His book – Things Fall Apart – was a recruiting tool to get kids to transition from primary to secondary school. Day by Day Book 6, a book for primary 6 pupils, had a story about Nwoye, Ekwefi, Ezinma and Okonkwo. Mr. Chigbu, our teacher, began the story, culled from Things Fall Apart, and every kid wanted more. Then, the story ended, and the next day, the teacher came with the principal, ”If you want to know the complete story, you have to sign up for a common entrance exam for secondary school”. Magically, everyone wanted to stay in school to know the concluding story in Things Fall Apart. Chinua Achebe had a huge influence.
In this interview (dated 1964), Wole Soyinka interviews Chinua Achebe. The eloquence, and the excellence in this interview, of these two legends should remind everyone of us the trajectory Nigeria was going before the punctuation!
Times are indeed hard for businesses, but no, we [Tetramanor] do not need a financial bailout. What we need is an infrastructure bailout.
That is not to say the real estate and construction industries have not been hard hit by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, we have. We had to completely suspend construction at our ongoing project – TM Meadows at Ebute-Metta – for about 5 weeks, and we now are operating at skeletal capacity in accordance with the Lagos state guidelines. Delayed delivery of projects impact sales inflows, the cost of carrying loans, and most importantly, the daily workers (over a hundred on our site) who have to be laid off when work grinds to a halt. Still, the industry can manage – COVID-19 is not our greatest problem.
I’ve been reading the Residential Development Handbook (ULI series) in preparation for a new project we’re about to embark on at Ikoyi. And of course, the book had many recommendations about things to look for before choosing a site. Being a book written in/for the US, it naturally had a lot to say about ensuring there was adequate provisions for power, treated water supply, road network etc. considering that these are basic for that market. But that set me thinking: What was my cost of providing these infrastructures for which government was responsible?
Figure 1 – TM Meadows at Ebute-Metta, Lagos Mainland
I have provided a breakdown below showing actual and projected costs at TM Meadows (a 40-unit estate) for infrastructure items we would not have had to spend money on, or at least spent drastically less on, if they had been provided as expected by our dear government. Note: The cost of connecting to the water mains (cost yet to be determined), connecting to PHCN (N13m) and construction of a sewage treatment plant (N12m) have not been included as these are considered to be normal costs.
Power (three generators, transformer, diesel tank, ATS, valuable space etc.) – N55m
Road (complete revamp of external roads and drainages leading to the estate) – N20m
Local taxes (omo-onile aka Area Boys, security agencies etc.) – N12m and counting
The total expenditure on these avoidable infrastructure items comes to about N105million, and if we should add ‘local taxes’ paid to secure the safety of our workers and ensure that work goes on in peace, it comes to approximately N120million. This is painful; it’s causing me palpitations as I think about it.
“One hundred and twenty million (N120m) is the infrastructure tax paid by Tetramanor…”
One hundred and twenty million (N120m) is the infrastructure tax paid by Tetramanor at TM Meadows, our 40-unit estate at Ebute-Metta on the Lagos Mainland. But make no mistakes, these costs would not be borne by us. Using a simple average, that is about N3million extra that each of our subscriber has to pay or has paid to live in that estate, despite the fact that taxes are being paid to government by these people already. Put another way, the total project cost for the estate is about N1.2billion, hence a full 10% of the cost at a minimum should have been avoidable. That means each subscriber would already pay a 10% non-accountable tax for owning the property, before paying fresh taxes to government.
Considering the serious dearth of affordable housing in Nigeria, it is imperative that this infrastructure tax burden on real estate developers be addressed. COVID-19 has not and will not cost us [Tetramanor] N120million. However, having to serve as a proxy government taxes us about 5 – 15% of the cost of every project we embark on depending on the size and this is about the same for every developer out there. We developers do need a bailout, but not one of cash distribution. We need a drastic rollout of critical infrastructure so we can continue doing what we do best. Don’t give us money, just build roads and provide power, then watch us build the economy.
While this was not the purpose of the article, I can’t help but ask: What can be done about it? Considering the dire straits in which Nigeria happens to be in right now, it would be quite naïve to make such blanket pronouncements as ‘government should build infrastructure immediately’ and ‘government should give developers cashback’ and other statements of the sort. Yet, we need solutions – without accounting for the completely obsolete budget assumptions, the ~N500 billion allocated to transportation, power and works in the 2020 budget isn’t going to make a dent even if fully implemented. I’ve had to ask myself what I would do with respect to infrastructure should I be the president right now. Truly, there are no easy answers, but here’s what I would do.
Figure 2 – Nigeria’s 2020 Budget (Original)
One, I would drastically borrow more – billions and billions of dollars – and pump the funds into infrastructure. Internally generated revenue isn’t going to cut it fast enough. Yes, I know Nigeria is already seriously indebted (about N27.4trillion as at Dec 2019. The hope here is that critical infrastructure – power and transportation networks (roads, rails) especially – would drastically spur development, manufacturing, agriculture and real estate, which in turn would generate income and attract capital.
