23 February 2021 – Google today announced the second Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge in Africa, the Middle East and Turkey with an open call for projects that increase reader engagement and explore new business models for media.
The first GNI Innovation Challenge saw 21 projects in 13 countries receive funding last year. Awardees were from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Turkey, and the UAE.
In South Africa, Daily Maverick developed a “relevancy engine” for small and medium publishers to help them aggregate better reader insights to increase relevancy and increase subscriptions.
Ringier Africa Digital Publishing in Nigeria was awarded funding to increase personalisation across its platform using a blend of prediction, recommendation and local information pages to increase user engagement. Kenyan awardee Africa Uncensored is aggregating news from members of the public to produce at scale.
“The selected projects will be funded up to $150 000, and up to 70 percent of the total project cost,” says Ludovic Blecher, head of innovation, GNI. “Funding is not available for editorial projects, but should instead be focused on reader engagement and exploring new business models.
Google does not take any equity or IP in any projects or submissions. We are looking forward to seeing new ideas, projects and big bets come out of the Middle East, Turkey and Africa, a region rich with talent, potential and opportunity!”
Applications must be made via the website and are open until Monday, 12 April at 23:59 GMT. There will be an online town hall on 3 March at 13.00 GMT with a live presentation on how to apply, with an opportunity to ask questions to the GNI team.
Lagos, February 24, 2021 – Jumia Technologies AG announced today its financial results for the fourth quarter and full-year ended December 31, 2020.
Results highlights for the fourth quarter of2020
GMV was €231.1 million, a quarter-on-quarter acceleration of 23% supported by the Black Fridays event in November 2020. GMV was down 21% year-over-year, as the effects of the business mix rebalancing initiated in late 2019 continued playing out during the fourth quarter of 2020
Gross profit reached €27.9 million, a year-over-year increase of 12%.
Gross profit after Fulfillment expense reached a record €8.4 million, compared to €1.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Sales & Advertising expense was €10.2 million, a year-over-year decrease of 34%.
General & Administrative costs, excluding share-based compensation expense, reached €21.8 million, a decrease of 36% year-over-year.
Adjusted EBITDA loss was €28.3 million, decreasing by 47% year-over-year.
JumiaPay TPV reached €59.3 million, increasing by 30% year-over-year. On-platform TPV penetration increased from 15.6% of GMV in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 25.7% of GMV in the fourth quarter of 2020.
“We continued to make significant strides towards breakeven during the fourth quarter of 2020. Gross Profit after Fulfillment expense reached a record €8.4 million during the quarter.
In parallel, efficiencies across the full cost structure allowed us to decrease Fulfillment, Sales & Advertising and General & Administrative expenses (excluding share-based compensation) by 18%, 34% and 36% respectively, year-over-year. As a result, Adjusted EBITDA loss contracted by 47% year-over-year, reaching €28.3 million”.
“While 2020 has been a challenging year operationally with COVID-19 related supply and logistics disruption, it has been a transformative one for our economic model, as we firmly put the business on track towards breakeven.
In addition, we raised approximately €203 million in a primary offering in December 2020. This strengthened our balance sheet, enhanced our unit economics and overall positioned Jumia to scale efficiently towards profitability.
Beyond the near-term objective of breakeven, our long-term focus remains on fueling the growth of our e-commerce and payment platforms in Africa for decades to come.”
FOURTH QUARTER 2020 – SELECTED BUSINESSHIGHLIGHTS
Black Fridays2020
Our Black Fridays campaign ran over the course of 4 Fridays in November 2020. Jumia pioneered the Black Friday event on a pan-African basis in 2014 and, for its sixth edition, crossed a number of milestones.
Throughout the campaign, we sought to bring consumers a broad assortment of relevant products at attractive prices offered through a gamified and engaging experience. Pageviews across our platforms reached 1.5 billion, up 34% when compared with the 2019 event and our Black Fridays video content registered almost 100 million views, 3 times higher compared to the 2019 event. Our top three selling categories in terms of items sold, were the fashion, beauty and home & lifestyle, demonstrating the relevance of Jumia for everyday consumer needs in
Africa.
As Jumia Black Fridays have become a highly anticipated event by consumers, this, in turn, drives increased momentum by sellers to take part in the event. More than 41,500 sellers participated in the 2020 event, with the top 20 sellers registering 141% growth in items sold in the 2020 Black Fridays compared to the same period in 2019. Leveraging the high level of consumer engagement during the event, sellers often use this opportunity to launch new products. For the first time in Africa, L’Oréal chose Jumia Black Fridays to launch ModiFace, its virtual try-on feature for make-up which transforms the online experience for beauty, leveraging Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence.
The strength of our logistics backbone is crucial to the success of the event. Jumia Logistics handled 4.8 million packages during the event, more than double the monthly average for the rest of the year. We also reached new milestones of delivery speed with 55% of packages reaching consumers in less than 24 hours, compared to 44% in 2019.
2020 marked the first full year of operation for Jumia Advertising, with accelerating momentum in the fourth quarter of 2020, supported by Black Fridays.
In 2020, Jumia Advertising ran over 1,000 advertising campaigns on behalf of 370 advertisers including high profile partners such as Unilever, Nivea, L’Oreal, Xiaomi, Huawei, Intel and many more.
