Every society has its pains, struggles, and challenges. In every country, there are nice people as well as cruel people. For our dear country, we still have our fights, and our battles. For decades we have struggled to build a good image for our country, and our people. 

The greatest challenge we face as a nation is not corruption, but selfishness. Everyone wants to amass wealth for their families, even up to their fifth generations. Some people in public offices see such privilege as an opportunity to share a part of the National Cake. They prefer to spend most of their days overseas, instead of developing the amenities back home. They forget that the monster that they have left behind, is still where it is, and would definitely grow. They don’t believe there is something wrong in the nation because they ride the latest cars, and live in glass houses. They ride with a long queue of escorts, and even ride on one- way roads. They break the laws that they make, claiming to be above the law. They do not see the bad roads, because they live in estates built with gold. And if they see it, they will simply ignore, and say that it is not in Nigeria, or that the people are not tax-compliant. Pathetic! 

Nobody wants to do what is right anymore, without compensation. Contracts figures are inflated, as everyone wants to embezzle money. We are seen as wealthy by foreigners, when in fact, many die, being hungry. We have one of the largest natural gas reserves , but still cannot fix our chronic power issues. Nobody wants to do anything, because nobody cares. Everybody is comfortable, where they are. Nobody wants to speak up, so as not to be indicted. During elections, some of our desperate politicians mobilize the youths to unleash terror, in order to do their dirty bidding. They forget that the lion that is allowed to freely feed on any flesh, would one day feast on the flesh of its owner. 

If you have been to the slums, you will understand why the youths are embittered. If we had done the right thing, we wouldn’t have had any kidnapper stop us on the highways and on our streets. Our houses would not have been burgled, and our properties razed. Our farmlands would have been safe, and our women spared, if we had done the right thing!

What happens to a system that is fantastically corrupt? I mean a system where even the judges are biased, and the others threatened. We claim to be one, but no love to prove we are one. You see brothers fighting brothers, killing themselves. The country is allowed to rot, and at the end the masses suffer for it. When there is insecurity in the nation, these leaders are the first to leave the country. When you go to the airports, you will see a lot of queue, as the whole flights had been booked. Interesting!

Irrespective of all we have seen and heard, I love Nigeria. I believe there are good people here. We do have a conscience, and will not allow the voices of the bad few to drown the voices of the many. If you have an erring child, does that make your entire family corrupt? I don’t think so. We will become great again as a nation. However, this is a task for all of us. Remember, if we do not confront our fears, they will become our greatest nightmares. 

A lot of people wait till they graduate and complete NYSC before they start looking for jobs. These days, it has become more difficult for fresh graduates to get jobs in Nigeria, for those who get a job immediately are considered very luck indeed.

1. Here are ways you can boost your chances of securing a job before graduation.
2. If you are interested in a company, try to get in touch with its current interns, they would have advice on what the company is looking for, the best person to get in touch with so you are not cold calling or sending emails to the wrong persons.
3. Reach out to your friends who have worked as IT students or interns at the company you have in mind and see if they are willing to forward your resume to an actual person before you apply.
4. Ask for information from your employed friends on how they got their jobs. They might be able to introduce you to somebody who was helpful to them.
5. Send your resume to a career coach for a review
6. Reach out to your previous bosses where you did your internship/IT with a catch-up mail. Talk about your career goals and ask if they know any opportunity in their organization or they know anybody they can talk to on your behalf.
7. Find an opportunity to work with people at the company you want to work for by creating an opportunity for yourself. Bring somebody for a workshop, session or panel event. It is a perfect way to let people see you operate in a professional setting- a great way to start relationship with potential contacts.
8. You don’t have to be a professional to attend networking events. Search for events, attend and make connections.
9. Host a mini networking event for yourself and your friends. Having a networking mindset makes people really think about their connections and might find some friends are able to help in ways you never would have expected.
10. Find opportunity to make introductions for people especially when the connection doesn’t cost you anything but could be very valuable to them. It’s a great way to stay in touch with people. The contacts you help out are likely to pay you back later.
11. Do a part-time or virtual internship especially with a company that might be able to turn the temporary offer into a full time. It’s a time to prove how valuable you are.
12. Have your final year project coming up, see if you can find a way to spin it around and learn new skills in the process. You can start a blog instead of writing a paper, create a faux media for a company, create a website or short video related to the title of the project.
13. Look at the LinkedIn profile of people a step ahead of you or look at job listings you are interested in. Are there any skills they have or are looking for that you lack and start to gain those skills. If you don’t know what skills to add, tech skills are in high demand.
14. Ask your friends to forward you opportunities they see or start a WhatsApp group where friends can share opportunities they come across.
15. Get your LinkedIn profile setup if you don’t already have one and make sure it is completely filled. First impression they say matters a lot, so consider taking a professional headshot taken that you can use on your LinkedIn
16. Check your Facebook privacy settings to make sure you restrict un-necessary photos tagging by friends from going public. Switch your browser to incognito mode and google your name. Are the search results what you want recruiters to see, if not find a way to clean it up.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on Thursday,  22nd of August published a new electricity tariff on its website, increasing the cost by an additional sum between NGN8 and NGN16 for every kilowatt-hour energy provided by their respective distribution companies. Until now, the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI)  has been marred with non-cost reflective tariffs and high aggregate technical commercial and collection (ATC&C) losses. The challenges which have created a liquidity crisis in the fragile sector is gradually pushing it towards bankruptcy despite the interventions from  the Federal Government of Nigeria.

