₦airaland Forum

Well researched writeup.

.

What's the solution?

lekjons:
source?

link shown above

Chief Olu Falae was the Secretary to the Federal Government and former Minister of Finance during General Ibrahim Babangida’s military era. He was the joint presidential candidate of the Alliance for Democracy(AD) and All Peoples Party (APP) during the 1999 general election, which he lost to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. He is currently the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). In this interview, he spoke on a wide range of national issues.

Excerpts:

If you had been elected in 1999 as the president of Nigeria instead of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, what are the things you would have achieved which he couldn’t achieve during his eight years in office?

– I would have achieved so many things. You know I prepared myself thoroughly for the presidential bid because by being in the corridor of power for many years, I know exactly what is required. For example, I was Director for Economic Planning and Development for Nigeria for many years and that has given me the opportunity to see the problem that we have and turn it to potentials for development in Nigeria. And based on that experience, I have been able to put together a Blue Print for the governance of Nigeria which I titled ‘New Directions for the 3rd Republic’.

The document is about 371 pages long. That is where I stated out my vision, my planning and objectives for Nigeria, sector by sector. In agriculture, there were things I was going to do; in Education, Health, Transportation, Defence, Foreign Affairs, and so on. I had put down every point but the basic philosophy and approach was clearly set out after several discussions with stakeholders in each sector. In education, I had one, two, three, four sessions, with educationists; proprietors of education, teachers and even students so that we were able to discuss education in various perspectives.

From the perspectives of the owners of the schools, the proprietors, both corporate and individuals from the point of view of students who were the beneficiaries of education; and those that are financing education, those who are employing people into educational institutions.

So, from all these various perspectives, we were able to put together a succinct programme for educational development. For example, in the educational programmes, we were going to return schools to their former proprietors for the simple reason that discipline had collapsed in the schools because authority has been divorced from management. Under this system, we have the Board of Governors in every school. If any teacher or student misbehaves, the Board of Governors will summon him within 24 hours to deal with the matter. Under the system we were then running, the government had taken over the schools; no Board of Governors, the principals have become toothless bulldogs. If a child misbehaves, he could not suspend or expel him because that student will go to the Ministry of Education and get the decision of the principal reversed, and humiliate the principal and thereby undermining the authority and discipline of the school. So, we must return the schools to the owners so that we can return authority to the schools. Not only to the teachers but to the Board of Governors that will be composed of both the teachers, the parents and the other constituencies of the school.

So, I just use that as an example of the kind of thinking we did and the kind of recommendations that will take place. We would have done this thing in every area of national endeavour. So, if I have been allowed to exercise my mandate with the support of Almighty God and the planning we had done, Nigeria would have become completely different from what we have now.

For example, when I was Director of Planning in 1975, we produced the first National Development Planning between 1975 to 80 under General Gowon, and when some of the recommendations in that plan were to be implemented. We projected that Nigeria needed 6000 Megawatt of electricity by 1980. Today, we are still struggling with 4000 Megawatts, 35 years later. Now if I had become President, I would have done all that is humanly possible to make sure that Nigeria was generating at least 10,000 mw of electricity. If we had done that between 1999 and year 2000, by today we will be talking of 25 and 30,000 megawatt. And power is perhaps the most reliable proxy for development.

The amount of electricity used or consumed per head of population is a reliable index of development in all society, whether you are developed, developing, or whatever. So, I would have pushed for power generation to a level where most industry will get power that is stable and affordable because power is the key.

Today for example, if we are able to generate power in quantity that is sufficient and at affordable price, Nigeria will be opening 10,000 or maybe 20,000 industries that have been shut down over the last 10 years. As you reopen those industries, you are going to employ millions of people within the next six months, 12 months. And the economy will begin to revive and to grow because power is now available. So, power is the key and I would have pushed for power generation if I had became president.