To support the long-term growth of Jumia Advertising and accelerate the shift from analogue to digital advertising in Africa, we are establishing strong relationships with brands and advertising agencies. In parallel, we are enhancing our technology stack and have developed a broader range of ad solutions and features for more granular audience targeting, based on search terms, price points, geolocation in addition to the typical user signals of browsing, add-to-cart data and purchasing history.
JumiaLogistics
2020 marked the opening of Jumia Logistics services to third parties. Whether sellers on the Jumia marketplace or not, business clients can now leverage the Jumia Logistics platform for their fulfilment needs.
During the pilot conducted in 2020, we shipped almost half a million packages on behalf of more than 270 clients including large corporates such as banks, FMCG companies, mobile network operators as well as SMEs from a broad range of industries.
Commitment to community
A core part of the Jumia mission is to improve everyday life on the African continent by leveraging technology. In November 2020, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) partnered up with Jumia in Uganda to help consumers access sexual and reproductive health services. COVID-19 disruptions severely affected the supply chain for contraceptives in the country, putting at risk the health and safety of women and young people.
This partnership aims to provide consumers with convenient and private access to a wide range of reproductive health commodities including male and female condoms, HIV self-test kits, pregnancy tests and maternity kits. All relevant items ordered on the reproductive health category on the Jumia platform were delivered across Uganda free of charge from November 2020 until January 2021.
Annual Active Consumers reached 6.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 12% year-over-year with continued growth in both new and returning consumers.
Orders reached 8.1 million, down 3% year-over-year on the back of a 14% decrease in digital services transactions on the JumiaPay app, while Orders on the rest of the platform were stable. The trend within the digital services on the JumiaPay app is concentrated in airtime recharge transactions as a result of reduced consumer incentives within this category which has historically been promotionally intensive.
GMV was €231.1 million, down 21% on a year-over-year basis, as the effects of the business mix rebalancing initiated in late 2019 continued playing out during the fourth quarter of 2020. To support our path to profitability, we decreased promotional intensity and consumer incentives on lower consumer lifetime value business, while increasing our focus on every-day product categories to drive consumer adoption and usage. This business mix rebalancing drove an approximately 19% decrease in average order value from €35.4 in the fourth quarter of 2019 to €28.7 in the fourth quarter of 2020, affecting overall GMV performance. On the other hand, the business mix rebalancing, alongside enhanced promotional discipline, was a meaningful driver of the unit economics improvement experienced throughout 2020, with Adjusted EBITDA loss per Order declining by 46% from €6.5 in the fourth quarter of 2019 to €3.5 in the fourth quarter of 2020. In addition, this rebalancing allowed us to diversify our business mix, reducing our reliance on phones and electronics categories which went from contributing approximately 50% of GMV in the fourth quarter of 2019 to approximately 40% in the fourth quarter of 2020.
We are making meaningful progress in the reduction of the overall rate of Cancellations, Failed Deliveries and Returns (“CFDR”) as we drive further operational efficiencies, including an increase in prepayment penetration via JumiaPay. While actual rates of CFDR may vary from one quarter to the other, we observed a significant reduction in this ratio between 2019 and 2020.
The CFDR rate as a percentage of GMV improved from 30% in 2019 to 25% in 2020. The CFDR rate as a percentage of Orders improved from 22% in 2019 to 16% in 2020. The CFDR rate is typically lower when expressed as a percentage of Orders than GMV as higher average item value orders tend to show higher CFDR rates.
As a result of the significant improvement in CFDR ratios, the year-over-year trajectory of GMV and Orders after CFDR compares favourably vs pre-CFDR. GMV was down 19% in 2020 while GMV after CFDR was down 12% and Orders increased by 5% while Orders after CFDR increased by 14% over the same period.
We drove the growth of GMV after CFDR in 2020 vs 2019 across digital services (offered on the JumiaPay app), food delivery and physical goods other than phones and electronics by 41%, 32% and 10% respectively. GMV after CFDR in phones and electronics categories declined by 35%, as a result of the business mix rebalancing we initiated in late 2019.
Similarly, we generated growth of Orders after CFDR in 2020 vs 2019 across food delivery, physical goods other than phones and electronics and digital services of 39%, 20% and 4% respectively, while Orders after CFDR in phones and electronics categories declined by 2% year-over-year.
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic played out throughout 2020, including in the fourth quarter where the reinstatement of movement restrictions and curfews in selected geographies affected logistics flows for the e-commerce business and dinner deliveries for Jumia Food.
Overall, COVID-19 had a net negative effect on the business in 2020. As a result of only limited recourse to nationwide lockdowns across our footprint, the pandemic did not lead to a drastic change in consumer behaviour nor meaningful acceleration in consumer adoption of e-commerce at a pan-African level. On the other hand, movement restrictions due to localized lockdowns and curfews negatively affected supply and logistics, especially in our food delivery business and in the first and second quarters of 2020 in particular.
The development of the pandemic remains a fluid situation and we expect it to drive continued operating environment uncertainty. We also expect the economic challenges induced by the pandemic to negatively impact consumer sentiment and spending power.
TPV increased by 30% from €45.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 to €59.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. On-platform penetration of JumiaPay as a percentage of GMV increased to 25.7% in the fourth quarter of 2020 from 15.6% in the fourth quarter of 2019.
