers-nigeria/)

 The Nigerian Ports Authority also lists the CoC as one of the mandatory requirements for the issuance of a form M. You cannot even get a form M from the banks without the product test certificate number (http://www.nigerianports.gov.ng/import-export-guidelines-3/). Before you import any regulated product into Nigeria, you must submit that product for a test at a designated independent lab in the country of origin. These labs charge a hefty fee to test products and you can spend up to $3000 per container, depending on the number of unique products you intend to import into Nigeria. If your product does not pass the test, they will not issue a certificate. How come we have all these substandard products in Nigeria then? Here is where the story gets interesting, SON issues certificates for as little as N10,000 with absolutely no testing, and no corroborating test certificates.  It will be interesting to see the product test certificates on the basis of which SON issues all SONCAP certificates. I challenge the government to hold SON to an audit to produce all the corresponding test certificates. If indeed Intertek issued certificates to importers for substandard products, then the solution is to discontinue with Intertek, and get a new testing agency. If it is SON randomly issuing SONCAP certificates, then they should be held accountable. This is the solution. It is already encapsulated in the law. The government should do its job and hold itself accountable. Do not punish business people and consumers with additional taxes. It is counter-productive, and unfair to the people who have placed their trust in this government.

It is morally wrong to reward SON's incompetence with a N3 tax on each of the goods we manufacture and sell. The problem is enforcement. SON is already empowered by previously existing regulations, and this PAM sticker is a case of overreach. They should fulfil their mandate with the regulations previously on ground. There is no value added to the either the average Nigerian, the importer, or the manufacturer with this new regulation. It just gives another agency the opportunity to harass honest Nigerian businesses that are trying to build the economy.  It will also create a bottle-neck as everybody scrambles to SON to get stickers for everything they sell.  Does SON even have an idea of the number of products that will require stickers? Mind you, it is not per product type, it is one sticker for each and every product. In other words, if you went to the super market to buy 10 reams of paper, each of the 10 reams will have a PAM sticker purchased at N3 each by the manufacturer or importer. I can already see a situation where they run out of stickers the way the immigration service runs out of passport booklets. What will be the cost to the economy then?

I appeal to The President, through the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, to put a halt on this new law by executive order and look into the assertions made in this piece. A lot of progress has been made in easing the process of doing business in Nigeria, but this PAM sticker is many steps backwards. SON should earn the public and the business community's respect by actually adding value. How? They should implement the previously existing laws, and we will all be safer for it.