Also in the 1975-80 plan, we had projected that Nigeria will have, at the end of the plan in 1980, a surplus of $5 billion after implementing all the development projects of roads, and schools and universities and hospitals. After doing all those things between 1975 and 80 and pay salaries, etc, Nigeria will still have a surplus of $5 billion which we recommended to be invested in assets abroad. Take it out of consumption, invest it. If we had invested $5 billion in 1980, by today we will be talking of $50 hundred billions sufficient to run government of Nigeria three, four, five years if we are not producing oil at all. Now, these are the things I would have done because I have the blue print on my hands.

What I’m going to do next is agriculture; because agriculture is the most important industry in any economy. It is the only industry patronised by everybody at least once a day. Everybody doesn’t go to Hospital everyday, everybody doesn’t go to school everyday but everybody eats at least once a day. Therefore, that is why agriculture is the number one industry.

Now, we have fantastic agricultural land and we would have left it to the traditional cutlass and hoe farmers, but there is no way that type of farmers can feed the great population; a sophisticated population like Nigeria. So, we are going to have massive investment in agricultural infrastructure. Government can never be an efficient farmer, an efficient manufacturer. No!, But they will create the enabling environment for agriculture by putting in place the right policy and incentives that will attract private people, private money into developing agriculture: maybe Nigeria investors and foreign investors to come and develop agriculture.

Our land is fertile. There are areas in the North you can drive two, three, four hours without seeing any settlement on the fertile land. With appropriate policies and incentives, those areas will produce more than enough food for Nigeria. We will have enough to export and have foreign exchange that will compare total earning from oil. Those are the things I loved to do to make Nigeria move forward.

Also on the external debt of Nigeria, you will recall that during the campaign, I said I will end the foreign debt of Nigeria in six months. But some people said “Oh! Are you a magician? How are you going to do it? And I said I won’t tell you but later in my book “The Way forward For Nigeria”, I hope you get a copy and read it. I disclosed my programmes there, which was later used by Obasanjo’s administration to deal with the debt issue. At that time, we were owing about $24 billion to foreign creditors who were holding us to ransom. And I said the way to do it is as follows: The debt we were owing them was projected to be paid about 7, 8, 9 years. And every quarter we were to pay interest to them. So, my proposal was that I would ask the various governments to whom we were owing that we wanted to buy that paper back because we will issue documents to them that we owe you money. For instance, say France, we owe you $5 billion, to be paid back over the next 9 years. We come back and say okay, the paper we gave you, give it back to us; we want to buy that paper back. We said we will pay you $5 billion in 9 years time. Now, don’t wait for another 9 years, let me pay you $3 billion today. $3 billion today is a good deal for them than $5 billion that may not come in the next 9 years time. So, I got to buy it from various ventures like that. In other words, we will pay far less than we owed them. We owed $5 billion and we will pay them $3 billion. That is 60 per cent. In other words, we have made a discount of 40 per cent from the same value. So, 60 per cent obtained before, that is $14.4 billion; that is what we are going to raise and use it to buy back the debt from all those who we were owing.

General Obasanjo was lucky that when he came in as civilian president, the oil price went up. So, we were earning from oil sales, enough money to import what we needed currently and the surplus with which to buy back the debts. He didn’t have to sell part of our equity. My own equity sales was if we came to crunch, if we were not able to have enough dollars in which to buy the debt, we will sell what we have to get what we need. What we have was the shares with the oil companies and what we need is our freedom from dictation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). And that we will achieve by buying out the debts and getting rid of foreign debts. Then, you will be free to operate as sovereign country. These are to show you how ready I was and what I was going to do to make a difference in Nigeria.

Now, let me say that any modern nation of our size that has no iron and steel industries is joking. Any nation of this size and opportunities; look at every hardware we use is steel. Your fridge, your car, deep freezer, dust bin, name it: they are from iron and steel. Not to talk of the construction industries -the flat sheet, the long sheet, the structural sheet like the roof, constructing of bridges and so on. And we have one at Ajaokuta that has been substantially completed in certain sections. And you needed just maybe another investment of about $5 billion and you complete that industry; and you will directly employ something like 5 million people in the plant and in the auxiliary facilities. And that will transform Nigeria completely and you stop importing all these steel we can make here from abroad. So, if I could do all these things I am talking about say in three, four years, surely Nigeria will become a big country.