The argument to fixing the problem was whether to first deal with the  abysmally low collection efficiency component of the ATC&C losses  which on the average for 2019 is at 20%, or to implement a cost-reflective tariff. Increasing tariff without first addressing the problems of commercial and collection losses would simply create a  vicious cycle as the action can result in deviant consumer behavior and increase the level of theft.

To solve the puzzle, NERC in her wisdom first introduced the Meter  Asset Provider (MAP) scheme where consumers can advance payment for  metering and get it installed within 10 working days. This, the Commission hopes will Fast-Track Closure of Metering Gap, and then the  expectation that it will facilitate improvement in revenue collection.  

Secondly, NERC embarked on the tariff review process for presumably,  cost reflectiveness which will become effective on 1st January 2020. We examine how this new tariff increase will affect businesses in Nigeria.

The business climate in Nigeria has never had it better in terms of  electricity supply, with most businesses generating up to 50% of their  electricity. The energy losses associated with the self-generation model is significantly high that it erodes business operating profits.  

The trade-off would have been to optimize the use of cheaper grid  electricity as much as possible when available. But the frequent number of outages from the grid diminish this value. Currently, the  industry is trying to recuperate and consequently, the increasing electricity tariff. This could mean two things for your business profitability;

• (1)   increase the price of your product and services; or
• (2)   reduce energy cost by implementing energy efficiency measures

To put these scenarios into perspective, if your annual electricity  consumption is 2,000,000 KWh in Abuja and you generate about 40% of your own electricity at NGN90 per unit (KWh) using a diesel generator,  your current annual energy cost would be NGN128.5million. If you do nothing and continue with business as usual with the increased tariff, your energy bill will increase by 12.8%, eroding your pre tax profit by  NGN16.4million per annum.

If you choose option one above by increasing the cost of your product  and services, most likely, you would see a drop in demand, especially if you are in a sector with high elastic demand. And if your business  is already struggling with the current economic downturn, it might as well mean the end of the road for your business.

If you choose option two by implementing energy efficiency measures,  through which 20% cost savings can easily be achieved, you would completely avoid the impact of the increased tariff, plus a further  9.8% reduction in your annual energy cost leading to NGN12.5 million increase in your pretax profit.

Let’s imagine that instead of going for cost reduction, you try to  increase sales instead. If your pre-tax earnings margin is 15%, then  you would have to increase sales by NGN193.3 million per year to get the same impact as option 2. And how would you do it?  Most of the time you can’t be certain that the actions you would take to boost sales will deliver the expected results. You might be left with  expensive advertising campaigns and new product development, and insufficient payback.

Prof. John Momoh (pictured), Chairman of NERC, didn’t miss his words during the  assumption of office of the new Minister of Power, Mr. Sale Mamman when he said: “You are going to be paying for those wasted energy, so  we have to minimize loss at the customer end.”[ In the current  globalized and competitive economy, the efficiency of materials,  energy, and processes determines who wins the market and Nigeria is  not an exception.

