Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, improved its ranking on the latest World Bank ease of doing business index, but some analysts say that doesn't necessarily mean an improved economy -- and that the country still has anti-business policies.
The country now ranks 131 on the World Bank's Doing Business 2020 index, released Wednesday. The west African nation moved up 15 places from its 2019 spot and has been tagged as one of the most improved economies in the world for running a business.
The index is a yearly ranking that assesses the business environment in 190 countries using various indicators including paying taxes, trading across borders, starting a business and protecting minority investors.
Tunde Leye, a Nigeria-based business analyst with SBM Intelligence, said the new rank is a major improvement from last year but there are existing counterproductive policies that make running businesses hard.
"The ease of doing business may be better, but the actual process of running a business has been stifled," he told CNN.
In 2016, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, set up a government organization -- the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) -- with the aim of minimizing the constraints that come with running businesses in the country.
The organization put together reforms geared toward making it more convenient for business owners to thrive.
Some of them include cutting down the time it takes to register a business, new grid connections for electricity and upgrading election systems for imports and exports.
But according to Leye, these policies may have the opposite of the desired effect as a lot of traders and business owners are losing revenue and goods, referencing the recent closure of the Nigerian land borders.
In August, Buhari closed Nigeria's land frontiers to goods traded with Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin, citing the need to protect the country's economy from frequent smuggling.
"This closure has erased millions' worth of trade. It is counterproductive in making business easy. We should not tamper with trade and monetary policy in that manner," Leye said.
Business transformation
Ola Brown, founder of Flying Doctors Nigeria, a medical emergency services company, said some of the reforms have helped transform her business.
"I run an air ambulance business and visa on arrival, a simple policy change, has changed my business. We can now bring patients to Nigeria without having to get a visa in advance," she told CNN.
In 2017, as part of a plan to improve the country's business climate, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) reviewed the requirements for Nigerian visas to make them more customer-friendly.
Brown admits that despite the change she has experienced, every business will be hit differently by the reforms. "Depending on what your business is or what you do, everyone will have a different opinion about how the current reforms are working for them," she said.
"For me, visa on arrival has helped increase my revenue and improve my business," she added.
In a statement Thursday, the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council said it has more plans to deliver sustainable economic growth and improvement of businesses across the country.
"We are committed to more engagement between reform-implementing organs of government and the private sector players and we are happy to see that this has resulted in a more favorable validation of the reforms by the private sector," council secretary Jumoke Oduwole said in the statement.
"The council is focused on delivering even more substantive reforms for the improvement of the general business climate," Oduwole said.
There is progress with government efforts to create a stable business environment, but there should also be consideration for better education and training for entrepreneurs on how to run businesses, Brown said.
According to her, investing in teaching business owners ways to improve and grow their business will have a positive effect on the country's business climate.
"It's not just in the big skills. Small systematic things, like how to negotiate better with foreign partners, will help the ease of doing business," she said.
By Aisha Salaudeen
CNN
Friday, October 25, 2019
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Video - Farming: Adewale Akinnuoye-Abaje directorial debut with emotive film
Nigerian-British actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Abaje has launched his directorial debut – Farming – in Lagos, Nigeria, just days after it was released in the UK. "It is an important part of British history as well as Nigerian culture... I'm hoping that it (the #film) would create a dialogue and a collective therapy for those that are still suffering," the actor said during the launch on 19 October. The movie will premiere in the US on 25 October.
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18 dead due to floods in central Nigeria
Death toll has risen to 18 due to the floods caused by persistent rainfall in central Nigeria, said a local official on Wednesday.
Confirming the figure to reporters, Ibrahim Inga, head of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency in Nigeria's central region, said eight more deaths were recorded recently.
On October 16, Inga had earlier confirmed 10 deaths recorded over the past two months as the floods wreaked havoc in the state.
So far, 41,959 people have been displaced due to the disaster, the official said.
The floods, as a result of a localized high-intensity rainfall accompanied by torrential winds since August, also triggered massive run-off activities in streams and rivers in the state.
"The combined effect of the micro-climate trend and severe rainfall regime upstream of rivers Niger and Kaduna increased inflow in the basin, which resulted in the spillage of the water from the three hydropower dams," Inga told reporters.
He said 2,714 houses have been destroyed so far by the disaster. The flood swept through 20 local government areas, with 152 communities submerged.
The floods also badly damaged, roads, bridges, culverts and other buildings, the official said.
Inga said the excess waters had inundated several hectares of farmlands and displaced some dwellers in hinterland communities.
The Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, which is responsible for issuing flood alerts here, had since early August issued an alert over possible flooding due to the high intensity of rainfall across the country.
