Recession shrinks Yuletide gifts, hampers as prices skyrocket

By Tayo Oredola and Dayo Akinboro
While the Yuletide season is celebrated globally as a period not just to share goodwill and good tidings, but to express appreciation through showers of gifts for friendship and support received throughout the year among individuals, corporate entities and government, the irony seems to be the case in Nigeria last year.
Indeed, such goodwill showers have been drastically affected by current economic recession in Nigeria, to the extent that most individuals and corporate organisations simply preferred to opt out this time around.
The situation was worse among government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), who tried to hide under managing costs to save for more pressing economic needs.


The few individuals and organisations, which indulged in the yearly ritual of sending hampers, did so prudently, compared with the lavish gifts in the past. Already, some Lagosians while speaking with The Guardian lamented that they did not receive any hamper this year and are not sure of giving out either, therefore affirming the state of the economy.
Indeed, The Guardian market survey revealed significant and dramatic changes in the packaging of these gifts by consultants and various outlets.
Specifically, the sizes and types of gifts and hampers this season were a perfect reflection of how deep recession had eaten into Nigeria’s economy after three consecutive quarters of negative gross domestic product, GDP growth.
Beside the contents shrinking dramatically, the prices of the hampers more than doubled compared to previous years, which the consultants and dealers attributed to the high exchange and inflation rates.
Dealers from popular markets across Lagos, told The Guardian that the high cost of items made prices of hampers to rise, even as they also complained of low patronage.
A popular dealer in Mushin (Ojuwoye) market, Olawunmi Olabanji, said dealers experienced low patronage compared to previous years because of the untold hardship in the economy.
According to her, hampers that sold for N5,000 with the same content last year now sells for N15,000, adding that although the N5,000 worth packages are still available, “but they are not rich in content and quality of products.”


Olabanji lamented that unlike in 2015, when she sold a daily average of between 15 and 20 hampers, and a total of about 300 during the season; she barely sold up to 50 this time around. “Even the corporate organisations that come to order as much as 50 at once sparingly showed up and when they did, they only took four or six hampers,” she added.
Mrs Angela Onwogu told The Guardian that “sales have dropped so much as the stores are full of goods, and customers are not forth coming, I have not seen most of my customers, only few came. The few that came even bought less than what they usually buy,” she said.
However, a senior civil servant who doesn’t want her name mentioned in the print said that the dwindling economy has affected the numbers of hampers that she often receive during the yuletide period.
“By now, enough hampers would have been dropped in my office but none is here. People are struggling to cope with the economic condition of this country. Prices of almost everything has increased 100% and gifting, at this period will not be their priority.
In an interaction with Tina Philips, an official of a corporate firm in Lagos, who came to order for her company, she said: “My company bought 20 hampers last year at a cost of N5,000 each with high quality content, but all I am buying now is six at triple the cost with less content and quality.
“The quality of hampers this year cannot be compared to that of last year, it has dropped for the same value of money as last year,” she noted.


Tina affirmed that the recession has really affected prices of items so bad that a hamper she got for N3,500 in 2015, now sold for N10,000. I have to go back to the office twice to collect additional money because I budgeted N8,000 for each, Tina stressed.
Meanwhile, The Guardian gathered that prices of hampers in some supermarket around the Oshodi, Ikeja, Isolo and Yaba axis ranged from N31,000, N20,000 to N15,000, and N12,500 as seen displayed.
In one of the supermarkets, an attendant said, few hampers were on display because, most people prefer to choose items lesser than already packed ones to meet their budget.
The story wasn’t different at the Cane market in Maryland, Lagos where hundreds of hamper baskets were sighted with no customers around.
The Vice Chairman of the Progressive Association of Cane Sellers, Courage Daniel told our correspondent that because of the recession, more customers are opting for plastic hamper baskets to cane to minimise cost.
This phenomenon, he attributed to the high cost of baskets owing to increased cost of materials.
Culled from The Guardian