The nation is facing serious economic crisis now and as somebody who has been in the financial sector and handled Nigeria economy before, what do you think is the best way out?

. It is going to be a package of measures not just one thing. What is happening is that we have been screaming since 1975; 40 years now. That we should use the oil revenue to diversify the economy, away from sole dependence on oil, and create alternative sources of employment and revenue and income in agriculture, in agricultural processing, in the exploitation of solid minerals, and so on.

They did not do it. If we have done it and have generated power along the lines that I mentioned and if we have the steel industry, if we have developed the infrastructure; for instance, I have a programme of road. For instance, I was going to link all the state capitals with double carriage ways throughout Nigeria. And resurface all other existing roads within the first two years. And if we have done all that, now we won’t be where we are today. And we are where we are; we have not diversified. Even if we start diversification today, it will still take several years before we begin to take the benefits of diversification.

So, what do we do in the short term? The first thing we do is to take a very hard look at the recurrent expenditure. As a product of the system, I know there are a lot of wastes going on. I am not talking about fraud and stealing now but waste. You have government vehicles which have little faults, packed all over the place; instead of being repaired and put back on the road, they are abandoned. They will say to themselves, “go and buy a new one.”

When I was still in the government, I carried out an exercise. I asked every ministry to give me the list on their broken vehicles and equipment and tell me how much it will cost to repair them instead of buying new ones from abroad. You will be shocked. Bulldozers and graders, hundreds and hundreds of them were broken down and abandoned for years in various sites.

So, we got them repaired and we commissioned; so that we save foreign exchange that we would have used to import new ones. Now, you can look at those areas and make all savings that can be made. Instead of buying new things, repair what we have and recommission them. That is number one.

Two: unessential staff, the tea girl in your office. Your secretary should be able to make tea for you. I just make that one as an example. Unessential staff can be retired, but they should be given their retirement benefits: They should not just be thrown into the street. Three: Expenditure that can be postponed should be postponed. Push forward or face out. Instead of spending two N2 billion naira this year on these things, why don’t you stretch it out so that you spend half a million this year and half a million next year; to reduce the expenditure this year. Four: You can borrow from the bilateral lending agencies abroad, like the World Bank and IDA. Those ones will lend you money for 30 years at the interest rate of two to three per cent. That is the kind of loan that we should go for. Low interest, long term, and then the money should go into the projects that will make an impact on the economy in the shortest possible time.

Looking at the opportunity that you lost to Obasanjo and the fact that age is no more on your side, can you say you have a particular regret that you were not given opportunity to lead Nigeria to put all these your ideas into practice?

Yes. A while ago I did indicate the kinds of things that I was going to do, that would have made all the difference. So, I do regret that I didn’t have opportunity to do those things, and many more things. The standard of integrity in public life was going to be one of my targets. And also, I wanted to go for modernisation of bureaucracy. You see, all professions end in management. If you are a soldier, by the time you become a general, you no longer carry a gun. You are only managing people and resources in the battle front; and that is management. I am an Anglican. If you are a priest, by the time you are an Archdeacon or a Bishop, you go to conference and manage church affairs. Similarly, in the country, in the civil service whether you are an engineer, or an architect, you end up in management. So, I’m going to train people so that they can operate as if they are executive of modern companies. The chief executive of Peugeot might have been an engineer, might have read History; but he is so trained in the motor industry in area of management that by the time he becomes chief executive, he is competent to run the place. So, you professionalise people in their chosen fields so that they can have competence and effectiveness. So, I was going to make that the hallmark of my administration. I will pay them in a decent way. You see, United Kingdom was our colonial master. In the UK today, civil service pay is comparable to public sector people, because they can’t afford a second rate civil service. So, they pay them well. Those who are in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the United Kingdom are paid comparably with what people are getting in Shell or British Petroleum. It is not so here. Our pay in the public services has lagged behind the private sector considerably. And it should not be so. If you allow it to go on for too long, you create room for mediocrity, incompetence and fraud. People steal public funds to augment their legitimate pay and to maintain a standard of living that they are not allowed to enjoy.

