The Etisalat Example by Dr. Kazeem Bello.

The Abu Dhabi Government that owned Etisalat pulled the company out of Nigeria last week and gave the Nigerian ex-partners 7 days to change its name and drop its Trade name. That has been complied with. Etisalat Nigeria changed the name this past week. The news information about this I monitored on my travel to Dubai on the local news which indicated that the Nigerian Etisalat claimed it invested over $20 billion on equipment and facilities in Nigeria. The news Analyst from Dubai Business New Network TV insisted that it is not possible. The parent company invested $13 billion in Gulf Area to attract over 40 million subscribers, with high world class services , how can Etisalat Nigeria invest $20 billion for 22 million subscribers with epileptic services and a debt ridden company?

The Abu Dhabi home office is struggling to remove the negative effect of the news on the company's stock market performance. It is being very difficult because the numbers are not adding up. The questions in Abu Dhabi is what does Etisalat Head quarters know about the mammoth fraud that prevailed in Etisalat Nigeria? How can the company claim to have spent so much in investment and infrastructure and yet come out with huge debts?

While Etisalat Group is facing serious backlash at home over this monumental fraud, in Nigeria, our CBN is not even asking any question to unravel why the company suddenly went bankrupt. Instead, our CBN and Ministry of Finance from the above are struggling to take over the company's debts and pass it to the unsuspecting tax payers under the umbrella of the debt ridden AMCOM.

The Chairman of the Board and all Board members of the defunct Etisalat Nigeria resigned and walked away free leaving Nigerians with another private sector mismanaged debt ridden company.

Actually, the major reason for my worried contribution here is on the Banking System in Nigeria and the financial mess we may have found ourselves in. Many Nigerians may not know this for a fact because the authorities will never tell you the truth, just like it took several years of noise for the NNPC to admit that the corporation is debt ridden and bankrupt. The Government of Nigeria will not admit it that the CBN of Nigeria is currently running at a Deficit Financial Model. This is called a DEF Model operations in Central Banking structure and practice. For references, you can google " Greece Monetary Collapse" and also the great fall in Brazilian financial system in the 90's. The CBN is almost at those crescendo from all indications going by several body languages, utterances and news from the international financial circle.
The CBN may not be able to cover import bills for more that 15 days from now as we speak which is a huge red flag! The CBN is currently not in any position to bail out the Government in any form due to distress in its liquidity-money creation matrix. CBN cannot perform its role as lender of last resort to the Government of Nigeria as we speak, a major function of Central Banking system. This may be the reason why last week, the Hon Minister of Finance addressed a press conference to tell Nigerians that they are in trouble but most Nigerians just did not understand how to interpret her unspoken words. She said clearly that Government will have to aggressively borrow money from abroad to implement the 2017 budget. Her reason was predicated on the wrong and super inferior analysis that Nigeria has a low debt-capital ratio hence there are rooms for more external debts. We better find a way to stop her from running a huge debt that OBJ was able to clear up during his regime but was kept low during Jonathan's regime due to oil windfall which makes borrowing unnecessary then.

Now with disappointing and falling oil prices, low income-revenue generation by Government, NNPC totally broke running at huge deficits, CBN's inability to bail out Government, we seem to have no choice than to go back to external borrowing at premium at all cost.

Something is pathologically wrong with the Nigerian system. I have written about this in early December 2016 when the budget estimates came out. I pointed to the totally wrong budget appropriation and tagged it a budget of " Economic Contractions". I mentioned that by 3rd quarter of the year, the bubble will burst if something is not done and the Economy may slide into a full blown depression far worse than recession. It is not known what the facts are right now because there are various attempts to hide facts and give erroneous figures to the unsuspecting public. The situation is really bad based on International Analysts facts and figures especially with perceived not admitted dire financial crises at the CBN. We may see an Economic Emergency Bill very soon showing up at the desk of the Senate President but with the current face off between the Acting President and the Senate leadership, it is doubtful if such required bill will ever come to surface. That will be an instrument for the " hawks" in the Senate to roast the Acting President and blackmail him further of incompetence. In the fight between two giant elephants, the grass will have to pay dearly and suffer for it. Nigerians will grow in more poverty, no power, no infrastructure, high inflation, and low economic activities and no salaries for work done.

Back to the Etisalat case, this is the fact of the matter and CBN has not deemed it fit to raise any probe on the huge bank lending to one single company without adequate collateral. Indeed what asset does Etisalat own aside from its license that will be worth the amount of debts being cited? I don't live in Nigeria but at least on my visits, I have not seen any such assets except power masts all over the place.