Unmetered electricity consumers cry out in Lagos

Electricity firms links metering challenges to forex crises
 By Roseline Okere and DayoAkinboro
More than three years after they took over operations of the power sector, the distribution companies (Discos), handling retail distribution and marketing of electricity in Nigeria, have not been able to effectively tackle the issue of metering, thereby leaving millions of their consumers at the mercy of estimated billings.
When the nation’s power sector was privatised, many Nigerians had hoped that things would get better, especially with regard to improving power supply and quality of services provided.
But, both the Ikeja Electric Distribution Company (DISCO) and Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) who lament the high cost of foreign exchange, insisted that they are trying their best to ensure every customers within their networks are metered.


Consumers had expected that upon the takeover by the new owners, metering would be one of the issues that will be urgently addressed to restore confidence in the billing system, as this is the only way to determine actual consumption of energy. The Discos have a five-year agreement post-privatisation agreement with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), to meter their customers. But three years down the line, the Discos seem to be in no hurry to fulfil their part of this agreement, preferring to hound customers with jaw-dropping estimated bills.
For this and many more reasons, some consumers including individuals and corporates prefer to provide electricity for themselves.Dammy Okegbami, a shipping consultant in Apapa, told The Guardian he has never used the public power in the four years he has been running his office, but relied on his generating sets.
He explained: “when I got to this complex four years ago all the occupants of this complex run their various businesses with power generators. Of course Eko Electricity Distribution Company brought us estimated billing that was very outrageous and very difficult for us to pay, so we all decided not to pay them and we were cut off.
“I applied for a pre-paid meter long time ago, the answer I got was that meter was not available. I spend N13,500 monthly to fuel my generator, which does not include the money I spend on the maintenance of the generator. If I had been properly metered I may not be paying this much, but still cheaper than the estimated bill,” he said.
Tunde Ibrahim, a residence of Ilasamaja, a Lagos suburb, told The Guardian he is being frustrated by the high estimated billing he has been subjected to for over two years.


He said he had complained many times to the Ikeja Electric, the distribution company about his ordeal but nothing has been done to relieve him of the burden. According to him, “I live in a room and parlour and I usually paid less than N2,000 a per month before the prepaid meter I was using with my landlord got spoilt about two years ago. Since the meter got spoilt, we have been placed on estimated billing, the amount they bring keep increasing every month.
“There was a time we complained and they promised to do something about it, although the subsequent bill they brought after the complain was moderate, but the bill that they brought after that one went up again, so we do not know what exactly is wrong with this people,” he lamented. 
A consumer, Blessing Okafor, who lives in Itire, another Lagos suburb, said while she is billed between N3,900 and N4,900 monthly for her one room self-contained apartment, her next door neighbour, who is on prepaid metering spends N2,000 monthly, even with more electrical appliances.
Okafor said although she has applied for a prepaid meter since 2013, she is yet to have one installed, as Ikeja Electric insists the meters are not available.
More frustrating, she said, is the fact that switches off all her appliances, when she went to work daily, but and her neighbour’s wife, who is mostly at home with her children and use more power end up paying less, while she paid more.
Another consumer, Mrs Tayo Odutola, complained that she went from paying N2,000 to N7,000/month after her prepaid meter got spoilt in 2014, and she was placed on estimated billing.
She said she has complained to Eko Disco about her ordeal and she was told to disregard what is on the bill and pay at least N3,000 monthly, to avoid being disconnected.
Speaking on the company’s efforts to meter every customer in its network, the Chief Executive Officer Oladele Amoda, said the devaluation of the Naira compared to the dollar has partly contributed to inadequate meters within the Eko Disco’s network.
But he said the Disco had signed an agreement with Mojek International, an indigenous smart meter manufacturing company, for the supply of over 100,000 meters in December.“We also signed another agreement with Huawei Technologies Company Limited, an international company based in this country, to supply the remaining 100,000 pre-paid meters.
“We have started metering consumers under our network with these meters. It is our responsibility to meter all consumers and we are looking at being able to deploy the 200,000 meters before the year runs out. The motive is to eliminate estimation of consumers billing by 2017,” he said.
Amoda said the company had been on a metering programme since 2015, and would have metered all its customers, but for some challenges confronting successful implementation of the scheme.