The hydrological body said the flooding incidents are due to high rainfall intensity of long duration, rainstorms, blockage of drainage systems and poor urban planning resulting from the erection of structures within the floodplains and waterways.
This year, Nigeria's 36 states and the federal capital territory, Abuja, would witness different levels of flooding, the hydrological body predicted.
Xinhua
Confirming the figure to reporters, Ibrahim Inga, head of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency in Nigeria's central region, said eight more deaths were recorded recently.
On October 16, Inga had earlier confirmed 10 deaths recorded over the past two months as the floods wreaked havoc in the state.
So far, 41,959 people have been displaced due to the disaster, the official said.
The floods, as a result of a localized high-intensity rainfall accompanied by torrential winds since August, also triggered massive run-off activities in streams and rivers in the state.
"The combined effect of the micro-climate trend and severe rainfall regime upstream of rivers Niger and Kaduna increased inflow in the basin, which resulted in the spillage of the water from the three hydropower dams," Inga told reporters.
He said 2,714 houses have been destroyed so far by the disaster. The flood swept through 20 local government areas, with 152 communities submerged.
The floods also badly damaged, roads, bridges, culverts and other buildings, the official said.
Inga said the excess waters had inundated several hectares of farmlands and displaced some dwellers in hinterland communities.
The Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, which is responsible for issuing flood alerts here, had since early August issued an alert over possible flooding due to the high intensity of rainfall across the country.
The hydrological body said the flooding incidents are due to high rainfall intensity of long duration, rainstorms, blockage of drainage systems and poor urban planning resulting from the erection of structures within the floodplains and waterways.
This year, Nigeria's 36 states and the federal capital territory, Abuja, would witness different levels of flooding, the hydrological body predicted.
Xinhua
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Video - Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri brings NBA trophy to Nigeria
Real Sports travels with Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri as he returns home to Nigeria with the NBA trophy. Real Sports is all-new Tuesday, October 22 at 10PM on HBO.
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Whatsapp is the app of choice for spreading face news in Nigeria
Amid fears of a possible Ebola outbreak in Nigeria during the devastating epidemic that plagued West Africa in 2014, a WhatsApp broadcast made the rounds:
“Please ensure that you and your family and all your neighbors bathe with hot water and salt before daybreak today because of Ebola virus which is spreading through the air,“ it read.
Even though there was no medical basis for it, the “prescription” went viral enough for the government to officially debunk it. But that ultimately proved futile, as at least two people died and several others were hospitalized over excessive salt consumption.
The incident offered a snapshot of how misinformation spreads unchecked on social media platforms, especially WhatsApp. Crucially, older Nigerians served as key conduits for that WhatsApp broadcast as several recipients—even beyond Nigeria—say they got the broadcast from parents, grandparents, and older relatives. Given the potent mix of fear (the outbreak killed over 11,000 people across West Africa) and uncertain information about the virus and the disease, older Nigerians were particularly quick to spread the bogus prevention technique in a bid to “save” family and friends.
But that Ebola broadcast was not a one-off. With family WhatsApp groups so popular, a common complaint among younger Nigerians revolves around the barrage of forwarded messages which range from improbable to ludicrous that are shared by parents and grandparents.
But there’s an explanation for this. In some ways, WhatsApp is theinternet for older users.
Unlike other social platforms which require creating and managing online profiles as well fast-moving interactions older users may be unable to keep up with, WhatsApp condenses the experience of having personal and group conversations, sharing photos and videos, receiving and sharing news into a one-stop shop platform that mirrors regular text messaging in its ease of use. “WhatsApp is the closest to SMS, which is the simplest of the lot. I don’t have to try remembering your handle or go to a platform to message you. That is appealing for everyone, not just the 60-plus age group,” says Gbenga Sesan, founder of Paradigm Initiative, a digital rights-focused social enterprise.
WhatsApp can also be thought of as a “walled garden” for a generation that’s too old to keep up with the vastness, complexity, and fast-moving pace of the wider internet. As such, just as WhatsApp is both an entry point for social media and internet use, it can also a bubble.
Part of the problem lies in how WhatsApp is structured and how it works as its biggest strength—end-to-end encryption on messages—is also its key weakness. The platform has admitted to struggling with finding ways to detect and manage the flow and impact of misinformation. WhatsApp’s potential as a tool for misinformation is further amplified by its sheer popularity: it’s the most popularmessaging app across several African countries, including Nigeria. Local telecoms operators have also created WhatsApp-only data bundles for users.
New tech, old ways
Despite the modernity of WhatsApp and the technology that powers it, the driving force of the spread of misinformation, especially among older users, is linked to an old concept: social trust.