Two, Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) – that favour capital – and deregulations would become the order of the day. Honestly, I simply don’t see how the government alone can drive the infrastructure revolution on its own. The funds controlled by private enterprises far outweigh that of our broke government that can hardly pay salaries. It’s high time we bring those funds to bear – in building & managing roads especially. And to bring it fast enough, the terms have to be favourable to the owners of capital. Sure, individuals would have to pay more, but the price would ultimately be worth it. As for the power industry, the government has tried enough; after 60 years of failure, it’s time to hands off the price controls and stifling policies. To bring it home, how much would I be willing to pay in tolls and increased power costs to avoid N120m in capital expenditures on one single project?
Three, I would give the tax agencies ALL the powers they need to drastically widen the tax net in any way possible – carrot and/or stick, whichever works best. This crap about not paying taxes need to stop. The talk about government providing adequate amenities before collecting taxes is naïve and rhetorical. Nigerians, we need to pay this money (tax), or soon we won’t have a country anymore. When the government spends about 60% of its revenue paying interest on loans and can hardly pay salaries, infrastructure would naturally take the back burner. According to FIRS, Nigeria earned N5.26trillion in tax revenues in 2019 at a tax-to-GDP ratio of about 6%. Now, assuming a tax-to-GDP ratio of 10%, which is much less than the 17% average for Africa, that brings government tax revenues to about N8.8trillion or N13trillion at 15%! That’s real gold there and as it grows, the bulk of it should be pumped towards infrastructure and paying down our public debt.
Anyway, this is a good place to stop – my point is made. We real estate developers and citizens in general, pay a heavy infrastructure tax daily and we need a bailout soon.
As of the 10th May, Nigeria has confirmed 4151 positive cases from Covid 19 and sadly recorded 128 fatalities. As part of measures to curtail the spread of the virus, schools and other educational institutions have been shut. Educational instructors have been advised to adopt online education, television, radio etc., to instruct and transfer knowledge to students.
Workers who are able to work remotely have been constantly advised to do so, whilst avoiding the need to commute to work places. Courts have also delivered hearings virtually and this was celebrated as a milestone for the Nigerian judiciary to finally embrace the use of communication technologies. Even Governmental officials were not left behind, as we witnessed officials holding virtual meetings to discuss and implement policies on how to flatten the curve.
A common thread through these measures is that they all seem to rely on the use of information and communication technologies to meet their objectives. In fact, telcos recorded a significant increase in the number of data revenues; MTN recorded a 59% increase in data revenue in Q1 2020.
Ironically, on the 5th May 2020, the Senate directed its technical committee to conduct a thorough investigation to determine the status of 5G networks in Nigeria as well as health implications of such deployment in Nigeria. The sponsor of the motion, Senator Uche Ekwunife, suggested that Switzerland had placed an indefinite moratorium on the use of 5G networks.
Now, the increasing use of broadband networks for online education, virtual hearings, virtual and remote meetings etc., means that there will be a surge in the demand for bandwidth and 5G no doubt holds the promise to meeting this exponential bandwidth demand. As may you have noticed during the lockdown, the quality of the networks was significantly reduced, as a way of meeting the increased demand. In fact, In the EU, the likes of Youtube, Netflix, Google etc., were directed to reduce the bitrate of videos as a way of meeting the increased network traffic demand.
Currently, Nigeria has not deployed 5G networks and to the best of my knowledge, I’m not sure telcos are looking to deploy the network anytime soon. This is as a result of the huge cost of deploying such networks (billions of dollars) as well as the need to make significant return on the investments on the current deployment of 4G networks. Please see for an estimated year of 5G deployment in Nigeria, without Governmental delays.
Yes, Switzerland halted the deployment of 5G networks over radiation concerns and set up a task force to investigate the health concerns. But recent news indicates that the Swiss Government has decided to okay the current standards as well as emission standards of 5G networks, as the task force was unable to agree to a joint recommendation on relaxing the current.
To end, there is nothing wrong with investigations of the health impact of 5G networks; I just hope that technical professionals would be allowed to conduct such investigations as well as use science to guide the Senate in making informed policies, so we don’t end up with a stalemate. Governmental delays and interference within the telecoms sector could be damning.
Going forward, I think that lawmakers should be updated on emerging technologies like 5G so that they would be pre-informed on issues related to the development and deployment of such technologies within the country so it does not appear as if we are waiting to jump on the next bandwagon.
This is the video on the Airbnbpiece: If you want to win in the 21st century digital economy, you must control or influence demand, not supply. In the industrial age economy, power went to gatekeepers of supply. Today, the empire builders are those that control demand. This is possible because digital supply is unbounded and unconstrained, making it largely not a factor. Digital utilities like Google, Facebook, and Airbnb which control demand become the new gatekeepers.