He listed inflation and increase in foreign exchange rate as challenges the company had to contend with.Also speaking with The Guardian yesterday, spokesman for Ikeja Electric Plc, Felix Ofulue, believed that the scarcity of dollars has increased the price of installing meters in the country.
He claimed the Disco had metered 90 per cent of its customers in the zone, to make the electricity billing based only on energy consumed. He said the company is doing its best to ensure all its customers are metered, adding that “Recently, the estimated billings of consumers are coming down because more consumers are now under the company’s database.”
Ofulue however noted that: “The reason why it seems many costumers are yet to be metered is because there are a lot of developing areas under our network, which are yet to be reached; it is a gradual thing. We are not going to reach everybody the same day, but will definitely do our best.”
Culled from The Guardian Nigeria

History and True Meaning of St Valentine’s Day

History and True Meaning of St Valentine’s Day

Dayo Akinboro

St Valentine’s Day is approaching and many young people are still living in the misconception of what the day is actually meant for or represents. St Valentine’s Day is a day for lovers, it is a special day when lovers shower themselves with affection by exchanging love messages, simple gifts like flowers, cards, chocolate and candies. Some will like to make it romantic by gifting things like panties, perfume, lipsticks and so on. Lovers take themselves out to exotic places, club and party around during this period.

St Valentine’s day because of it origin should be a day not for lovers alone but a day for humanity, care and kindness towards the less privileged, especially the rejected, the lonely, and the sick at home or in the hospital, the widows, the prisoners, the orphans, vulnerable children and every other child around us. 

On February 14 around the year 278A.D, Valentine, a holy priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was executed.

During Claudius rule many young people were unwilling to join the military because of their strong attachment to their wives and families so, Claudius gave a decree which was unpopular that no young lovers should get married or get engaged.

Realizing the injustice of the decree Valentine defiled this decree as he continued wedding young lovers who are willing to get married secretly, the gist got to Claudius who ordered for Valentine arrest, he was eventually found guilty of disobeying the king’s order and sentenced by the Prefect of Rome to be beaten to death by club and have his head cut off from his body.

During his time in jail he healed the daughter of his jailer of blindness, he later became a friend with the girl and wrote a farewell letter to her before his execution which he signed with “From Your Valentine”.

On how his name became connected with romance

His name mingled with the Feast of Lupercalia, a pagan festival of love practiced in Ancient Rome. During the festival which was celebrated Feb 15, men stripped naked, grabbed goat- or dog-skin whips, and spanked young maidens in hopes of increasing their fertility, said classics professor Noel Lenski of the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius decided to put an end to the Feast of Lupercalia, and he declared that February 14 be celebrated as St Valentine’s Day.

What should Valentine be about ideally?

It should be a day married couples reflect on their journey so far renew and strengthen their bond with affectionate passion, parent and guidance should teach their children about God’s love, justice and humanity  and encourage them to always demonstrate the love of God to one another at all times.

This way we will change the erroneous perception some young people have about the St Valentine’s Day.

Now as it is, it a day teenagers are exposed to a lot of sexual abuses, young people attend different parties that are organized to perpetrate perversion in different forms.

Also, philanthropists and the well to do in the society, churches, mosques, NGOs and so on can capitalist on this day to visit the prisoners, the abandoned, the weak, the sick people at home and in the hospital, the widow and unprivileged people among us. Show them love by encouraging them and gifting them necessary thing that will make them feel better and accepted.

