NEPA Was Better

Saturday May 23th, I was at home, and it was quiet and eerie; there was no electricity. When I opened the main door, a folded sheet of paper fell off from the slit between the door frame and the shutter where it had been stuck. I picked and opened it to realize it was my first electricity bill, the connection being recent.

There were a number of disturbing issues with the bill. First, the name I gave was far from the name on the bill. It took my number to believe the bill was meant for me. The quality of the paper and the print on it lacked any glint of attraction. Everything was just basic. Somewhere in my head, there is the belief that “anyone who doesn’t exude quality in minor issues would not deliver quality in the primary services he provides. The image of any individual, group or organization is always seen in its correspondences. From the bill, I came to the conclusion that what the Federal Government had done on the power sector wasn’t privatization, but legalization of criminality.

 There was a fix charge of N775.00 to be paid with or without electricity consumed. The implication is that if one should travel out of town for months and switches off the supply to the house, on return, he would still pay this amount, multiplied by the number of months he has been away. Besides the cheating, the implication is that the power situation would never improve. Since there would be money to be made, with or without the provision of service, and the service provider could go to sleep. And sleeping is what the power authorities had been doing since the privatization.

There was the actual bill which amounted to N1993.25. This, also, is a bill for service not provided. Throughout the month of April, whose bill the figure represented, electricity came once in a while and when it does, it hardly lasts for more than an hour and half. To me, the figure represented the highest level of institutionalized criminality. Since there was no meter on which the reading was based, how did they come about the fraction of a naira (0.25), when they should have given a round figure? It means that somebody sat and wrote the figure, adding that fraction to make it look real. Just imagine the hangdog look on the face of the staffer at the time of writing the figure.

Then there was VAT charges of N94.92 that brought the total to N2, 863.17.

Since the electricity hardly lasted for more than an hour and half, I would try to do many things within the short period I knew it was going to last, like typing my manuscripts, ironing my clothes, charging my phone, etc. In the many days in-between the power supply, I would have to go around, looking for where to type, charge, hot-iron my wears, etc. It is usually my worst moment: going to bear parlors, barbing salons, or houses with NESCO electricity supply to use their sources of power supply.

The result of the electric power situation is the reason why I end up losing browsing data in my modem, TV subs I had paid for, buying fuel for my electric power generator … These are, actually, loses that should be paid for by the power authorities, but we all know the situation.

There are rumors that during the privatization exercise government officials had actually sold out the companies to themselves, friends, and family members. There is every reason to believe this. Nobody protects a client he intends to exploit.

Sixteen years, “reforming” the power sector without any progress, but regression, is very disturbing. The incoming government must look into this issue and ensure there is sanity in the sector.  

Muhammadu Buhari and the Other Jobs

Muhammadu Buhari

Source: http://sunnewsonline.com

During his political campaign, General Mohammadu Buhari (rtd) promised Nigerians jobs, among other things. He believes the most dire of the challenges that face Nigeria can be directly, or indirectly, traced to a dearth of jobs. The General means well for Nigeria, and Nigerians believes he truly means well, judging by his idiosyncrasy. The General had cited mining and agriculture as the areas where he thinks there are lots of potential for job creation.

Besides mining and agriculture, however, there is another area with a huge prospect and in which young Nigerians have a lot of zeal. Since the general did not mention it, it leaves Nigerians in fear. The fear stems from the fact that, in the past, governments have often cared less about this sphere of professional life and, also, from knowing that if the sector is not heeded and exploited, the General (and Nigeria) may not be able to achieve the job target, satisfactorily.

 This article aims to call the attention of the new leader to this portfolio. It is a folder that has always been left in the cold by successive governments in Nigeria. It is the art portfolio and includes the movie, music, and publishing industries, just to mention the immediate units that easily come to mind when The Art is mentioned in Nigeria.

It is often boring having to cite the United States of America each time one requires a good example of a place where good things are happening. Sadly, however, the US remains the best, and one must always look towards it when in need of cases in point. The US is a country where The Arts played an astonishing role towards its prosperity. According to Statista, the American movie industry (Box Office) generated total revenue of $38 billion in 2014. The projection is that it will generate up to $ 46 billion in 2018. From the same source, Statista, the music industry generated $16.5 billion in 2011. The books and journal publishing industry generated $27.01 billion in 2013.