JumiaPay Transactions increased by 10% from 2.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 2.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, with Transactions above €10, which include prepaid purchases on the Jumia physical goods marketplace and Jumia Food platforms, growing by 55% over the same period. Overall, 33.1% of Orders placed on the Jumia platform in the fourth quarter of 2020 were paid for using JumiaPay, compared to 29.5% in the fourth quarter of 2019.
REVENUE
First Party revenue decreased by 41% in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. This was in line with our strategy to undertake fewer sales on a first-party basis as we focus on running an asset-light marketplace model where third-party sellers offer consumers an expanding range of products and services. Shifts in the mix between first-party and marketplace activities trigger substantial variations in our Revenue as we record the full sales price net of returns as First Party revenue and only commissions and fees in the case of Marketplace revenue. Accordingly, we steer our operations not on the basis of our total revenue, but rather on the basis of Gross profit, as changes between third-party and first-party sales are largely eliminated at the Gross profit level.
Marketplace revenue reached €27.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 7% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. This was mostly driven by increases in Commissions, Fulfillment and Marketing & Advertising revenue streams, which increased by 19%, 14% and 30% year-over-year respectively.
Commissions grew by 19% due to an increase in the share of higher commission rate categories including fashion, beauty or FMCG as well as lower promotional intensity.
Fulfilment revenue increased by 14% as a result of continued shipping fees adjustments as well as pricing changes within our cross-border logistics which were initiated in the third quarter of 2020 and continued to be rolled out in the fourth quarter of 2020. As part of these changes, part of the international shipping fees that were previously charged to sellers was instead passed on to consumers. This change resulted in some of our international logistics revenue being recorded as Fulfillment revenue instead of revenue from Value Added Services.
Value-Added Services decreased by 27% as a result of the aforementioned pricing changes in our cross-border logistics pricing.
Marketing & Advertising revenue increased by 30% as a result of the strong take-up by advertisers of Jumia Advertising solutions, particularly during the Black Friday event where we ran campaigns on behalf of over 150 different advertisers including high profile partners such as Reckitt Benckiser, L’Oreal, Huawei, P&G, Intel, Exxon Mobil and many more.
GrossProfit
Gross profit increased by 12% to €27.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 from €24.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 as a result of the increase in Marketplace revenue. We also drove significant improvements in the profitability of our first-party business which posted an increase in gross profit in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to the same period the prior year, despite a 41% decline in first-party revenue.
FulfilmentExpense
Fulfilment expense decreased by 18% in the fourth quarter of 2020 on a year-over-year basis as a result of operational enhancements across our logistics operations. These included the optimization of our cross- border shipping matrix, staff costs savings in our fulfilment centres and a change in our volume pricing model from cost per package to cost per stop.
During the fourth quarter of 2020, Gross profit after Fulfillment expense reached €8.4 million compared to €1.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, demonstrating continued unit economics improvement as we drive usage on our platform.
Lastly, we are able to pass-on an increasing proportion of our Fulfillment expense to the combination of consumers and sellers via our Fulfillment and Value Added Services revenue streams respectively. The pass-through of our Fulfillment expense, measured as the ratio of the sum of Fulfillment and Value Added Services revenue over Fulfillment expense, increased from 64% in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 76% in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Sales & AdvertisingExpense
Sales & Advertising expense decreased by 34% from €15.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 to €10.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. This drove strong marketing efficiency with Sales & Advertising expense per Order decreasing by 33%, from €1.9 per Order in the fourth quarter of 2019 to €1.3 in the fourth quarter of 2020. This development was partly attributable to continued enhancements in 2020 to our performance marketing strategy across search and social media channels, notably through more granular segmentation of our target market with differentiated campaigns and content for each segment.
General and AdministrativeExpense
General & Administrative expense, excluding SBC, reached €21.8 million, down 36% on a year-over-year basis. This significant decrease was attributable to staff costs savings as a result of the portfolio optimization and headcount rationalization initiatives launched in the fourth quarter of 2019, alongside a decrease in professional fees, including legal expenses.
Operatingloss
Operating loss was €40.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 while Adjusted EBITDA loss was €28.3 million, decreasing by 35% and 47% on a year-over-year basis respectively, demonstrating meaningful progress on our path to profitability.
CashPosition
At the end of December 31, 2020, we had €304.9 million of cash on our balance sheet. This includes approximately €203 million of gross proceeds from the offering completed in December 2020.
GUIDANCE
Our focus continues to be on making further progress towards breakeven and we remain committed to reducing our Adjusted EBITDA loss in absolute terms in 2021 compared to 2020.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as well as the ensuing economic challenges result in substantial uncertainty concerning our operating environment and financial outlook. This may be further exacerbated by instances of social protests or political disruption, as experienced in Nigeria over the course of October 2020 as part of the End SARS campaign or in Uganda in January 2021 where the internet was suspended ahead of the presidential election.
These external factors, combined with a continued focus on cost efficiency and, to a lesser extent, the continued effects of the business mix rebalancing, are likely to drive continued volatility across some of our key performance indicators.
24 February 2021 – Today, Ghana became the first country outside India to receive COVID-19 vaccine doses shipped via the COVAX Facility. This is a historic step towards our goal to ensure equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines globally, in what will be the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history. The delivery is part of the first wave of arrivals that will continue in the coming days and weeks.
