Simeon Mpamugoh
Professor Olukunle Iyanda is the President and Chairman of Council, Nigerian Institute of Management (Chartered).
In this interview as part of activities to flag off this year’s Annual National Management Conference (ANMC) of the institute, the international management and marketing expert argues that Nigeria could get out of its challenges when it allows a high level of autonomy of its constituent units to drive developmental initiatives.
He added that Nigeria operates management structures that are often contrary to known global management theories stressing that such have not been suitable for its size, complexity, and heterogeneity hence the problems facing the country.
He speaks more on rising unemployment and managing the challenges of democracy.
Excerpts:
Reducing unemployment rate to barest minimum
You see unemployment is a consequence. It is as a result of some failings on the part of the country’s leadership to implement policies that create wealth and unless government tackles the root cause of unemployment, we are not going to move anywhere.
What is the root cause of employment?
People establishing units of production, who is establishing any unit of production in the country today? You want to establish any unit of production; you need money to get electricity, which in other countries, you take for granted because government makes power available and you just tap into it.
But in Nigeria, a prospective investor has to produce his own electricity, build his own roads for movement of goods and services because when you produce, somebody else will take it to the market.
What are we producing?
Factories are closing up, and relocating to other parts of Africa where factors of production are available, while the facilities of once thriving companies in Nigeria are being turned to churches and event centres. Where is the production unit of Dunlop tubeless tyre today? So, where would the employment come from? We need to tackle the issue of infrastructure, particularly electricity, roads and security so that people could feel safe to come to invest in Nigeria, and move about to do their businesses.
For many years now, nobody can beat his chest that there would be Nigeria in the next three or four years. The American security analysts had forecast that Nigeria would disintegrate by 2015. So, why would you want to invest in a country where you don’t know whether you would be reaching 180 million populations, 50 million or 30 million people? The threat of dismemberment is loud, unless we want to deceive ourselves. Starting from Indigenous People of Biafra, (IPOB) in the East, it has now gone to the West, where people are saying that they are no longer interested in true federalism, they want to break totally. Why would any industrialist think investment in such a condition? If for example, I, as a Westerner want to invest, and may be the best location for my investment is in Bauch State, giving everything that I want to do, would I now feel confident to go, and invest in Bauchi State, when I’m not sure if by tomorrow, I would be able to move to Bauchi without any hindrance. If Nigeria breaks, would the Easterners for instance want to come and invest in Western Nigeria? So, insecurity, stability and infrastructure are the things government must first tackle. Once these things are tackled, employment would flow. Employment is not something you tackle directly by public pronouncement, and directives. If you provide those things that are needed to establish production units, that would employ people, it would attract investment into the country.
Tourism is labour intensive but we have not developed that industry in Nigeria, even though we have the potential. If we develop tourism, a lot of people would find jobs. I just returned from a holiday abroad. I visited couple of countries: Bahamas, Mexico among others and you will see the tourism industry in place: people serve foods, and take you on a sight seeing; it is massive. There were Islands I visited, which are totally dependent on tourism. If the ships don’t come, they are dead. What do they do?
Provide entertainment, transportation, sight seeing and artifacts, and visitors buy them. Where is the focus in Nigeria? What is it that we can say is our strength?
Lets go fully into it rather than politicking all the time. Politics is our preoccupation. People are already thinking where they want to be in 2023: who wants to be the president, senator, and governors of xyz states, are all our politicians are thinking about. We have not finished one election, we are thinking of the next one. Why should that be our preoccupation? Why don’t we spend time thinking of how we can make the country move forward; provide service to the people. No, no, we are interested in who becomes governor or president in 2023. We don’t make progress at all, and that is the root cause of unemployment: the destruction of infrastructure, lack of security, inappropriate policies, and the structure of the country remain our nemesis.