Despite the potential there is in The Arts in Nigeria, we are yet to make the most of it. Our inability to make the most of it comes from piracy, the racket of people reaping from the sweat of others and going Scot free.  Nigeria is a country where the law do not seem to be aware that it is its responsibility to protect the intellectual right of individuals (that is if the Nigerian law accepts there is essence in something called intellectual property). There are instances in which members of the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria, PMAN, go into the markets to seize pirated copies of works of their members out of frustration that the law is not handling the issue.

Knowing the dormancy of the law with regard to The Arts, some individuals have made a profession by duplicating and selling millions of copies of books, music and video CDs other individuals have spent their intellect, time and energy to produce.

How does piracy kill the industry? If a young man or woman, with talent, knows the result of his hard work would not be protected, and others will reap from it as a result, he will not be encouraged to venture into a profession. Thus, the job he would have created for himself and others, and the revenue the state would have earned from his venture would never materialize.

In the US, recently, there was a high profile court ruling relating to violation of intellectual property right. A jury ruled that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams stole the melody of a song, Got to Give it Up, recorded by Marvin Gaye in 1977. The song by Thicke and Williams, Blurred Lines, generated up to $16.67 million in profits for the duo in 2013, when it was recorded. Of this profit, the jury ruled that Thicke and Williams must pay Marvin Gaye III, the son of the late singer, the sum of $7.6 million (45.6 %.)

In this case, Thicke and Williams did not simply duplicate a CD of Gaye’s music. Rather, they got a hint from the song, a hint that helped them to produce Blurred Lines. To Nigeria, this story is important as it underlines the inviolability of intellectual property rights.

In addition to encouraging young men and women to invest their talents to create, for themselves and others, jobs, fighting piracy would end that feeling that anything goes, and instill sanity in the industry and Nigeria, as a whole. Furthermore, it will help towards laundering the image of the country and restore confidence in foreigners who may want to put their money into the Nigerian art portfolio.

Given the scale of piracy in Nigeria, we cannot remember a single case of piracy-related conviction. This gives credence to the notion that the judiciary does not see any essence in the idea of intellectual property. Thus, fighting piracy in Nigeria would involve sensitizing the judiciary to see essence in the expression: “intellectual property” and, thus, the need for protecting such rights.

                                                                                          

Simon Lalong and Broadcast Digitization

Digital TV

On April 11th, 2015, Simon Bako Lalong was elected the new Governor of Plateau State. On May 29th, he will be sworn in as the active governor of the state. The reins of the state will be handed over to him by the outgoing governor, Jonah David Jang.

As Jonah Jang leaves office on May 29th, he, no doubt, will leave behind a legacy for which well-meaning citizens of Plateau State will be proud of. The legacies of Jang are uncountable and surpass what has been achieved by any single governor of the state in almost forty years.

 It has often been said that governance is not an event, but a process. It is the reason why caring Plateau sons and daughters would want a continuation of grand projects started by the outgoing governor. I intend to talk about the issue of digitization of the Plateau Radio and Television Corporation, PRTVC.

As far as the issue of digitization of the PRTVC is concerned, the outgoing government has accomplished this. Not only did the Jang administration support the PRTVC to complete its digitization, it ensured the corporation was the first to accomplish this deed across the country, when it was flagged off as the pilot phase in Nigeria on June 30th, 2014.

The next challenge of digitization is the program content. Nobody fixed a dateline for any broadcast media as far as this is concerned. The implication of digitization is that the channel will be available for viewing to a wider TV audience. What that means is that viewers will have to choose among competing channels. Viewers don’t choose channels by chance, it is the content of the channel that determines whether they will tune to it or not. Thus, a TV channel may be available digitally but may not be watched, if viewers don’t consider its program content as attractive enough.

The PRTVC is not new to broadcast leadership across Nigeria. Having been born and raised in Jos I have known this, although, with a glint of doubt in my mind. This was because I had not traveled around the country to gauge the performance of other broadcast media at the time. Between 1997 and 2003, however, I had done a fair amount of traveling to appraise other broadcast media and make comparisons. Based on what I had seen from those parts of Nigeria, I could say that my guess was right at the time. For the regions of Nigeria I had not traveled to, I have asked friends who traveled there from Jos. Most say they still rated the PRTVC higher, but often don’t talk about it, fearing that people will consider their opinions subjective, since the corporation is located in their hometown.