When trying to build an online reputation, Brands usually merely slap together a website, set up social media pages, and publish content. Many do not understand that there are deeper layers to online reputation management than merely just having those pages out there on the Internet. It goes beyond setting up profiles and getting (negative and positive) reviews from clients.

A Scenario

I am a lawyer, though I have a deep interest in marketing and online assets building for professional services firms. And I also do work in that area. Recently, a law firm in Lagos named [REDACTED] hired me to critically assess their online assets. For 2 day, I set down to work, accessing and assessing their online trail; then I noticed something: another “law firm” supposedly based in Benin Republic named [REDACTED] had a website that was a carbon copy of the website of this law firm I was auditing their online portfolio. They copied EVERYTHING in the website, down to the partners and associates working with the firm, merely changing their names and educational qualifications.

I pointed this out to the law firm managing partner, and it turned out that he was not even aware of what was going on. I initially takedown proceedings and got the website taken down.

Analysis

Online reputation management is an issue professional services firms and consultancies should be more deeply invested in. obviously, the law firm was being impersonated and had been for a while before I noticed this anomaly and pointed it out to them. What it also pointed out was the fact that they had neglected their online reputation, such that someone out there took them for easy game and worked to utilize their details, infringe on their intellectual property, and pass off unknown services as theirs.

There is a possibility that this issue would have gone undiscovered for years unless someone had pointed it out. There is also the high possibility that their images were being used to commit fraud, until they were stopped.

Monitoring and Prevention

If you have an online reputation, or your firm has an online reputation, then it is pertinent to actively monitor and prevent intellectual property infringement and defamatory cyber attacks that are aimed at destroying your firm’s reputation. For a firm that cannot employ an in-house team to actively handle their online reputation management, it would be instructive for them to use the services of online marketing experts who in turn will use dedicated deep online search tools to monitor the conversations on the Web about them and discover any infringement of their intellectual property, unfair practises, and defamation of their Brand name.

Damage Recovery

If a Brand’s online reputation is affected negatively whether in the form of the publication of infringing content, defamatory statements made, or real profiles are passed off under fake names and credentials, then identifying, yanking and ultimately halting that unlawful behaviour becomes the paramount consideration for any firm. In some cases—and depending on the wishes of the firm involved—yanking these infringing content and stopping the unlawful behaviour may not be altogether enough. Some wronged firms may want to go a step further by obtaining court judgments and monetary compensation against the persons involved.

If a firm chooses the latter option for its online reputation management, the wide geographical spread of the Internet may make it difficult and time-consuming to obtain the necessary Court relief(s) because of the fact that these crimes may cross more than one jurisdiction when they were originally being executed. This will ultimately make legal action in that circumstance an expensive undertaking.

The Best Class of Experts to use for Online Reputation Management

Online Marketing Experts: You will agree with me that an online marketing professional with experience in Search Monitoring and online portfolio management will make a better online reputation management resource person than a professional without these experiences.

Lawyers: There are thousands of blogs and websites out there, and the number of online defamation and infringement online continues to rise over time. There is a distinct flavour using an actual lawyer who is highly skilled in online brand management and has actual Domain Name expertise will bring. In addition to monitoring, identifying and having solutions for infringements that can (and do) occur to Brands, a lawyer skilled in Digital Domain will also have a battery of advice under his belt pertaining to legal measures that can be taken against infringers.

Conclusion

In today’s world, perception is everything. What you put out there to the world to read and view is what they will view you as and what they will believe you are. Or, what others put out there about you and your Brand is what people will read and then believe. Investing the time and resources to monitoring what is put out there on you and your Brand, or how your Brand is being used, will help you prevent horrible reputation dives that will give your Brand a negative perception. And remember, perception is everything nowadays.

You will hit a deep low if your Brand has a negative perception out there, or there is infringing or defamatory content out there which you don’t know how to handle or take down. Take active charge of your Brand—if you have one. Even if you don’t—which is a Branding decision on its own, albeit a passively negative one—you might want to start Googling. What you find out there in the Deep Web may surprise you.