Instituting management training for public servants
The Nigeria Institute of Management (Chartered) does have some training for public officers but our experience is that when we have such trainings, our public officers don’t attend. They would rather go for other events. It is a sign that in the political arena, the management competence and skills of officials are not regarded as important as their political connection. So, they can get by without training or skill. It is either you are connected with the big men in politics, or the godfathers. If you know the godfather, no matter what your competence level or knowledge is, you will get to the highest position. But no matter what you know or how competent you are, and you are not with a godfather, and he doesn’t endorse your candidature, you are going nowhere. This is why the public service is the way it is. Even in the budget, not much attention or vote is given to training, competence development and capacity building of the civil service. In the sixties, some of the top civil servants in this country went for best training programmes in the leading universities abroad, and their capacities were built because they were general administrators, and they moved from one ministry to another. We don’t do that these days. Not many people are being trained, and their capacity developed in the various portfolios they operate. And when you move from one ministry to another, the requirement and skill you need also differ. So, how would you be equipped for that if not by training? So, public service should pay more attention to management training programme, management competence, and ability.
Managing security challenges in the country
I don’t know how that can be done because I am not a security expert. But If I were in the shoes of President Buhari, there are people who are trained in security management. They are specialists. I will challenge them ruthlessly, set target for them, to say, look, there are security issues in the country, tell me what you would do, and the timeline when that situation would be resolved. And if they can’t do it, I show them the exit door. That is why you are the president; you are the authority, and the responsibility lies on you. I would also call all those who are security operatives to say to them: you are aware of the situation, what are your plans to solve it? And that is the challenge.
They have to outline what they will do and what they need to accomplish it. And it is my responsibility as the president of the country to provide it, and expect to see the effect within a timeline, within which period nobody will talk about security as a challenge in the country again. I’ll then wait to be constantly briefed on the outcome. If within the timeline given, and there was no visible improvement, I change the team. Security is crucial and indispensable to the growth of the economy. The first responsibility as a human being is to preserve life because it is when one is alive that one can dream and get things done. But when people’s lives are threatened, they become preoccupied with that, and they don’t do any other thing.
And that is why you can see that the economy is not doing well, apart from other challenges we have. If you are abroad, you will hear people talking of Nigeria; that they don’t want to come home. Even citizens of this country don’t want to visit the country because they are afraid they might not return alive. Not to talk of an investor. When he hears that Nigeria is unsafe, why would he want to come? There are other thousand places he can go to invest, where his life is secure, and he can feel satisfied. The returns in this country are good for investment, so, people would rather come to Nigeria because there is quite a lot. The returns on investment (RoI) are very high; much higher than the global average, but the environment is not conducive.
While an investor would want to make the money, he also wants to be alive. I have always said on many occasions that kidnapping is now rampant because you have the roads aborted by thick forest two feet from the road. Anybody can hide there. In many countries highways, at least ten meters from the road are cleared, grassed or both, so you can see. Before a person will come from about ten meters from the road, the car would have moved. But in Nigeria, the forest begins from the end of the road, very easy to harbour all kinds of people. If you travel in some African countries, lets not talk about Europe or America, you see that for highways, about ten meters from the road are cleared of thick forest, may be grassed. And they are constantly maintained and cleared, so you have visibility. That can even help tremendously in managing the security situation in the country because, one cannot hide in low grass, and people will not see you. We don’t maintain our roads; I’m not even talking of quality of the roads, but the environment of the road. You have houses built almost from the road; stores built right on the road, which help to impair the security of our roads.
Buhari’s resolve to diversify the economy and lift 100 million out of poverty
Whether we achieve it or not that will depend on policies that are complementary to that dream and objective. It is possible to achieve but we need to change the way we are doing things. If we continue to do things the way we are doing it, and say we want to achieve it, in fact we would increase the number of people who are living in abject poverty. We’ve got to find out if the structure is really working. Are our policies working? We’ve been talking about provision of electricity since Obasanjo regime. He even celebrated 4000 megawatts, and we are still celebrating 4000 megawatts. He was said to have spent $16 billion on power, where are we with that today? We’ve heard government say it has approved this or that, but how much power do we have today? It is good if we achieve it but we must be objective and fanatical in establishing, promoting and defending polices that would enable people come out of poverty. You want to lift people out of poverty, how do you do so? Not by giving them money or food. No, you do so by providing them an employment opportunity so that they can earn their full living.