In the digital age, what matters is not who controls supply, but who controls demand. Supply is largely infinite as there are many ways to get to the web, and because it is infinite, users congregate to platforms to help them navigate and make sense of the web.
In 1980, before the digital age as we have it today, the most powerful people in media were newspaper publishers. They were the people you needed to reach to get your message to the world. They decided what everyone read on the dailies and they were powerful. They controlled supply and by controlling supply, they shaped everything including advertising.
When the Coronavirus pandemic happened on the world through Wuhan in China, no one could ever have imagined that its impact would have been so profound as it has been since December, 2019 when it strayed out China to other parts of the world. This pandemic has led to the shutting down of all institutions and infrastructures that have kept the world going before its unannounced appearance. The mitigating measures against the virus have made life difficult to run as usual. Lockdowns, social distancing and other personal hygiene instructions have put life activities at an abrupt pause. One area which seems to have found a way to defy this pandemic is governance and activities that surround it. Specifically, governments have found a way to run. Elections which are signposts of democratic government have also found a way to hold across the world. Democracies of the world pride on tenured terms for elected public officials. So, without elections there is likely to be a constitutional stalemate. For some countries, it was either to choose between live and continuous governance.
In a report earlier widely quoted on this platform, countries of the world that defy the Coronavirus scare were highlighted. Even though a total of 69 countries were reported to have postponed elections, 11 countries still held elections in the face of the ravaging virus. All kinds of elections were held- major, regional, municipal and local elections. They held across the regions of the world. From Africa to Europe, Asia to South America, people defied the novel virus to make democratic choices of their leaders.
In another report examining what the countries of the world that held elections did to mitigate the transmission of the virus, various means by which governments and electoral bodies of those countries put in place to ensure that people were not further put at danger of contracting the disease were highlighted. Elections are large-crowd events and as such have a very high risk of exposing people to the COVID 19. These measures ranged from fumigation of the polling booths, availability of hand sanitizers, ensuring social distancing on queues, compulsory use of face masks to provision of hand washing facilities at polling centres. In countries where pens are needed at voting points, voters were instructed to come with their own pens. These measures to a large extent have the capability to prevent transmission of the virus at the voting centres.
In specific terms, different countries deployed different preventive measures in a varied manner. While some countries ensured maximum precautions and deployment of the mitigation measures, some other countries made use of the minimum requirements that created loopholes for the virus to penetrate. An examination of selected countries’ approaches might reveal more.
According to the report, among the countries of the world with maximum preventive measures was Abkazhia – a country that seceded from Georgia. With a population estimated to be between 150,000-220,000, the country held its presidential elections on March 22, 2020. The country electoral body made sure there were facemasks for election officials, hand-sanitizers for voters who were instructed to come to the polling booths with their personal pens. Most importantly, the polling stations were fumigated before the elections.
In the same manner, Israel had its general elections on March 4, 2020. The country made sure quarantined individuals voted at separate, tented off polling stations. There were paramedics who wore complete protective gears while the election officials operated from behind sheeted plastic.
France also had her municipal elections on March 15, 2020. As part of the maximum mitigation efforts, quarantined individuals, People with Disabilities and the Sick had their ballot papers delivered to them. Physical distancing was ensured at the voting stations. Voters were instructed to come to the polling booths with their personal pens while compulsorily using face masks and disinfectant gels. The election authorities ensured proxy voting. All were aimed at making people safe while exercising their democratic rights.
Germany’s local elections in Bavaria held between March 15-29, 2020. Election workers wore gloves. Even though those who chose to come vote physically came to the polling stations with their personal pens, postal voting was also allowed. Canada held her council elections in Shaol Lake 39 on March 26, 2020. In addition to the provision of hand-sanitizers and physical distancing, ballot cut out slip was handed over to voters in plastic. Australia had its local elections on 29 March, 2020. The country ensured availability of hand-sanitizers and adherence to physical distancing of at least 1.5meters. Voters carried their personal pens and additional cleaning was done on the polling booth areas.
Among the countries with minimal mitigation measures during their elections were Guinea, Mali and Zimbabwe. During Guinea’s parliamentary elections and referendum held on March 22,2020, only mandatory hand-washing before voting was ensured. Mali’s general elections were a bit fairer in terms of mitigation measures. Apart from the availability of hand-washing facilities at the polling booths, social distancing was ensured during voting. Zimbabwe’s municipal elections in Chigutu held on March 21, 2020 were the worst. There were no preventive measures in place during the voting period.
The major implication of the report is the inherent models of preventive measures available to countries that have elections pending. They can choose between the minimum and maximum prevention scale but should never leave their citizens unguarded in the course of exercising their democratic right of choice.