If you've boss like op described ,please run for your life before you become emotional depressed. Talking from personal experience

gypsey:
suicide is very complexed, one of my friend has almost one would call every thing, a nice big house, a successfull bussiness, a bentley, a beautifull wife and 3 boys 1 girl children but he has been trying to commit suicide every day in the last 3 years, he is on suicide watch now by members of his family they are keeping an eye on him every day.
the mind boggling thing is, he could not explain why he is suicidal
so it's not just poverty that makes people to commit suicide

That's what's called emptiness. Materials, or wealth doesn't guarratee happiness.

Whether ND,HND,BSC,MSC or PHD ,what you need to excel in life is dedication, hardwork , perseverance and initiative. None of the above certificate is a guarantee of successful carreer or fulfilment in life. If you're an HND holder , put in your best in whatever your hands find doing . Academic qualifications is not what determine the success of individual. As you grow older in your carreer ,you will start to see the false conception about certificate. Certificate, diploma, degree are not the same,unless you live in a world of fantasy. The curriculum are designed for different professionals even though there is overlap in some cases. Your career path is what determine what you need.None is superior to the other.

darediamond:
I need an adjusable frequency inverter oscillator. One that can provide upto 50Mhz at whatever input voltage from the Battery.
Can you make it for me?

Adjustable frequency inverter oscillator ! What's the use of that? At 50mhz is now radio frequency oscillator. Are you in need of radio transmitter?

IkennaNweke:
Most Nigerian lecturers are fake! Plagiarism is their stock in trade. I just saw two different articles on "ethnic politics" for my thesis, different titles, but the same -- from abstract to conclusion, I mean word to word, but different authors. One was written in 2005, and submitted to an European based journal, the other was written in 2011, and submitted to a local journal, so I don't need TB Joshua to tell me what happened.
I have seen a lot of plagiarism from them right from my years in ESUT. One professor simply copied a sociology text co-authored by Michael Haralambo, R.M. Heald, and Martin Holborn, and shamelessly published it with a different title.
So disgusting!

Its not there fault . they needed it for their promotion.Everything in naija is upside down, no invention ,innovation ,no creativity. All we do is copy and paste

"Dream Big, and Die Trying."

Most people set goals and when they achieve those goals they think two things: “Wow, I’m successful!” and then…”Wait a second. I want more!”
We have been, as a society, brainwashed into thinking that the trappings of success (money, fame, promotions at a job) will get us to happiness. We’ve been conditioned and then enslaved by the slave masters of flesh, bank accounts, vanity, and the futility of thinking we can change things, we can find a path that will fill the emptiness inside.
Some years back while still in secondary school ,I believe that going to a university means I'm successful but now that I've achieved that I don't see it as a success. when I bought my first car I believed I'm on top of the world but now it doesn't thrill me again. So many things I've achieved in this life which I later seen as being not a success. what's the real meaning of success?

which way Nigeria? Meritocracy only meant for the dogs.

pricelessmr:
Please where do you buy your electronic components in large quantities with free shipping?

How do you ensure that the parts are of good quality considering the sensitivity of electronic components. And do you import for resell, production or both?

I ask because we're into use of some electronic parts for custom production.

aliexpress.com . i ordered to resell. you search for sellers that deal in only electronics components. first order for few samples ,later you can place large order. the secret is when placing large order you can always bargain with the seller to drastically reduce the price. also when searching , search based on the free shipping cheapest and most ordered. you know 1millon ic may not even weigh up to 2kg and also package in antistatic. with time you buy outside aliexpress platform and deal directly with the seller to remove 5% aliexpress charges, but that's based on trust

4nobody4every1:
....Gbam, l will soon open a thread of my experiences with doing business in Nigeria

we are eager to hear about your experience.