In the last decade and half, however, standards on the PRTVC have fallen so low that it could not be said to be among the best anymore. The program contents have become so repelling that I was compelled to buy a DSTV decoder. I see TV decoders in many homes, here, on the Plateau, and with the switch to digitization, people will have access to hundreds of TV channels. Hence, it will not make sense to have a digitized TV channel that is not watched. The implication is that all that was spent on the digitization program amounted to waste.

Thus, the challenge before the incoming government is to support PRTVC to improve the quality of its program contents in order to, not only retain its traditional viewers, but attract more viewers from all locations where the channel will be accessible. There is a difference between designing program contents to reflect cultures and designing them to appeal to the ignorant, through compromise of intellectual modules of the program contents. That is, if people are not educated, one should not design program contents to help them preserve their ignorance. That will play down the role of the media as a channel of education for the people. Coincidently, the motto of PRTVC is: education, information and entertainment. The program contents must be made educationally high. Only so will it challenge the ignorant to find education. When program contents are high, they help children to grow up with enlightened mindsets. This is the easiest way by which media programs help in educating the people.

If a TV channel must become attractive, its programs should, also, reflect glamour, rather than reflect squalor. Glamour attracts, while squalor repels. When a channel exudes glamour it attracts many who will have to forgo other channels. The PRTVC has always been glamorous, but with the competition that digitization brings, there is the need to improve on what we already have.

It should be noted that in this era of scarce resources for governments, parastatals with the potential to be financially autonomous should be made to work towards achieving financial autonomy. This is only possible if the channel is the apple of the eyes of many; only then can adverts owners be won over. Thus, there is the need for the new government to help the PRTVC improve the quality of its program interiors to be able to survive competition.

Plateau’s Forgotten Campaign Issue

Image source: www.taraturner.com

Until the conflict era in the history of Plateau State (starting from the 2001 till date), the Christians and Muslims raised children along the same streets and educated them in the same classrooms. Back then, there were, also, common markets for followers of both faiths. Today, all these good indicators of peaceful living are non-existent as a result of the prolonged period of conflict between the two sides.

Those of us who grew up playing football with colleagues from across religious divides cherish feelings of brotherhood that had grown between us. It is the reason why we look forward to reunions, and is it, also, why we talk to each other with caution, ensuring we do not destroy a friendship that is important to us. Our experience has, thus, made us seers, who say, with certainty, that unless something is done the prevailing peace would remain fragile with the capacity to collapse on the slightest test.

In 2010 when fighting broke out in the town of Bukuru, two Muslim siblings called me to find out where I was. When I picked the phone they warned me to move with caution as fighting had broken out in the town of Bukuru.

Early this March, a Muslim man and an elderly woman made me deeply emotional. They were driving to Jos from Abuja and picked me up at Vom, as a passenger. The two appeared to be living in Jos, but the man asked too much questions about the rehabilitated roads he saw as we drove. I was prompted to ask, exactly, where he came from. It turned out that he and I were born in the same town. When I mentioned who my dad was, it was then the elderly woman, who happened to be the driver’s mom, screamed in surprise. In that town, our houses were just a couple of blocks apart. When they dropped me somewhere around Grand Cereal and Oil Mills, the woman looked at me and said: “you are just a carbon copy of your dad.” She was aging, but her memories remained very strong. When I offered my fare for the trip, the man looked at it as if it was a piece of evidence that would incriminate him. He declined to accept it, shaking his head.

I thought of the fighting in Plateau State. It has separated the people so far apart that it seemed there could never be love between them. But, my experience with members of the Manu family made me felt the strong bond that can grow among diverse people by the mere fact that they lived along the same street.

Nigeria remains a single united nation. This is, also, the general wish of a bulk of the Nigerian population. It is, however, a paradox to be a single nation but live across borders.  The worst and the most dangerous face of it is the notion of “we and them” that grows in the minds of kids living across these borders. When children grow up without interaction, they do not understand each other and become easy victims of people whose continued wish is to see that community members remain hateful of one another. This living situation will continue to undermine peace and security in the state, as a result.

While I monitored the Plateau Gubernatorial Debate on radio sometimes in February, the issue of the divided people and the need for their integration never came up. We feel that if the state must remain peaceful for long, there is the need for the succeeding government to consider the issue of integration seriously. Governance is not a bed of roses. Issues like the challenge of integrating the people makes governance a bed of thorns. The incoming government needs to understand this.