Politics just like business wins on addition. If you try to do subtraction, you score an own-goal which is a very bad thing. The news is that Governor Rochas Okorocha (Imo State) and Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun State) have been suspended by APC, Nigeria’s ruling party. Perfect timing!

The National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has suspended Governors Ibikunle Amosun and Rochas Okorocha of Ogun and Imo States from the party.

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Messrs Amosun and Okorocha have had running battles with the party after their preferred candidates for upcoming governorship election were rejected by the party.

Both governors are now backing the candidates after they defected from the APC to other parties.

For students of strategy, let us do some brain works here:

• They have to be suspended after the presidential election because apparently they mattered before it.
• They have done all things which ordinary citizens could have been kicked out of the party, but as governors, they have real influence on electioneering state machineries.
• They allowed them to win Senate seats before the exits. But could not imagine losing the states because of their actions. To ensure the party keeps the states, they have to leave.
• APC leaders are not stupid: if you control a state, your chance of winning a presidential election in that state, in my model, is close to 87%. This is planning for 2023!

Yet, there is no real suspension: after the gubernatorial election next week, Okorocha and Amosun will visit Aso Rock. The APC state flagbearers just want them out of the state machineries ahead of the election.  And the National Working Committee executed that. It is a smart thing to do because if given the opportunities to rig, you already know the people the (former APC) governors would prefer (the alternative candidates, the non-APC candidates they are supporting).

Simply, APC does not want to take risk by allowing Okorocha and Amosun in APC state secretariats or sending them as APC representatives near INEC offices next week as their voices would be that of Jacob even though the bodies may feel like Esau’s.

Also, in this day of suspension, APC suspended the minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Pastor Usani Uguru Usani and the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr. Osita Okechukwu.

BELOW IS THE FULL TEXT OF THE STATEMENT

Anti-Party: APC NWC Suspends Amosun, Okorocha, Usani, Okechukwu

The National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has suspended the Governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun and the Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha for anti-party activities.

Also suspended by the APC NWC over anti-party activities are the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Pastor Usani Uguru Usani and the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr. Osita Okechukwu.

This decision was reached on Friday at a meeting of the Party’s NWC, presided by the National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole at the APC National Secretariat.

The NWC has also taken a decision to recommend the expulsion of the suspended individuals to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party.

Recall that the NWC had earlier written to the suspended governors on their anti-party activities, and several other steps were taken to ensure they desist from taking actions that are inimical to the interests of our party and candidates. Notably, these individuals have not shown any remorse and have actually stepped up their actions.

The party reviewed the serial anti-party activities of the concerned individuals before and during the last Presidential and National Assembly elections in their respective states and resolved to enforce party discipline in line with our constitution.

The NWC noted how the suspended members have continued to campaign openly for other parties and candidates that are unknown to our great party, even while they have constituted themselves as opposition to APC candidates in their respective states.

Importantly, the NWC is closely monitoring the activities of our members across the country, and particularly, in the states these suspended members belong to. We wish to reiterate that any member of our party who takes any action solely or in line with the directives of the suspended members to undermine our party’s candidates in the coming governorship and House of Assembly elections would face disciplinary actions.

We wish to congratulate our members nationwide for the victories we recorded across the country in the last elections and particularly, the renewal of our party’s mandate for President Muhammadu to continue to pilot the affairs of this country for another four years. This could not have happened if not for the hardwork and commitment of our members. We therefore urge all our members to unite and work ever harder to ensure victory for our candidates across the states in the coming governorship and House of Assembly elections.

Consequently, the NWC calls on our members to disregard directives and actions of the suspended individuals as APC would continue to live by the dictate of our constitution.

SIGNED:

Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu

National Publicity Secretary

All Progressives Congress (APC)

I have received questions on the impact of technology and the future of labour in Africa after a piece this week. One community member noted that he will like to ask questions on that during my upcoming webinar (click to register). Yet, there are people on denial, disputing any elemental construct that technology can affect employment in Africa. Their core hypothesis is that a displaced person in one area can find opportunity in another field.