On 23 February, COVAX shipped 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/ Oxford vaccine, from the Serum Institute of India (SII) from Pune, India to Accra, Ghana, arriving on the morning of 24 February.
On 24 February 2021, staff unloads the first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines distributed by the COVAX Facility at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana’s capital. The shipment with 600 doses of the vaccine also represents the beginning of what should be the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history. The COVAX Facility plans to deliver close to 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines this year. This is an unprecedented global effort to make sure all citizens have access to vaccines. Anne-Claire Dufay UNICEF UNICEF Representative in Ghana and WHO country representative Francis Kasolo said in a joint statement: After a year of disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 80,700 Ghanaians getting infected with the virus and over 580 lost lives, the path to recovery for the people of Ghana can finally begin. “This is a momentous occasion, as the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccines into Ghana is critical in bringing the pandemic to an end,” These 600,000 COVAX vaccines are part of an initial tranche of deliveries of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine licensed to the Serum Institute of India, which represent part of the first wave of COVID vaccines headed to several low and middle-income countries. “The shipments also represent the beginning of what should be the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history. The COVAX Facility plans to deliver close to 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines this year. This is an unprecedented global effort to make sure all citizens have access to vaccines. “We are pleased that Ghana has become the first country to receive the COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX Facility. We congratulate the Government of Ghana – especially the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service, and Ministry of Information – for its relentless efforts to protect the population. As part of the UN Country Team in Ghana, UNICEF and WHO reiterate our commitment to support the vaccination campaign and contain the spread
The arrival in Accra is the first batch shipped and delivered in Africa by the COVAX Facility as part of an unprecedented effort to deliver at least 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2021.
COVAX is co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), working in partnership with UNICEF as well as the World Bank, civil society organisations, manufacturers, and others.
“COVAX’s mission is to help end the acute phase of the pandemic as quickly as possible by enabling global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. Today’s delivery takes us another step closer to this goal and is something the whole world can be proud of. Over the coming weeks, COVAX must deliver vaccines to all participating economies to ensure that those most at risk are protected, wherever they live.
We need governments and businesses now to recommit their support for COVAX and help us defeat this virus as quickly as possible,”said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
“We will not end the pandemic anywhere unless we end it everywhere,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.“Today is a major first step towards realizing our shared vision of vaccine equity, but it’s just the beginning. We still have a lot of work to do with governments and manufacturers to ensure that vaccination of health workers and older people is underway in all countries within the first 100 days of this year.”
Dr Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI said:
“This is a landmark moment in our efforts to get a life-saving vaccine to the world. The fact that we now have multiple safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 developed in record time is a testament to the scientific community and industry rising to the challenge of this pandemic.
With this shipment we also see the global community, through COVAX, responding to the challenge of delivering these vaccines to those who need them most. Let us celebrate this as a moment of global solidarity in the struggle against the pandemic.
But there is still much to do. With the increased spread of COVID-19 variants, we have entered a new and less predictable phase of the pandemic. It is crucial that the vaccines we have developed are shared globally, as a matter of the greatest urgency, to reduce the prevalence of the disease, slow down viral mutation, and bring the pandemic to an end.”
“Today marks the historic moment for which we have been planning and working so hard. With the first shipment of doses, we can make good on the promise of the COVAX Facility to ensure people from less wealthy countries are not left behind in the race for life-saving vaccines,”said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director.
“In the days ahead, frontline workers will begin to receive vaccines, and the next phase in the fight against this disease can begin – the ramping up of the largest immunization campaign in history. Each step on this journey brings us further along the path to recovery for the billions of children and families affected around the world.”
The vaccines arrived on a flight from Mumbai, via Dubai, where the flight also collected a shipment of syringes from a Gavi-funded stockpile at UNICEF’s regional Supply Hub.
Over the past several months, COVAX partners have been supporting governments and partners, particularly for AMC-eligible participants, in readiness efforts, in preparation for this moment.
This includes assisting with the development of national vaccination plans, support for cold chain infrastructure, as well as stockpiling of half a billion syringes and safety boxes for their disposal, masks, gloves and other equipment to ensure that there is enough equipment for health workers to start vaccinating priority groups as soon as possible.
In order for doses to be delivered to Facility participants via this first allocation round, several critical pieces must be in place, including confirmation of national regulatory authorisation criteria related to the vaccines delivered, indemnification agreements, national vaccination plans from AMC participants, as well as other logistical factors such as export and import licenses.
As participants fulfil the above criteria and finalise readiness preparations, COVAX will issue purchase orders to the manufacturer and ship and deliver doses via an iterative process. This means deliveries for this first round of allocation will take place on a rolling basis and in tranches.
Building on the interim distribution forecast published earlier this month, final information on the first round allocations, covering the majority of Facility participants, is expected to be communicated in the coming days.
COVAX has built a diverse portfolio of vaccines suitable for a range of settings and populations and is on track to meet its goal of delivering at least 2 billion doses of vaccine to participating countries around the globe in 2021, including at least 1.3 billion donor-funded doses to the 92 lower-income Facility participants supported by the Gavi COVAX AMC.
Jaiz Bank Plc says it has launched the national Hajj savings scheme in the northeast and southeast regions of the country that will make it easier for Muslims in Nigeria to go to Saudi Arabia to perform one of the pillars of Islam, the Hajj, It said this in a statement on Sunday titled ‘Hajj savings scheme launch in Northeast, Southeast’.