In a recent report by the Center for Democracy and Development and the University of Birmingham on WhatsApp’s role during Nigeria’s February elections, some respondents cited parents and grandparents as the “biggest sharers” of misinformation. “It was something we heard quite a lot,” says Jamie Hitchen, one of the report’s authors. “While younger people have more critical thinking with sharing when it comes to digital platforms, older people were reported to be far more willing.” The report attributes that tendency to share as being down to a lack of digital literacy and a reliance on trusted social networks.
“It’s the same way wealth is created among trusting friends: you get, you share,” Sesan says. “At 60, you’ve probably grown to get information in a world where trust existed, where verification and media were synonymous. Unfortunately, digital tools don’t follow old school traditional verification and trust ethos.”
For his part, Olurotimi Alade, a 60-year old university teacher and father of three, says his trust in “the integrity” of the sender of information “plays a huge role” in his decision to forward messages. And while he tries to fact-check information before forwarding as much as possible, he says “some alarming information appear to be of such immediate concern that forwarding them without probably verifying would most likely to be the prudent thing to do.”
For parents and older relatives, those sort of messages revolve around the safety of loved ones, however improbable the information appears to be. Sherifat, a 54-year old retired bank director, who also forwarded the salt-water Ebola cure to her daughter eight years ago, says she did so out of fear. “Even if I didn’t believe it, it was better to be careful,” she says.
In search of solutions
WhatsApp understands the scale of its fake news problem. Earlier this year, it pegged its message forwarding limit to five people to “help keep WhatsApp focused on private messaging” with close contacts. “The change has reduced messaging behavior by around 25% globally,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told Quartz.
But with its groups feature largely unaffected, the flow of misinformation remains prominent: “one random person can share into a trusted network and that gets shared on,” Sesan says. CDD’s report also noted that 73% of respondents said the average size of the groups they were in was 50 or more people. WhatsApp groups can hold up to 256 members.
As added measures, WhatsApp now labels forwarded messages and has also recently introduced a “frequently forwarded” label to alert users when they received messages that “were previously forwarded several times.” It is also introducing more controls for group admins to allow them determine members that can send messages.
WhatsApp has also relied on mass media to solve its fake news problem. “In the run-up to the Nigeria national election, WhatsApp made significant product changes to limit the spread of viral content, banned accounts engaging in automated or bulk messaging, and sponsored a broad education campaign on broadcast platforms in Nigeria including on the radio, print, and online,” the WhatsApp spokesperson says.
Some solutions have also come from third-party groups. During Nigeria’s general elections, a coalition of journalists set up a WhatsApp business channel for crowd-sourcing questionable claimsfrom the public which were then fact-checked with users encouraged to spread accurate fact-checked reports just as widely as the initial claims.
But none of these solutions focus primarily on older users.
One possible fix could come in the form of younger members of family groups on WhatsApp challenging and correcting their parents when questionable claims are shared. That’s unlikely though, given Nigeria’s conservative family culture, which often places obeisance above perceived dissent. Yet those who are brave enough to try are hardly guaranteed success either: Akinlabi, a 24-year old Lagos-based filmmaker, still gets broadcasts with questionable claims from mum despite several conversations about mindless forwarding.
And so the big question: is it too late to improve the levels of awareness of fake news among older users of WhatsApp in Nigeria?
Sesan says “the short answer is yes.” And Hitchen largely agrees: “It’s difficult to think of a short term solution to solve the problem. It’s got to be long term thinking on how to improve digital literacy but it will be more difficult among older people with less understanding of these things work.”
By Yomi Kazeem
Quartz
“Please ensure that you and your family and all your neighbors bathe with hot water and salt before daybreak today because of Ebola virus which is spreading through the air,“ it read.
Even though there was no medical basis for it, the “prescription” went viral enough for the government to officially debunk it. But that ultimately proved futile, as at least two people died and several others were hospitalized over excessive salt consumption.
The incident offered a snapshot of how misinformation spreads unchecked on social media platforms, especially WhatsApp. Crucially, older Nigerians served as key conduits for that WhatsApp broadcast as several recipients—even beyond Nigeria—say they got the broadcast from parents, grandparents, and older relatives. Given the potent mix of fear (the outbreak killed over 11,000 people across West Africa) and uncertain information about the virus and the disease, older Nigerians were particularly quick to spread the bogus prevention technique in a bid to “save” family and friends.
But that Ebola broadcast was not a one-off. With family WhatsApp groups so popular, a common complaint among younger Nigerians revolves around the barrage of forwarded messages which range from improbable to ludicrous that are shared by parents and grandparents.
But there’s an explanation for this. In some ways, WhatsApp is theinternet for older users.