If they can get at least N30, 000 a month, they can maintain a level of living. Although N30,000 is nothing today because N10,000 to an employee thirty years ago, is not the same with someone who earns N30,000 today. A dollar to naira thirty years ago was $5.47 while naira to dollar today is N362. When we were students in United States, we were getting N100 supplementary allowance from our employers; University of Lagos. We changed N100 to $167. I owed someone N500 in the United States during that period, and he wanted me to pay him in dollars and I paid him $800. So, naira was stronger than dollars. I once traveled on the West Coast with my family in 1976. We stayed three days in a hotel in Togo, I was to pay the bill in dollars when we were checking out, and they wanted me to pay in naira. They preferred the naira to dollar. What have we done to destroy our currency? These are the things we need to examine about ourselves; that in the West Coast, they once wanted the naira to the dollar. Today, you show somebody five dollars; he prefers it to N100,000. Each of us should think about this, verbalize and do our own bit in trying to at least constantly let government know what they are doing to our economy. It is our earnest desire that this government lifts millions of Nigerians out of poverty. But for them to do so, they need to adopt different polices, and attitudes to governance. Let governance focus more on the people than politicians. In a country where you hear that even for a minister to be confirmed by the senate, he has to pay. The government has to pay, and the nominee has to pay.
In a particular state, I heard that the House did not screen the list of commissioners on time because the governor did not attach money to their request. Where do we go from here? There is a lot in this country attitudinal that is not right. But when you speak out they think you are jealous, even when it is evident that you are not seeking any gratis from government. So, for this country to move forward, we need to change our attitude, belief system, and be less partisan and focus on the people, as well as the country because if Nigeria prospers, all of us will prosper, and the country and its economy will be better for it.
Managing the challenges of ethnicity for optimum productivity
The problem of ethnicity is structural. We know that the structure of an organization affects its performance. We also know that there are various structures that are suitable and effective for different types of organizational characteristics. Our problem may be that we have not adopted a structure that is suitable for Nigeria characteristics. We are a large country of 366,000 square kilometers, and a large country by population. There are various figures being bandied about our population. Some say we are 180 million while others say we are 200 million but whatever is the figure, it is large. One might say it is not a problem because China is 1.5 – 1.6 billion populations; India is 1.2 billion while U.S has 250 million populations. The point is that we are very heterogeneous and complex. So, we have a heterogeneity that has different characteristics, and our structure must reflect those characteristics. Take the United States for instance, they are constantly trying to put in check, and limit the power of the federal government. The states are very defensive of their autonomy. And a lot of things starts and ends in the states. The national government is only interested in fairly narrow areas: immigration, defense, monetary policies etc, but in Nigeria, we have adopted a structure that is not in management theory, not suitable for our size, complexity, and heterogeneity. And this is where the problem is coming from. When you have a large complex organisation, you must allow a high degree of autonomy of those constituent units otherwise you will create problem because what is suitable for one part of the big organization would not be suitable for another.
India broke up overtime: Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Mumbai were all part of India. When India was becoming independent and because of the indifferences of the people, they had to allow some of them break away because they cannot cope with the complexities. Pakistan is Islamic, India is not. The country is secular to a large extent, dominated by the Hindus, Tamil Nadus, and the rest of them who still operate within their own.
So, we need to adopt a structure in which all the constituent units can indulge their peculiarities and address them without necessarily compromising the national interest.
And that is why we are having a lot of hue and cry from the various sections of the country, which believe that their interests are not taken care of, and disharmony, suspicion and allegations whether it is religious or political become the order of the day. The Christians believe that they are being threatened, and therefore we don’t expect them to just sit and not do anything. One part of the country may believe their interests are not being addressed, and they would break away, that is what democracy is all about. They should be able to shout and talk about it. But if we focus on a system whereby each unit is able to address its peculiar needs, you see that they would not bother much what is going on somewhere else. But where you believe that your interests are being sacrificed in order to please another interests, a human nature does not allow people to just sit and watch like that, and that is why we are having the problems today. But some people are saying no, the structure doesn’t matter. It matters and we are seeing it. Our rate of development when we had a true federal system was higher than what we are having now, even when we had less resource. Now we have more resources but less development.
How self-sufficient is Nigeria in banning forex for food importation?