COMMENT: This argument is the same argument people were saying about computers when they emerged, that people would no longer need to or be able to write. It’s over the top and kids are still learning to write.

MY RESPONSE: Could you provide any reference: “would no longer need to or be able to write”. I am curious how someone would say that computers would eliminate writing. What people said that computers would eliminate typists, some secretaries etc because anyone could do those things efficiently and consequently would not need another person.

Yet, even on the writing, if you attended school in 1970s, 100% of your education and testing happened on paper.  Today, it is likely that only 50% on paper. Possibly by 2050, it may be 10%. That prediction on reducing writing is happening but no one said it will kill writing. Show me a job on this LinkedIn that has personal typist on it. In 1980s, a personal typist was a hot job – computer has killed it.

Finally, 100 years ago, more than 50% of Americans worked in farms. Today, less than 3%. That is automation at work. It does not happen one day!

Source: LinkedIn Feed

First, let me make it clear that Africa has about 2-3 decades ahead of it before we can reach the inflection point. You cannot run AI without electricity. So, our best defense is really that our infrastructures are not optimal.  That reminds me a conversation I had in Moscow, few years ago, where some hackers told me that hacking Nigerian banks was hard because the networks were always timing out! So, for our banks, the network being slow was probably a defensive mechanism! Of course, nothing like that.

Simply, we cannot expect to defend low-paying jobs in Africa because we do not have electricity for AI and robots to operate. If we use 65% of working population to mass produce hunger while America uses less than 3% to make enough to feed the world [if it desires], it is evident the game has changed.

Yes, while technology will cause realignment of careers, the fact remains that technology does not usually create as many jobs as it distorts. The paralysis in media business around the world because of Facebook, affecting thousands of jobs, is evident: Facebook has not created as many jobs as its impacts have lost worldwide!

This post has received the highest interests from African policy leaders. Simply, Africa cannot copy the Chinese developmental paradigm because what made China successful will not be relevant in this era because of AI. The cheap manufacturing jobs of the 21^st century belong to AI and not human beings. So, anyone pushing the path of industrialization to create low-level jobs is already disrupted. Yes, a farm in England has no single farmer, from planting the crops to harvesting them. Simply, no one is sending you cheap labour from the Western world to Africa because machines will do them!

As I noted in a Harvard Business Review piece few years ago, GM in 1979 employed more than half a million workers in U.S. But due to automation, that number has dropped to 170,000 as at 2018 even though it is making more cars and serving more customers. After the recent cuts, GM may be about 120,000 workers in few years. Simply, it takes lesser number of people to make cars, and revenue per staff has gone up.

In Nigeria, the high youth unemployment cannot be uncorrelated with the continuous march to automation in our industrial sectors. With ATMs everywhere, banks are making more money with smaller number of workers and those displaced have not found jobs in other areas as those areas are also automating. The impact is one thing: mass unemployment. Certainly, we cannot go back to the old era of paper entries where banks employed legions of people and yet customers would waste hours in bank halls just to collect their monies.

All Together

Our continent must plan even though we have about 2-3 decades ahead of us. We cannot move into this era of immersive technology-enabled automation without a strategic plan.  If we just dance without a plan, we would certainly have growths but with high unemployment. Yes, competition is no more localized because the web has created a new equilibrium where labour can move easily across boundaries. I am scheduling an interview with a major global TV station to explain what we need to do. So, I will leave those points here. That interview is planned to take place this month; I will share the time ahead with the community here.

LinkedIn Comment on Feed

We still have time to get a lot of heads and hands busy, only if we can invest massively in infrastructures and then open the economy. You cannot have a population that is hovering around 200 million in Nigeria, while we have practically only three sectors (Oil and Gas, Banking, Telecom) with capacity to pay decent salaries every month, without defaulting. It’s a joke to think we can survive with such a narrow economic space.

There’s so much space for development, while we realign our education sector to deliver the kind of knowledge that is relevant in Industry 4.0. At the moment, we are nowhere, and we do not seem to be bothered; just politics, and more politics, nothing more!

Africa’s Cheap Labour Comparative Advantage Has A Major Disrupter: AI (Artificial Intelligence)