The statement said Jaiz Bank and the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, in collaboration with the Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board of the respective regions, launched the sensitisation and awareness campaign in Adamawa, Taraba and Ebonyi States, respectively.
It stated that the ongoing launch and sensitisation of HSS had already been flagged off in parts of the North Central, North West, South West and South-South.
Speaking at the occasion, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Jaiz Bank, Hassan Usman, represented by the bank’s Divisional Head, Corporate Services, Ismaila Adamu, said the National Hajj Savings Scheme was a significant milestone for all stakeholders in the hajj ecosystem in Nigeria.
He said the importance of the scheme emanated from the fact that right “from planning, funding to actual operations, the scheme had the potential to positively affect every act and actor in the process.”
“With such a scheme in place, intending pilgrims that do not have the wherewithal can gradually plan and actualise their dream without stress by saving gradually.”
He said that even those who did not live long enough to complete their savings might still in “Allah’s infinite mercy receive the reward for hajj because they were pilgrims by bringing intention (niyyat) and action (amal) together.”
The Chairman, National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, Zikrullah Kunle Hassan, who earlier flagged off the launch in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State and represented in Taraba and Adamawa States, thanked the governments of the states for buying into the scheme.
He said HSS had several benefits, among which was to assist the less privilege to save money over time to go to hajj and also to earn a profit on their savings.
He said, “You don’t have to sell your farmland to go to hajj as the scheme will make hajj fare affordable.”
Following the sudden passing of Professor Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe, the board of Chams Plc has approved the appointment of new Non-Executive Directors of the company. He joined the Company as a Director on 29th September 2015 and has made major contributions to the company during his time on the Board.
The entire Board and Management of Chams Plc, express heartfelt condolences to his wife, children, immediate and extended family, and pray that the Lord grant them the fortitude to bear this difficult loss.
The Board has approved the appointment Mr. Olusegun Oloketuyi and Mrs. Olamojiba Bakare as NonExecutive Directors effective 18th February 2021, subject to the ratification of the Annual General Meeting.
PROFILE OF MR. OLUSEGUN OLOKETUYI
Mr. Segun Oloketuyi, B.Sc, MBA. FCA, is an astute and seasoned banker and accountant. He served as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Wema Bank Plc.
He also served as General Manager, Business Optimization Division and Executive Director of Business Development at Skye Bank Plc. He also served as Deputy General Manager, Corporate and Commercial Markets at Polaris Bank Plc (formerly Prudent Bank Plc) and as its Executive Director of Finance and Enterprise Risk Management.
PROFILE OF MRS. OLAMOJIBA BAKARE
Mrs. Olamojiba Bakare is a seasoned international Lawyer, having qualified as a Solicitor of England and Wales from Inns of Court School of Law. She also has a Masters degree in The Theory and Practice of Dispute Prevention and Resolution from the University of Westminster.
Mrs. Olamojiba Bakare is a seasoned and distinguished Lawyer with almost 20 years’ experience in the corporate world, 15 years of which was as a practising Solicitor in the United Kingdom.
Since her relocation back to Nigeria in 2010, she has both taught corporate law and practised as a solicitor. She comes with a wealth of knowledge, experience, professionalism and passion.
Are Nigerians aware of the fact that the global leather industry is currently worth about $500bn a year and the raw material used in the sector is cattle hide?
As we debate the creation of cattle ranches across Nigeria, are we aware of the fact that the global leather goods market was valued at $414bn in 2017, it is expected to reach $629.65bn by 2025?
Photo by Juliana Amorim
Here are the top 10 producers worldwide.
China produces 6.17bn square feet of leather goods and accounts for 25% of global output.
Brazil produces 2.36bn square feet of leather goods and accounts for 9.5% of global output.
Russia produces 1.65bn square feet of leather goods accounting for 7% of global output
India produces 1.56bn square feet of leather goods and accounts for 6.4% of global output
Italy produces 1.52bn square feet of leather goods and accounts for 6.3% of global production
South Korea produces 1.14bn square feet of leather goods and accounts for 4.8% of global output
Argentina produces 804m square feet of leather goods and accounts for 3.4% of global production
The US produces 719m square feet of leather goods, accounting for 3% of global output
Mexico produces 642m square feet of leather goods accounting for 2.7% of global production
Turkey produces 529m square feet of leather goods accounting for 2.2% of global production
Here are the world’s top 10 fashion brands. When we open our mega ranches in Nigeria, how do we attract them to come and establish leather manufacturing plants:
Fendi
House of Versace
Burberry
Ralph Lauren
Chanel
Prada
Hermes
Gucci
Louis Vuitton
Armani
Do you know that Italy exports $3.8bn worth of leather goods a year? Why should our income not be higher if we have the land and cattle? I passionately believe that cattle ranches will be a dramatic game-changer in Nigeria.
What makes my blood boil is that Nigerians are one of the world’s biggest consumers of these luxury goods. We consume them but do not manufacture them and then think we have the right to live in a peaceful and prosperous country?
You cannot be an eternal consumer, not producing what you consume and not expect the ceiling to collapse on your head. Nigeria actually needs to ban the purchase of any luxury good not manufactured locally.