In all fairness, I don’t have enough knowledge to say we have attained food security to ban forex for food importation. The question is, which one comes first, would we be able to attain food security if we keep allowing import of rice, oil, beans, frozen chicken? If we keep depending on import because we need it, then we would never developed our own resources. It is like depending on someone for a living each times one needs money or shirt. You wouldn’t worry. You would keep going to him, but if the person keeps reminding you how many times he has given you money or shirt, don’t you think, you should begin to look for shirt? It is an economic policy issue. There are things we can produce by ourselves. We should not import all the things we can sufficiently produce in this country. For me, no grain of rice should be imported into this country, yet there are shiploads of grains coming in, there are companies that are dependent on importing rice, they would groan but for a national interest, we should never allow import of single fruits of tomato or tomato pastes. We wouldn’t die, if we don’t consume tomato. What we need is to encourage the producers to make them for local consumption, even for export. Why should we be importing tomato, rice etc, we should stop these produce. If these are in the list of produce government banned, it is a right policy. Also why should we importing chicken preserved and frozen over a period of time with chemicals regarded as dangerous to our health? These produce should appear on the ban a hundred percent. May be there are other things we cannot make because of our climate, technology but things like coned beef should disappear in our import list totally. If we should starve for the next two to three years, then people would be encouraged to produce those products because we have a ready market for them. And in no time, we would not only be self-sufficient in those areas, we would even be exporting them. We have the rain, sun 24/7 and land. If we develop our agriculture, even security would be affected because when you have a cultivated land, there wouldn’t be any forest in which people would hide to commit their havoc. Most of our lands are fertile but are unexploited. You travel in this country in the bush for several kilometers. You don’t see that in developed countries: lands fallowing, and providing a hiding place for criminals. If we encourage agriculture in Nigeria, we would not import at least 95 percent of what we consume. I don’t know about others, I eat made in Nigeria food. I don’t like western food anymore because our foods are healthy and natural. They are not chemical laden. We should encourage as much people as possible, to grow the food we eat.
So, government is right to ban forex for food importation, but on the other hand, government must encourage agriculture, growth and development of those products. The kind of farming we are doing is obsolete. Why should we import meat? If people say they want to continue rearing cow the way it was done in the 18th century; moving them about, grazing, nobody does that any more, your cattle are in a ranch, you process food for them. You can grow grass, and process it for the animals. They don’t move the animals. And when you see them, they are well fed, fat and fleshy, not those ones where one can count the number of ribs because they have walked thousands of kilometers, and are famished. We could export meat from this country. In Botswana and other Western World, there are standards for you to process meat for export; the kind of factory you must have, and the way you would transport the cow to your factory. This is important. You don’t just put cow, crowd together, and tied at the back of a pickup vehicle. It must be transported in a comfortable way. They don’t allow any animal or meat into their country unless they are sure about the way the animal has been treated. Of course, you also know about animal rights.
If they see that you are maltreating the animals, they will ban your products. Again, we need to modernize and encourage plantation agriculture, rather than smallholdings where the leader is only producing for self-subsistence.
Managing challenges of democracy
This is a contemporary issue in Nigeria’s polity today. It is the lead topic of discussions in our annual national management conference in Abuja. You could see the confrontations everywhere. People are not particularly happy. There is unrest everywhere. People are being kidnapped and killed, extorted for ransom, and we are not developing.
We are not moving ahead. This country should not be where it is today in terms of wellbeing of the people, development indices, collective harmony of the nation. We think these are issues that need to be addressed and examined. And that is why we chose it because we consider it to be a topical issue, and relevant for the country; to diagnose how to manage the challenges posed by democracy in this country. Those who designed the current democratic rule had certain assumptions on which democracy was based. It will be recalled that before a democratic rule, there had been all kinds of systems:
Oligarchy, the rule of the rich, learned people, and Aristocracy, rule by the king etc. A lot of us don’t know who represent them in national assembly yet we voted them to represent us. So, democracy cannot work in the kind of government in which we have, where people are still a bit committed to primordial interest rather than national interests.
And this is why in the institute, we decided to examine some of these factors: why is democracy not operating as well as it should, and as well as it operates in other places. And hopefully, we would come up with some suggestions, as to how we can make our democracy work better for all of us, the people.
Quote : If within the timeline given, and there was no visible improvement, I change the team. Security is crucial and indispensable to the growth of the economy. The first responsibility as a human being is to preserve life because it is when one is alive that one can dream and get things done. But when people’s lives are threatened, they become preoccupied with that, and they don’t do any other thing.