Unlike other social platforms which require creating and managing online profiles as well fast-moving interactions older users may be unable to keep up with, WhatsApp condenses the experience of having personal and group conversations, sharing photos and videos, receiving and sharing news into a one-stop shop platform that mirrors regular text messaging in its ease of use. “WhatsApp is the closest to SMS, which is the simplest of the lot. I don’t have to try remembering your handle or go to a platform to message you. That is appealing for everyone, not just the 60-plus age group,” says Gbenga Sesan, founder of Paradigm Initiative, a digital rights-focused social enterprise.
WhatsApp can also be thought of as a “walled garden” for a generation that’s too old to keep up with the vastness, complexity, and fast-moving pace of the wider internet. As such, just as WhatsApp is both an entry point for social media and internet use, it can also a bubble.
Part of the problem lies in how WhatsApp is structured and how it works as its biggest strength—end-to-end encryption on messages—is also its key weakness. The platform has admitted to struggling with finding ways to detect and manage the flow and impact of misinformation. WhatsApp’s potential as a tool for misinformation is further amplified by its sheer popularity: it’s the most popularmessaging app across several African countries, including Nigeria. Local telecoms operators have also created WhatsApp-only data bundles for users.
New tech, old ways
Despite the modernity of WhatsApp and the technology that powers it, the driving force of the spread of misinformation, especially among older users, is linked to an old concept: social trust.
In a recent report by the Center for Democracy and Development and the University of Birmingham on WhatsApp’s role during Nigeria’s February elections, some respondents cited parents and grandparents as the “biggest sharers” of misinformation. “It was something we heard quite a lot,” says Jamie Hitchen, one of the report’s authors. “While younger people have more critical thinking with sharing when it comes to digital platforms, older people were reported to be far more willing.” The report attributes that tendency to share as being down to a lack of digital literacy and a reliance on trusted social networks.
“It’s the same way wealth is created among trusting friends: you get, you share,” Sesan says. “At 60, you’ve probably grown to get information in a world where trust existed, where verification and media were synonymous. Unfortunately, digital tools don’t follow old school traditional verification and trust ethos.”
For his part, Olurotimi Alade, a 60-year old university teacher and father of three, says his trust in “the integrity” of the sender of information “plays a huge role” in his decision to forward messages. And while he tries to fact-check information before forwarding as much as possible, he says “some alarming information appear to be of such immediate concern that forwarding them without probably verifying would most likely to be the prudent thing to do.”
For parents and older relatives, those sort of messages revolve around the safety of loved ones, however improbable the information appears to be. Sherifat, a 54-year old retired bank director, who also forwarded the salt-water Ebola cure to her daughter eight years ago, says she did so out of fear. “Even if I didn’t believe it, it was better to be careful,” she says.
In search of solutions
WhatsApp understands the scale of its fake news problem. Earlier this year, it pegged its message forwarding limit to five people to “help keep WhatsApp focused on private messaging” with close contacts. “The change has reduced messaging behavior by around 25% globally,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told Quartz.
But with its groups feature largely unaffected, the flow of misinformation remains prominent: “one random person can share into a trusted network and that gets shared on,” Sesan says. CDD’s report also noted that 73% of respondents said the average size of the groups they were in was 50 or more people. WhatsApp groups can hold up to 256 members.
As added measures, WhatsApp now labels forwarded messages and has also recently introduced a “frequently forwarded” label to alert users when they received messages that “were previously forwarded several times.” It is also introducing more controls for group admins to allow them determine members that can send messages.
WhatsApp has also relied on mass media to solve its fake news problem. “In the run-up to the Nigeria national election, WhatsApp made significant product changes to limit the spread of viral content, banned accounts engaging in automated or bulk messaging, and sponsored a broad education campaign on broadcast platforms in Nigeria including on the radio, print, and online,” the WhatsApp spokesperson says.
Some solutions have also come from third-party groups. During Nigeria’s general elections, a coalition of journalists set up a WhatsApp business channel for crowd-sourcing questionable claimsfrom the public which were then fact-checked with users encouraged to spread accurate fact-checked reports just as widely as the initial claims.
But none of these solutions focus primarily on older users.
One possible fix could come in the form of younger members of family groups on WhatsApp challenging and correcting their parents when questionable claims are shared. That’s unlikely though, given Nigeria’s conservative family culture, which often places obeisance above perceived dissent. Yet those who are brave enough to try are hardly guaranteed success either: Akinlabi, a 24-year old Lagos-based filmmaker, still gets broadcasts with questionable claims from mum despite several conversations about mindless forwarding.
And so the big question: is it too late to improve the levels of awareness of fake news among older users of WhatsApp in Nigeria?
Sesan says “the short answer is yes.” And Hitchen largely agrees: “It’s difficult to think of a short term solution to solve the problem. It’s got to be long term thinking on how to improve digital literacy but it will be more difficult among older people with less understanding of these things work.”
By Yomi Kazeem
Quartz
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