If these companies really value our custom, they must come and open shop in Nigeria. We have bankrolled them for long enough.
Make no mistake about where the responsibility for production lies though. It is the state governors who have to set aside land for these ranches and then go out to woo these companies to come and set up shop in Nigeria.
Personally, I am holding Simon Lalong, the chairman of the Northern State Governors Forum responsible for the lack of action. He should be the primary driver of this project, exploiting the Fulani herdsmen crisis to the maximum, turning it into a money-spinner.
Governor Lalong should ask President Buhari for use of his presidential jet and visit every dairy company, leather manufacturer and animal feed compounder on earth. He should offer them 50-year land leases, three year tax holidays and duty-free access to the Ecowas market if they open plants that employ 1,000 Nigerians or more.
It is then up to the governors of the six largest states to set aside land for the ranches and for President Buhari to provide security. President Buhari should also begin negotiating with his Ecowas colleagues about market access.
Is there any strategy being drawn up at all, or do we think all these problems will just disappear on their own overnight? These are things we need to do if we want to eradicate banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, corruption, herdsmen terror, etc.
Nigeria is flushed with a large expanse of ungoverned forests that have become enclaves for criminal elements. For safer communities around these forests, collaborations with local hunters and the deployment of sophisticated security devices are required.
Dr. Iro Aghedo.
In recent years, large swathes of Nigeria’s forests have been captured and converted into bases by insurgents and other criminal gangs. This development has led to the emergence of spaces across the country controlled by criminal elements.
These days, a week hardly passes without media reports of unfortunate women who were raped on their farms; or passengers kidnapped along forested highways. Some unlucky victims have been maimed, murdered, and farmers displaced, which has worsened food insecurity. This edition of Nextier SPD Policy Weekly examines the implications of forests of violence in Nigeria and highlights how to address the security threat.
Ungoverned Forest Spaces
Criminal elements have set up bases in strategic forests across the country from where they launch violent campaigns on defenceless persons. In the North-East, the Boko Haram terrorists use the Sambisa forest as their base to keep their abductees and weapons.
In the North-West, the expansive Birnin Gwari forests have been the base for bandits who have been terrorising, rustling, and kidnapping around the Kaduna axis in the past couple of years (Egwu, 2016).
In a recent attack, bandits from the Birnin Gwari forests murdered 19 persons on February 6, 2021, in Kushemeri village, just a week after six farmers were killed in the area.
The phenomenon of forest violence is not exclusive to Northern Nigeria, where terrorism and banditry have escalated in the last decade. In the South-West, killer-herdsmen have invaded forests in the region, especially in Ondo, Oyo, and Ogun states.
The upsurge in criminal violence such as rape, armed robbery, and ransom kidnapping has been attributed to the violent Fulani herders. The inability of federal security forces to protect this region led to the establishment of the vigilante group Amotekun in 2020.
In light of these recent spikes of herder crises in the West, the Ondo State government ordered that cattle herders vacate the forests. This has led to the influx of pastoralists to neighbouring Edo State. As expected, the Edo State Governor launched an operation to comb the forests and flush out criminal herders.
Safeguarding the Forests
Efforts to secure Nigeria’s vast forests have not yielded the desired results. In the past, Forest Guards were not only active in protecting resources in the forests such as timber, but they also provided the needed security for those who depended on the forests for livelihood. In 2019, the Enugu State government recruited 1,700 Forest Guards to tackle armed robbery and kidnapping. In addition to the growing agitations for community policing, several states have set up vigilante groups to mitigate communal violence without appreciable success. Thus, there is a need to develop more practical measures to address violence in the forests. First, there is a need for synergy between state security agencies and informal local security groups. There is hardly any village in Nigeria that does not have bands of hunters. These hunters usually know the forests that the police and other security operatives can leverage by collaborating. Such hunters can be registered with nearby police divisions to ensure that their activities are monitored. Also, some training and stipends can be provided to equip and incentivize them.
Second, modern technology should be deployed in policing hotspots. Drones and other sophisticated technology should be used in forests notorious for violent crimes. These modern technological gadgets will enable law enforcement operatives to be proactive. Collaboration with mobile telephone operators can help the police trace areas in the forests where kidnappers operate from. This innovative policing measure has become a norm in ensuring public safety in Europe.
Third, intelligence gathering should be prioritised. Many criminal activities are organised and planned by groups of people. Recent cases have shown that kidnapping often involves the participation of the victim’s associates. The supply chain for kidnappers and insurgents should be targeted as a way to trace these criminals. The Department of State Services, the police, and other security officials should be given adequate training to penetrate such criminal networks through intelligence.
Conclusion
Most Nigerian forests have been forcefully occupied by violent criminals who use such hideouts as launching pads. The law enforcement agents are having unequipped and lowly staffed to deal with the enormous task of policing these vast forests.
There is a need for effective collaboration between state security operatives and local hunters, deployment of modern technology, and reliance on intelligence gathering to penetrate criminal networks and nip their violence in the bud to address rising forest violence.
Dr. Aghedo is an associate consultant at Nextier SPD and a senior lecturer at the University of Benn, Edo state. He is a widely read researcher with broad-based experience and knowledge on Nigeria’s Niger Delta region, oil resource conflict, and development issues.
With dwindling government revenue, the time has come to seek alternative sources to fund Sports Development in Nigeria.
