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In One Year, Abdulrahman’s Reformation and Reconstruction Agenda Yet to Deliver Expected Public Goods in Kwara State -Report

By
Mutiu Iyanda
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In 2019, Alhaji Abdulrasaq Abdulrahman became Kwara State Governor after several months of campaigns, convincing the indigenes and residents that there is a need to change the year-long Saraki Dynasty political dominance in the State.  Under the popular Otoge campaign slogan, Governor Abdulrahman promised people a number of public goods which would accrue to them through his reformation and reconstruction agenda. “If Otoge got us through the struggle to the point of victory, and given the enormous task of reformation and reconstruction ahead, it is now time for Iseya. As you will all agree, there is so much to be done. “These range from institutional reforms and reconstruction, infrastructural development, human capacity building, social welfare and policy reforms to other socio-economic, cultural, scientific and administrative repositioning. It is not in our tradition to shy away from challenges. We shall engage them and find solutions,” Alhaji Abdulrasaq Abdulrahman said during his inauguration as the new Executive Governor of Kwara State.

In one year, a new report from the Brain Builders Youth Development Initiative, a Kwara based non-governmental organisation, notes that less than 30% of 7,391 people in the State considered his administration excellent.

“Three rating scale was given to 9 out of the 11 thematic areas examined. Less than 30% of the sampled citizens gave a 4 rating to all the areas, while more than 81% and 73% gave 1-rating to security and open governance respectively. Health and Water Resources Ministries and their commissioners received better rating [4-rating] than environment and forestry, sports, education and human capital development. Sports Ministry and its Commissioner were given 1-rating more than education and human capital development ministry and its commissioner.

At 3-rating, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and its Commissioner was better during the one-year period of assessment than Ministries of Water Resources, Health and Education and Human Capital Development.  In all the segments, sampled citizens believe that the government has done a number of programmes and projects that have changed the State outlook.  Despite this, our analysis of the responses shows that efforts in the security, open governance, water supply, anti-corruption, and climate actions were rated poorly, while activities within good governance, infrastructure, anti-corruption, health and youth development were considered as exceptional.

Our analysts note that the consideration of these segments as excellent could be linked with the fact that some policies and programmes of the government shifted from the previous policies and projects of the past administrations that made sustainable public goods impossible in the segments,” the report notes.

Download the full report here

Tekedia CaseWorks on Jevinik Restaurant

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
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0

It is ready – Tekedia Institute CaseWorks on Jevinik Restaurant. Uchenna Nwoke, a FMCG veteran and a former manager in the company, helped us put this together. He used only publicly available data. It is a beauty – and I am confident Tekedia Mini-MBA members will use this casework to advance their capacities to create great companies. By the end of 2021, we will have 200 business cases in our digital library. Visit what we are working on here.

Tekedia Mini-MBA Edition 4

 

In 2021, Do Not Just Innovate; Bring Symphonic Innovation In Your Business

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
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0

In 2021, do not just innovate. Bring symphonic innovation in your business. But what is symphonic innovation? I explained in my book – Africa’s Sankofa Innovation:

“Symphonic Innovation is innovation that is not domain-specific, but is anchored on a unified and harmonious approach in the deployment of technology components to accelerate productivity gains and cushion competitiveness. With Symphonic Innovation, you do not deploy and launch for one technology area like blockchain only to be tripped by AI or big data; you launch with a mindset that these technologies are like extended musical compositions which must be carefully organized to make the orchestra an unforgettable experience.” 

In this book, I took time to explain all the dimensions of innovation. Yes, I see these things from multiple angles, having earned degrees across many fields. 

Members, if you have not read, use this holiday season to read through – https://school.tekedia.com/books/

Why the Nigerian Government Needs to Encourage Locally Sourced Chickens

By
Tiamiyu Ismail
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Now that the yuletide is here, the demand for chicken is expected to skyrocket in the market. Farmers and sellers of chickens are already keeping their fingers crossed to witness what should be their heydays for the year. However, our experience has shown that local producers are often disadvantaged in the market due to perceived differentiation in pricing with foreign-sourced chickens, dumping, and lack of proximity of outlets to consumers.

No doubt, income from poultry production constitutes a significant share of the total household income across all production systems. However, apart from generating cash income for producers, poultry keeping contributes to livelihoods by providing protein and other nourishments to consumers.

Globally, more than 60 billion chickens are killed for consumption every year. Nigeria is the second largest chicken producing country in Africa after South Africa (SAHEL 2015 and FAO 2019). The Nigerian poultry industry comprises about 180 Million chickens which produce more than 450 billion tonnes of meat and 3.8 million eggs per year. In Nigeria, meat is the most consumed poultry product with a greater preference for broiler meats.

The above is espoused by a 2014 study of consumer preference and perception of the different types of chicken meats among 370 respondents in the University of Ibadan by Ogunwole O. A., Omojola O. T., and Adedeji B. S. The study showed that the majority of respondents (62 percent) preferred to take broiler meat due to its tenderness or juiciness, and respondents mostly buy their chickens from meat shops followed by poultry farms as well as open markets and personal farms respectively. However, while all respondents admitted to consuming poultry meat, the majority (51.9 percent) consume it monthly, 28.9 consume it weekly, whereas, 19.2 percent consume it only during the festive periods (e.g Christmas).

Challenges of Local Farmers

One of the greatest challenges (perhaps the strictest one) local poultry farmers often contend with is dumping and over flooding of the local market with foreign processed chickens. Researchers experience that despite the ban on the importation of frozen foods into Nigeria, smugglers still get into the country with smuggled frozen chickens of about 1.5 Million tonnes which poses great health risks on the lives of Nigerians.