Lagos Business School (LBS) Bags Global Accreditation

The Lagos Business School (LBS) has finally achieved international accreditation from the Advanced Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the school which was founded twenty five years ago and has been committed to world class standard of teaching, learning, research, academic and professional management; measures up with few business schools that can boast of such international mandate in the globe.

Lagos Business School (LBS) Faculty and Strategy Expert, Chris Ogbechie while addressing press on Friday in Lagos made it known that Lagos Business School has become the first institution in West Africa to be accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). With effect from December 1, 2016, LBS joins the league of less than 5% of business schools globally, to be accredited by this body.

AACSB is the leading global accreditation body schools offering undergraduate, masters and doctorate degrees in business and accounting. Founded in 1916, AACSB has its headquarters at Tampa, Florida, United States of America, it is the largest business education network, linking students, academia and business education around the world.

By the feat of AACSB Accreditation, Lagos Business School has once more distinguished itself as a management education provider of high repute in Africa. Only four other schools in the entire continent have this accreditation, three in South Africa and one in Egypt.

Schools that are also accredited in the world by AACSB include: Harvard University -Harvard Business School (United States-Massachusetts), IMD (Switzerland), Imperial College London- Imperial College Business School (United Kingdom-England), University of Cape Town – Graduating School of Business (South Africa-Cape Town), IESE Business School (Spain), Yale University-Yale School of Management (United States-Connecticut).

According to Ogbechie, the accreditation process is designed to validate business schools that are committed to global standards of excellence in strategic management and innovation, student experience, and quality of both teaching and non teaching staff.

The AACSB International accreditation, among other benefits, accords students of accredited schools the opportunity to participate in international student exchange programmes with other accredited schools. It also increases students` competitiveness in the domestic and international labour markets, helping them get recognized worldwide by top employers and other universities.

In addition, the accreditation provides faculty members of these schools with opportunities for in-depth research and global recognition. Faculty and staff of accredited schools are assured of the school`s visibility and increased capacity to attract top quality students for their programmes. Alumni of accredited schools can be proud of their alma maters` global visibility and recognition – a validation of the quality of their certificates.

Wole Soyinka Fulfilled His Pledge, Throws away His Green Card.

Nobel prize-winning author Wole Soyinka said Thursday he has fulfilled his pledge to throw away his US residency green card and leave the country if Donald Trump won the presidential election.

Shortly before the vote, Soyinka had vowed to give up his permanent US residency over a Trump victory to protest against the Republican billionaire’s campaign promises to get tough on immigration.

“I have already done it, I have disengaged (from the United States). I have done what I said I would do,” the 82-year-old said on the sidelines of an education conference at the University of Johannesburg.

“I had a horror of what is to come with Trump… I threw away the (green) card, and I have relocated, and I’m back to where I have always been” — meaning his homeland Nigeria.

The prolific playwright, novelist and poet won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986 and has been a regular teacher at US universities including Harvard, Cornell and Yale.

At the same time he said he would not discourage others from applying for a green card.

“It’s useful in many ways. I wouldn’t for one single moment discourage any Nigerians or anybody from acquiring a green card… but I have had enough of it,” he said.

Soyinka, one of Africa’s most famous writers and rights activists, was jailed in 1967 for 22 months during Nigeria’s civil war.

He was reported to have recently completed a term as scholar-in-residence at New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs.

NCC SUSPENDS DATA PRICE HIKE.

NCC suspends directive on data segment price floor

Following the concerns that visited the directive to introduce price floor for data segment of the telecommunications sector beginning from December 1, 2016, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has suspended any further action in that direction.

The decision to suspend this directive was taken after due consultation with industry stakeholders and the general complaints by Consumers across the country.

The Commission has weighed all of this and consequently asked all operators to maintain the status quo until the conclusion of study to determine retail prices for broadband and data services in Nigeria.

Recall that the Commission wrote to the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) on November 1, 2016 on the determination of an interim price floor for data services after the stakeholder’s consultative meeting of October 19, 2016.