Emeka Chinonso Okafor
Introduction
Sports performance and achievements have been the avenue through which great nations of the world exhibit their supremacy over others (MOHAMMED 2017). Sports provide a touchstone for understanding how people live, work, think and play, and serve as a barometer of a nation’s progress and civilization.
A country’s sporting performance in local and international competitions plays a vital role in fostering nationhood at home and projecting soft power overseas. As part of a diplomatic strategy, sporting performance improves and positively maintains a country’s reputation (FA 1999).
In October 2012, former President Goodluck E. Jonathan convened a strategy retreat to analyse the reasons for Nigeria’s abysmal performance at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. The retreat identified insufficient finance as the main impediment to the systematic development of Nigeria’s sporting performance.
The retreat set out a strategy to address the funding gap and recognized the National Lottery as a primary instrument to generate the necessary financial resources. At the end of the retreat, participants agreed that a review of Nigeria’s sports funding is needed.
The two most prominent choices were total government funding (or the China model) and private sector funding (or the U.S. model). Elsewhere there are various combinations of public and private sector funding, such as in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and several other countries.
The government of Nigeria engaged Nextier to advise on revitalising the national lottery as a source of enhanced sports funding in Nigeria. This essay highlights the project’s key findings, which are still relevant today, almost a decade later.
Sports Development
Sports development refers to the gradual increase, attainment, and advancement of sport from low-level strata to a higher level or strata with due cognizance and consideration of the indices that enhance the realisation and actualisation of sports development (MOHAMMED 2017).
Many people see sports development as a way to get more people into sports, but that perception negates the other non-sport objective role that sports achieve. Hylton and Bramham (Hylton and Bramham 2008) argue that sports development is more accurately a term used to describe policies, processes, and practises that form an integral feature of the work involved in providing sports opportunities and positive sporting experiences.
In Britain, sports development influences everything from hosting the Olympic games to designing and providing exercise classes for the elderly. The appeal of sport development to the governments worldwide is high as sports can help promote social cohesion in multicultural societies like Nigeria.
It can also be an avenue for teeming youths to expel energy and keep them away from vices. Sport development is vital as a source of economic activity by hosting sporting events, constructing sporting venues, and developing sports tourism (Polley 2003).
Any sports administration’s task is to develop sports at both ends of the spectrum: the grassroots and high-performance levels.
A sports manager at the micro-level (clubs, municipal and state teams) must ensure sufficient recruitment of participants and provide programs that enable participants to flourish and prepare outstanding participants for representation at the next level up.
A government sports agency at the national level will be concerned with the total participation nationally in sport, the pathways that may assist those participants with talent and ambition to rise, and the opportunities provided to the highest echelon of participants to compete in the international arena.
There are key sport development strategies that need to be present at all sports administration levels, such as coaches’ education, recruitment of participants, knowledge management, athlete development programs, forming partnerships with other organisations, and organizing events (Isaac n.d.).
Successful sports development depends mainly on effective collaboration and networking with a wide range of community groups, service providers, facility operators, national governing bodies, local authorities, and voluntary groups. Those engaging in sports development are in the business of devising better and more effective ways of promoting interest, participation & performance in sport.
Funding Sports
With adequate, sustainable, and properly managed funding, Nigeria’s sporting performance can be significantly improved. A thesis by Samuel J. Albert showed a statistically significant relationship between athletics expenditures and sports teams’ success at National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) institutions in the United States (Albert 2006).
With few exceptions, teams with the most significant median expenditure recorded the highest national success levels and vice versa. Another writer reported similar findings for the overall athletic program, identifying that the amount spent on the various programmes accounted for most of the differences in athletic success among NCAA Division I athletic departments (Philip 2003).
In 2012, Nigeria’s National Sports Council’s “Strategic Sports Development Plan” estimated that an investment of about ₦30 billion (about $200 million) would be needed to redirect the bulk of sports spending away from sports marketing to sports development.
The plan recommended that about 74 percent of the proposed budget be used to prepare for international competitions and offshore and onshore training. The funds’ balance should be used to develop and upgrade facilities, procure equipment and services, train coaches, organise local competitions, and fund sports management and administration.
Sports have become progressively capital intensive. Yet, in Nigeria, the public sector is almost single-handedly responsible for sports development. This is seen in the provision of sports facilities, programme, personnel, and participation in continental and global competitions.
However, sports development has grown beyond what the government alone can effectively fund. The vast sums of money needed to carry out local and international sports activities make it imperative for the government to look for funding from private sources.
Funding Sources
The 2012 Presidential Retreat on Sports assessed various funding models and determined that Nigeria should migrate from the predominantly public funding of sports to a mixture of public and private sector sources. This mixed model holds the highest potential for the financial sustainability of the investment necessary for funding sports development in the country.
The retreat identified four potential sources of funding: proceeds from the National Lottery, corporate sponsorships, special taxes on alcohol and tobacco, and government budgetary allocations. The Presidential Retreat assumed that the National Lottery would deliver the most sustainable, long-term funding for the sports sector.
National Lottery as a significant funding source
In many countries, the proceeds of national lotteries fund various “good causes,” including arts, education, environment, healthcare, heritage, and sports. Funds from national lotteries have been used to finance sports, for example, in the United Kingdom and South Africa, resulting in significant improvements in national sporting performance.