In a 2015 study of chicken buying behaviour among Kwara state residents by A.G Adeyonu, E.O Oyawoye E.F. Fabiyi, and A. O. Owolabi, it is revealed that the great health risk of the imported frozen foods is due to additive chemicals to preserve it. Hence, concerns about the carcinogenic harm of foreign processed chickens should enhance the need to promote locally processed ones. Furthermore, locally produced chickens are usually disadvantaged due to perceived differentiation in pricing with foreign-sourced ones. As at the time the study was carried out, one kilogram of smuggled frozen chicken was sold for 680 Naira while the price of one kg of locally processed chicken was sold at 750 Naira. This survey shows that smuggled chicken was cheaper than the locally processed ones, thereby encouraging consumers to forgo locally produced chickens.

Another challenge is that of the proximity of outlets for local chickens to consumers. The aforementioned study shows that locally processed chicken outlets are not strategically located for easy access to consumers. Over 80% of respondents confirmed that Nigerian Processed Chickens were not readily available and that the distance to sales outlets was 3.21 km. However, further analysis shows that while the willingness to purchase Nigerian Processed Chickens decreased with sales outlet distance, it increased largely with education and income.

From the foregoing, it is apparent the willingness of Nigerians, especially the learned and discerning ones to stick to locally produced chickens. However, distance or inaccessibility of the outlets for the locally produced chickens to most consumers as well as porosity in the borders that gives way to smugglers and lack of price regulation have been the major setbacks to the local farmers and producers of birds. Thus the following recommendations are made:

  1. There is need for a more stringent approach on the part of the Government to regulate the importation of frozen foods into the country.
  2. Better import substitution strategies that will foster an enabling environment for local producers and processors must be activated.
  3. Policies that will enhance local buyers’ purchasing power should be pursued in order to encourage their willingness to pay for Nigerian processed chickens.
  4. Farmers should seek to establish more sales outlets through collaboration with standard supermarkets or stores in urban centers.

IBM Begins New Playbook With Nordcloud Acquisition But Must Overcome Innovation Hangover

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
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IBM has announced that it has an agreement to acquire Nordcloud, a European leader in cloud implementation, application transformation and managed services. The goal here is to further advance IBM’s cloud migration and transformation capabilities, an important aspect of its hybrid cloud platform growth strategy. IBM needs to do that  to capture value in one of the most important domains of technology at the moment: cloud & AI. IBM’s stock has lagged former peers, and it needs to unlock new playbooks for a new outcome.

This acquisition is significant after IBM blew the integration of Softlayer a few years ago. IBM was clearly ahead  or at par with other cloud players like Amazon, Microsoft and Google through Softlayer, but was quickly outcompeted due to conflicts which created an innovation hangover when a company decides to protect a one oasis. The IBM infrastructure business made it impossible for IBM to redesign its business as it did not want to kill the unit that was generating a huge revenue in the firm. Yes, cloud was about doing away with infrastructure, and IBM was making huge money from infrastructure. 

This is similar to the Microsoft innovation handover with Windows. For years, Microsoft was built around Windows, affecting innovation across all units of the company; Steve Balmer, Microsoft former boss, led that strategic philosophy of Windows-first. But when the new boss, Satya Nadella,  came about 6 years ago, he shifted from Windows-first, and built a new mantra of anywhere-first. Within years, the market cap of Microsoft quadrupled, as he unlocked Microsoft products and put them anywhere people could buy them, including in Apple and Google platforms. Today, Microsoft stock has grown from $366 billion to excess of $1.66 trillion in just under 6 years.

The new playbook from IBM has a promising future. Why? IBM has already put its infrastructure business in the market. So, that conflict and hangover are gone. With that, Nordcloud could seed that future IBM is looking for in this new age of cloud and AI. Expect the machine to rise.

Part of the press release

Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland with offices in 10 European countries, Nordcloud’s mission is to help businesses become stronger, fitter and more agile with cloud. From Gartner’s Magic Quadrant to The Financial Times’ league table of fast-growing European companies, Nordcloud is recognized as a leader in public cloud services. Over the past 10 years, the privately held company has grown into a pan-European leader in cloud transformation services. It is one of the few providers triple certified in Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure.

“Our clients are increasingly taking a more holistic approach to application modernization that allows them to operate across a traditional IT environment, private cloud and public clouds,” said John Granger, Senior Vice President, Cloud Application Innovation and Chief Operating Officer, IBM Global Business Services. “IBM’s acquisition of Nordcloud adds the kind of deep expertise that will drive our clients’ digital transformations as well as support the further adoption of IBM’s hybrid cloud platform. Nordcloud’s cloud-native tools, methodologies and talent send a strong signal that IBM is committed to deliver our clients’ successful journey to cloud.”

“IBM’s hybrid cloud approach is very complementary with our cloud-native approach to helping clients migrate, manage and modernize in the cloud,” said Fernando Herrera, Chairman and Founder, Nordcloud. “As an experienced partner in today’s cloud ecosystems, we work with all of the public cloud providers for the good of our clients throughout Europe. I am very excited to embrace IBM’s open innovation mindset and help grow its global footprint.”

Leading IT industry analysts estimate the market for cloud professional services will exceed $200 billion by 2024.1 IBM’s open and flexible approach to advising, building, moving and managing clients’ hybrid environments gives enterprises the freedom to choose from multiple providers to best meet their business and IT needs. This acquisition is the latest example of how IBM is expanding the breadth and depth of its hybrid cloud offerings to manage complex integrations – of technologies, people and processes.

Following the close of the transaction, Nordcloud will become an IBM Company. Financial details were not disclosed. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2021.

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