The same Nigerian Banks gave billions to all the debt ridden GENCOs AND DISCOs with no collateral and yet we have no power. Again, I have written on this issue before. How the power system in Nigeria was defrauded by the collusion of the so-called investors, Nigerian Banks and some officials in the defunct FGN. Nigerians are very prayerful people, we are still trooping to the worship places to pray for steady power supply when some are swimming in billions from the fraud in the sector. Our dream for steady power supply is daily becoming a mirage, to say the least.

The other day, I was having a discussion with a Chinese group of investors on telephone and internet network projects. They mentioned that with about $5 billion dollars in investment in highly powerful telecom equipment and satellite infrastructure, they will supply over 120 million in Nigeria with highly efficient phone and internet network service with super easy, small and latest technology. So why is Etisalat with $20 billion in investment not able to supply good phone and internet network service in Nigeria? Yet poor Nigerians are paying for poor services and will again pay the company's debt through our taxes.
The same way the same people buy and pay for banks and goes around to liquidate the same bank while the tax payers takes over the debts through AMCON. 

Nigeria's Solution to the Problem of Electric Cars By Pius Adesanmi.

Scandinavia, Britain, France, Netherlands, India, China, the US - everyone is in a scramble to announce the end of fuel-powered cars by 2040 and so on. Everyone is announcing that every car on their roads will be green by 2040. Only electric cars. No more petrol and diesel cars.

Many of my friends, who still are yet to come to terms with just how terrible the psychology of Nigeria's political elite is, have been agonizing. They are worried about what happens to an oil-dependent, monocultural economy like Nigeria when all the buyers of her oil go green and her oil pretty much becomes useless.

Well, I can tell you for sure that from Aso Rock to the National Assembly, to Governors, down the ladder to the most inconsequential member of the political class - you can add the socioeconomic elite too - they are already thinking and planning ahead for the advent of electric cars in 2040.

They are just not thinking the way you are thinking.

If you do a laundry list of the solutions they have found as a class to the challenges of modern living in the 21st century, you will gain an insight into how they are going to handle the transition to electric cars.

Problems of space in their built environments in Ikoyi, VI, and Maitama? They destroyed master plans, built on green areas and public parks, built commercial ventures in residential areas, commandeered communal rail track areas for parking lots of private schools, etc. Other elite in tight spaces in Hong Kong, Singapore, etc, will experiment with innovative mastery of space by applying engineering and architectural genius to achieve vertical derring-do in building design. The Nigerian elite will visit violence and aesthetic chaos on her own built space because she has too much money and too little culture.

Bad roads and death traps? They are buying more and more helicopters; their jeeps are getting bigger and sturdier. The other day, I saw Senator Ben Murray-Bruce and a group of other pregnant male Senators inspecting Federal roads in worse condition than the farm paths used by Askia the Great in the Songhai Empire in the 15th century.

The Senators say they are members of one of these useless Senate committees and they had come to do a firsthand assessment of the roads. This was some expressway linking Edo state to the deep south. As the Senators granted TV interviews, talking rubbish, you could see their jeeps in the background. I shook my head in anger. Useless people. They have now seen that the roads have gotten worse. They will return to Abuja to suggest bigger and sturdier jeeps capable of coping with the roads for all Senators in the 2018 appropriation.

Poor health facilities? Well, you have been witnesses to their nakedness and utter shamelessness on display in London this week as a political class. Foreign hospitals will remain their only answer to Nigeria's health issues.

So, how do you think an elite that has handled its own lived environment, roads, and health in this manner will handle the question of electric cars and the imminent end of the fuel economy?

Well, by now, I can bet that some of them are already making inquiries from the innovation sectors of Scandinavia, Britain, France, the US, China, and India. When can we start to place individual orders for these cars of the future? When can we start to queue up for customized versions of these cars? How many can you deliver to me in Lagos or Abuja on January 1, 2040?

How can they be attempting to place orders for cars in 2040 when they cannot guarantee that they will be alive even tomorrow? Never mind. Members of Nigeria's political elite are not intelligent enough to think like that. Their singular focus will be to be the first elite in the world to use cars they cannot manufacture.

And by the time the electric cars are being delivered over their dead bodies to their children in 2040, their own goal of being able to manufacture pencils in Nigeria sometime in this 21st century may still not have been realized.

If the owner of morning says it shall be well with the leaders of Nigeria, the owner of evening will disagree.

Pius Adesanmi