4nobody4every1:
.....l disagree with you, it is not about been married or single, l had a single guy , age was around 28, single, l gave him a tokunbo car, he was also a family member, l took him as my brother because l know every member of his family, but he started very well and along the line he came with c..ock and rooster stories, today he will say Babangida collected the car, tomorrow he will say obasanjo stopped him, next day he will say shagari stopped him, l collected the car from him but after much pleading, l released the car back to him, until he finally paid the higher purchase agreement, l had the same issues with the series of okada l bought for single guys, so l am talking from experience, l really dont know why some drivers are not honest, maybe it is the Nigerian factor, higher purchase with strict management and control is better, l also agree with you to relate better with your subordinate, l did that severally with all those l gave vehicles and motorcycles to, l brought them to my house, we ate together, but yet, when it comes to business, they are all full of porkies......

That's the major problem with Nigerians. if you are not tough you can not do business successfully with them, you will just be hearing different stories.

ive also being wondering how people make profit with the mini importation business.Not all products are cheaper to sell here. You have to do your homework very well. For you to make enough profit in this mini importation business you have to order large quantity of what ever you are buying and need to negotiate the price with the seller very well. note you have to be selective in what you order. for me I only order electronics components in bulk with free shipping and its cheaper than buying in Lagos. I've tried other tangible goods like electronics before but its always loses upon loses. if one is not careful one will just be working for the bank(with high exchange rate), the seller and alibaba.

donnffd:
We Africans are the least scientific inclined set of humans on the planet, we don't contribute to the furtherment of science, we have never won Nobel prizes in these categories, we don't carry out real research to better understand our environment...all we do is to either leave the work to the white man or attribute these to some invisible deities...what is wrong with Africans?

The reason lies here, most Africans operate on the lowest level , physiological level according to Maslow's hierarchy of need. Need for basic necessity of live, food , water, sex, petrol to fuel car, generator etc. most Africans are not self actualized. With high unemployment , zero security of lives and properties no one can invent anything. Will you even gethe the mind when boko haram is pursing you and one agbero threatening your life

debbie:
How many years have you been working? You need at least 4years of work experience to join NSE.
There is no special process to join NIEEE...Just locate a local branch where you are..Check their website to see lists of branches they have and how to register to become a member.
Supervisor should be someone who has a knowledge of your technical report.

What of someone with HND in electrical eng + PGD in electronics/computer eng.Can I join NSE but currently a technologist in a polytechnic, with +8 years experience.can I apply for engineer cadre or technologists.And also, which one is APWEN,NIEEE,NICE.

Abomination

An engineer is an employable scientist.
A physicist is an unemployable engineer.
Physicists aren't concerned with the practicality of their research. They are only concerned with studying nature and how it behaves.

Engineers on the other hand, use facts and knowledge about the physical world developed by physicists to make things that are practical for everyday use. And yes, engineers don't care how those facts and knowledge came about, all they care is can it be used to make something useful for everyone.

The problem with Nigeria is that we do not have enough technician and technologist before embarking on mass training of our so called engineers, chuned out by our universities yearly. It is the technician that do the real work of engineering. Its supposed to be pyramid like, with few engineers, many technologist, plenty technician. Inverse is the case here

This is so on paper but in real life situation is the other way round. There are many engineers even doctors not making up to half of what the op posted. in most cases these professions are highly overrated. I've seen someone earning above this as an HRM with his sociology degree. On average very few acclaimed professionals earn as high as this.