The decision to have a price floor was primarily to promote a level playing field for all operators in the industry, encourage small operators and new entrants.

The price floor in 2014 was N3.11k/MB but was removed in 2015. The price floor that was supposed to flag off on December 1, 2016 was N0.90k/MB.

In taking that decision, the smaller operators were exempted from the new price regime, by virtue of their small market share. The decision on the price floor was taken in order to protect the consumers who are at the receiving end and save the smaller operators from predatory services that are likely to suffocate them and push them into extinction.

The price floor is not an increase in price but a regulatory safeguard put in place by the telecommunications regulator to check anti-competitive practices by dominant operators.

This statement clarifies the insinuation in some quarters that the regulator has fixed prices for data services. This is not true because the NCC does not fix prices but provides regulatory guidelines to protect the consumers, deepen investments and safeguard the industry from imminent collapse.

Before the new suspended price floor of N0.90k/MB, the industry average for dominant operators including MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, EMTS Limited (Etisalat) and Airtel Nigeria Limited was N0.53k/MB.

Etisalat offered (N0.94k/MB), Airtel (N0.52k/MB), MTN (N0.45k/MB) and Globacom (N0.21k/MB).

The smaller operators/ new entrants charge the following: Smile CommunicationsN0.84k/MB, Spectranet N0.58k/MB and NATCOMS (NTEL) N0.72k/MB.

The NCC as a responsive agency of government takes into consideration the feelings of the consumers and so decided to suspend the new price floor.

Signed

Tony Ojobo

Director, Public Affairs

NCC

MARRIAGE PROCEDURES IN YORUBA CULTURE

The Yorubas are scattered all over the Diasporas, they however originated from the south-western Nigeria of the four major sociolinguistic groups in the country. The others are the Igbo; they reside in the eastern part, the Hausa and the Fulani to the northern side of the country.

The wedding ceremony is the last event that rounds off the relationship between prospective couple. As soon as a young man identifies the woman he wishes to marry, he and his peers cunningly find a way to make the girl know about his feeling towards her.

Once they communicate and confess their love for each other, they can then eliminate the service of an alarina (a person who helps lovers carries love messages for lovers). The girl naturally don’t tell her parents about her relationship with a man, it is the man who tells his parents, his parents will then take few of their relatives to the girl’s parents. Once the girl’s parents give consent to the relationship, the wedding date may be set.

Before the wedding the girl’s family will tell the man’s family what the pride price will look like. Usually the bride price consists of sugar or sugar cane, a number of tubers of yam, kola nut, bitter nut etc. As soon as the bride price is taken by the girl’s parents, the wedding day is fixed. Mostly, it is the husband side that chooses the date of the wedding.

The wedding day is the day of merriment, the day of dancing, eating, drinking, and rite performing for the parents of the couple, their friends, relatives and sometimes foes. The marriage however, goes beyond the union of the couple, it is indeed the union of the families of the couples that is why a Yoruba culture says “You don’t only marry your spouse you marry him/her along with the in-law.” During this period both families are introduced to one another.

The groom during the ceremony is compelled to come with some of his friends to portrait and ask the bride’s parent for their daughter’s hand in marriage, if they oblige them, they hand the bride over to them.

The couple are dressed in native attire, the groom is embellish with agbada, buba and sokoto while, the bride is adorn with iro, buba and gele (head gear).

The girl on the other hand, is escorted by her friend and relatives to her new home. When she gets to the door step, there is always a prayer session where water is used to wash the bride’s feet, this done to wash away any bad luck she might be bringing into the husband’s house away.

Before she is finally ushered into her husband house, she is given a calabash to slam on the floor; it is believed that the numbers of the pieces of the broken calabash is the number of children she will give birth to.

Finally, her husband is expected to make love to her the wedding night and he is expected to meet her virgin. If she is not, she and her parent are disgrace or sent out of the village the live.