In 2019, the United Kingdom’s National Lottery generated about GBP7.45 billion (US$10.4 billion) in lottery sales. In this same period, 797 tickets won a prize of over fifty thousand pounds, including 364 players who became millionaires.
Since its inception in 1994, the UK National Lottery has generated over GBP35 billion (US$ 45.9 billion) for ‘good causes’ and spent an estimated GBP7 billion (US$ 7.65 billion) directly on sports (Wikipedia n.d.). The UK lottery has created over 3,300 millionaires in the last 18 years (CAMELOT 2013).
Similarly, in 2012 the South Africa National Lottery generated R4.7 billion in Lotto and Powerball tickets (PWC 2013). The South African National Lottery generates about R2 billion (US$ 206 million) a year for good causes’ and spent an estimated R4 billion (US$ 412 million) on sports.
Between 2007 and 2012, Nigeria’s National Lottery generated N2.7 billion for the National Lottery Trust Fund. Notwithstanding this dismal performance, the National Lottery has the potential to generate significant proceeds for “good causes.”
Nextier analysis indicates that Nigeria could generate about N291 billion a year, with N58 billion going to the National Lottery Trust Fund to fund selected “good causes.” If the sports sector received a 15 percent allocation, this could provide N8.7 billion annually to support the Strategic Sports Development Plan.
Conclusion
It is admirable that Nigeria occasionally records brilliant successes in competitive sports at various levels. However, this is the tip of the iceberg in the nation’s preferred sports development goals because the accomplishment so far is restricted to a few sports.
Sport policy inconsistency, lack of a clear sports development philosophy, and inadequate funding for the national sport have been the bane of sports in Nigeria (Nigeria 1997). Addressing these issues will require a willingness to seek pragmatic solutions.
A sustainable funding source (away from government patronage) must be pursued to achieve accelerated sport development in the country. The National Lottery option is a viable funding choice that has been proven in other climes and is likely to produce the desired result.
With the industrialised world announcing plans to lift all the Covid-19 restrictions, President Buhari and his AU colleagues should insist the programme includes an African Marshall Plan.
Across Europe and North America, plans are in full swing to ease the Covid-19 restrictions this year. By my calculations, we will be back to normal by the summer.
President Muhammadu Buhari | www.wordpress-1516176-5827464.cloudwaysapps.com
In the UK in particular, it appears that the economy cannot sustain the lockdown for much longer anyway, so come what may, the restrictions will be lifted by May/June irrespective of the infection rate.
I have repeatedly drawn parallels between the coronavirus pandemic and World War Two as from an economic standpoint, their circumstances were similar. World War Two was the last time we had global commerce and industrial output affected to this extent. Back then, the difference was that production was directed towards armaments, whereas now, it just stalled.
Knowing mankind, within two years, industrial output will be back to pre-coronavirus levels and by 2024, it would have surpassed it significantly. It is just in the nature of humans to rise from the ashes like a Phoenix and turn adversity into opportunity.
What we are not debating now, however, is how the African continent uses this crisis to re-launch itself and become a global economic force. It is not sustainable for a continent to account for 18% of the world’s population and just 3% of global trade. We now have a chance in a lifetime to address this anomaly.
After World War Two, the US spent $12bn (equivalent to $130bn in 2019) on economic recovery programmes designed to enable Western European economies to recover after the conflict. Africa got nothing under that plan despite being a major source of materials for the war effort.
Even North Africa that was one of the biggest battlefields of World War Two did not see a penny of Marshall Plan funds. We should not allow the rest of the world shortchange us again this time.
In America for instance, President Joe Biden has announced a $1.9trn economic stimulus plan. That is fine for the domestic economy but I am yet to hear about his global economic resuscitation plans.
Can it be made crystal clear that nobody is asking for charity here but an investment?
According to recent figures just published by the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), last year, it enjoyed record-breaking returns on investment. In what was the highest in its nearly 30-year history, the USTDA generated an average of $112 in US exports for every dollar invested in infrastructural projects in emerging markets. From an economic standpoint, you cannot dispute the merits of an investment in Africa.
I do not think it is too much for Africa to request that the G-7 nations invest at least $500bn on their continent under a Covid-19 economic recovery development plan. For Africa as a continent, the impact of this pandemic has been economic rather than clinical. It was the rest of the world that brought this virus to Africa, so I believe we are well within our rights to demand restitution.
I want to see a robust shopping list requesting an initial foreign direct investment (FDI) sum of $500bn and then minimal annual investments of $100bn. If the rest of the world refuses to play ball, we should just refuse to be vaccinated. We will not get this opportunity again in our lifetime!
Prince Abiodun disclosed this when the 56th Governing Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), led by its President, Mrs. Onome Adewuyi paid him a courtesy visit at his Oke-Mosan office, Abeokuta.
Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo AbiodunOgun Govt Releases N500,000 to Trade Associations, Artisan Groups Brandspurng
The Governor, who was represented by the Commissioner for Finance and Chief Economic Adviser, Mr. Dapo Okubadejo said the project when completed would further place the State as one of the fastest-growing economies in Nigeria.
On her part, the President of the Institute, Mrs. Onome Adewuyi lauded the State Governor for receiving the delegation, noting that the visit would enable government and other stakeholders champion ways of sustaining growth and development of the State and the country at large.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