Jamzig1:
Hello Nairalanders, I need advice(s) from
experienced guys in the house. I am currently
studying PHYSICS in the Federal University of
Agriculture, Abeokuta(FUNAAB). Will be starting
200L in less than two months time. The thing is i
have been reading some materials online on
embedded systems electronics especially on this
forum. It caught my interest because I am an
hobbyist in electronics. So I want to go into
Embedded Systems electronics as a career. Is it
advisable? I would love to here your opinion(s)
as soon as possible. Bless you
cc: Acorntree
Savotech
Nisol
Alotofgrace
Lalasticlala
Seun
guassian
usisky
9free
princejude
and others

What you need most is deep interest and passion for electronics. With physics and electronics degree programme , you are on a good path to becoming an embedded electronic engineer. You also need to know that your degree programme may not be sufficient for you, as most programme are not practically well grounded, so be self taught. Join online electronics forum.Build other people circuit, use other people codes, build things. Start your learning using kits .If you are interested in programming stuff, you need to learn c language first not assemly language.Assembly is not for novice.Start with arduino then move to other microcontrollers when you have gain enough experience. with time you will start designing your own circuit and writing your own code from scratch.Electronics is fun ,what you can think you you can equally implement electronically.Programming is just a step by step of your idea on how you want to control things, dont be scared , with time you will become an expert in this.

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions. Initially developed to serve as a software sketchbook and to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context, Processing also has evolved into a tool for generating finished professional work. Today, there are tens of thousands of students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists who use Processing for learning, prototyping, and production. processing is very easy to learn.

sinkhole:
Thanks too, your comment also help, even though you did not actually solve the problem @princejude in his princely way seemed to have a solution for now! I googled the wpf suggested by princejude and found that it could do the GUI very well with the C# providing the "behind coding" that could be used to access the weather station through the USB. Unless there is a better package, princejude have the solution for now!

if you have designed your hardware using atmega micro or arduino what you need to design the GUI application is the processing software .if you're a good software programmer you can go the way of Prince Jude by using c++,c#etc but if you're not it will take you weeks if not months to accomplish this simple task. with processing software it will take just two hrs. I've done something similar to this your project before, so I'm speaking from past experience. if you are still confuse type processing in Google or download "make things talk"

sinkhole:
Thanks, you perfectly got my drift! Infact, what I want is a GUI based window application that could display some graphics of the data, such as line graphs, bar chats, wind direction, etc

this is very easy with arduino and processing programming language. what you need is graphical display of captured data from the weather workstation via USB to pc or remotely using rf module or xbee module or Bluetooth module connected to arduino.

obiak4:
so so true reminising back in d days when i was a research student with one of the prof's oboy pg stident dey suffer and spend money
some of dis prof are saddist,kurrofft (pmb pun) pg student fit contribute buy car b4 dem approve ur thesis
my candid advice msc,phd, just go abroad if u no want a furstrated life schooling

buy a car , just because of certificate.

I thought Lasu is the worst but now have a rethink. But why are these schools run like this? Not adhering to time frame-duration of the programme. if all students can not graduate at the same time due to one problem or another, those who are through with their thesis should be graduated without unnecessary delay. time is money.

thexzy:
Thanks a lot OP. But i have a little question for you, If you are to choose a programming language for your Son, Which will you prefer him to start with as a Starter and also a graduate of Electronic and communication Engineering and that will also assist him in getting a good job with cool pay? Thanks once again for ur advice

you need to learn c language if you are interested in embedded system, e.g for microcontroller and microprocessor system development

MattChidi:
Well said and your points resonates home. I think the entire Nigerian students need to read this and change their orientation for the better. Our parents and society sold this ideas to us. Though, it worked for them during their time but unfortunately the world has changed and we need to flow with the tide. Thanks for this piece, let him that has ears hear...
#I_♥_Education

This shows that change is inevitable if we are to progress as a nation. Too much emphasis on paper qualification has been our major problem. Many people are just getting certificates, bsc ,MSC,PhD etc without any positive contribution to the society. This even reminded me of one of my lecturers ,whose teaching methodology never change after obtaining PhD. This craving for certificates need to change as there are so many loopholes in our educational system. people are using shortcuts to beat the system- many are not really educated.