By Merit Ibe, [email protected]
The Chief Executive Officer of Rimax Institute of Computers, Chief Livinus Okwara, is a manpower trainer, business consultant, real estate developer and operational research activities.
In this interview with Daily Sun, the seasoned business man, lamented how the lack of middle level manpower precipitating the collapse of many industrial ventures and slowed down the nation’s industrialisation drive.
He spoke on these and more.
Excerpts
Rimax businesses
Rimax Institute for computer studies started when I first returned to Nigeria from the UK in the early 70s to establish a school that would meet the yearnings of our people for computer studies.
Then, computer studies were not all that popular in the UK let alone in Nigeria and I wondered what could have aroused such consciousness among Nigerian youths at home.
I was overwhelmed to see about 2,000 Nigerian youths come forward on a single day at that time to enroll with us for computer studies.
But rather than taking them abroad to achieve that dream, I decided to establish an institute here which grew overtime.
Oil companies and banks were coming to take our graduates because, the institute was the first and the only then.
The institute impacted so many people, who are doing well today in computer science and other disciplines both at home and in the diaspora.
Rimax was the first to drive for private universities. Our inspiration and effort encouraged government to approve private universities.
Middle level manpower
Middle manpower is a major factor in the development of any industry. They are the skills involved in industries.
For adequate middle level manpower development, training is important.
Nigeria needs more of the middle level man power to sustain small scale businesses and manufacturers. We need skills to produce and manage the production lines.
The big product lines need accumulation of small scale industries that produce tyres, keys, side mirrors and some other components. So the big manufacturers need the small lines to survive.
To facilitate production, the big lines only assemble, they need the support of small scale industries.
The lack of middle level manpower is a huge challenge, which is affecting the drive for industrialization. Nigeria needs to shoot up along the line of middle level manpower like China.
China has a developed middle level manpower that produces parts for the big lines.
For motor parts, generator parts, we need skills for industries to provide them. Lack of it is part of the reasons many industries are collapsing today.
We cannot divorce even the best technically sound initiatives from the ambience of the overall economic operating environment because the progress of any country in the present dispensation is viewed and measured by its technological development. No nation can stand the pace of development if its technology is not oriented towards the solving of social or economic issues.
Like in production of computers, the middle level manpower is no longer there. For a computer, we might need up to 2 million components to design and put it up. We need screws, panels, nuts and others, which are produced locally by the middle manpower not by academia.
They are technicians for various parts because we cannot keep importing.
Steel Industry
The steel industry can only be active with small industries using steel for production. We can’t be importing steel. We need to produce for local industries.
Nigeria has not been able to produce a viable motor industry because our steel industry cannot produce the raw material which is steel, needed to produce parts .
To manufacture a car , if you need like 3000 parts, that means the parts will be produced locally and that has failed.The steel industry which was birthed to solve the problem has not survived till date.
Ajaokuta steel is still not producing as planned, rather it is gulping millions of naira with corruption frustrating the dream.
A lot of Nigerians came back to take advantage of the steel industry, but unfortunately, it never saw the light of the day.
One of the reasons the steel industry failed is that government did not see reasons to train personnel in those areas or take advantage of the production of steel for industrial products.
We need thousands of manpower to produce the components. Industries need the components for productions. The motor industries like Volkswagon and others collapsed like that.
Government should do something as we cannot grow or industrialise without the steel industry.
Local industries lack conducive environment
The right environment for production is not there. Our local industries lack patronage and are not competitive.
SMEs are a recipe for high level production but they lack basic conducive environment to thrive.
Government buys the best cars from Europe for government executives and officials, where then is the encouragement for local production.
The government is killing local industries.
India’s prime minister only uses cars made in India. If that is done here, it will boost our local industries..
The textile/ print industry
Take a look at our textile industry. It is in a terrible state.
Government destroyed it. Black oil was the cheapest, it kept the textile industry going, suddenly it was given out to politicians to import. This caused increase in the price of black oil, which is a major ingredient in the production of textile. People screamed but no attention was given to the shout.
This is an industry that employed millions of people. Our population is large enough to sustain the market, now we import second hand clothes.
The same thing happened to the news print industry.
Government did not have the political will to reverse bad policies about the black oil, so this affected the industry badly.
Patronage is one of the keys to building our local producers and know also that you can only encourage local consumption of locally produced products by low tariff.
AfCFTA
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has not worked due to the interception of the Western world. They don’t want us to be free at all. With our independence, we are not yet free.
If we break free, we will tell them we don’t need them. They dictate the price of oil. Nigeria was producing over 2million barrels of oil per day, suddenly the country is producing less than 1000per day. It’s very painful.
Check our large population, how can government cope without borrowing when our revenue is low. Of course we will keep borrowing since we don’t sell enough to sustain the economy.
Plans
Rimax has some hectares of land to be developed for African market, but they have been in court for some years now.
Property legally acquired will suddenly go into litigation for years and government is not helping matters. This has been a challenge.
Government is even a culprit. Government acquires land without appropriate compensation. That is what has happened to our land at Lekki.
This act discourages business.
On that land, we want to develop Africa trade centre, a world class market, where Africans and other continents of the world can come and trade. The market will have about 60,000 show rooms, hotels, schools and others, but the project has been delayed due to the litigation which has been on for years.
The project will gulp over $300billion.
Forex
Nigerian products are not competitive due to poor infrastructure and high cost of production among others.
The naira has been devalued: efforts are not being made to make things easier for businesses in the country.
You can only devalue the currency when you have industrial export potential and can sell cheaper for more markets. We don’t produce, we lack industries, how can we earn foreign exchange? You devalue to be more competitive. A country earns forex when it exports. You obtain forex based on how much products you export.
The Central Bank devalued the naira. It does not worth it. We can’t export and get forex when the system has made it difficult. We can’t export when the system has made it impossible to produce at a competitive price.
The country is doing itself more harm than good.
Government should have allocation of forex. You have allocation of forex based on how much forex you earn.
Govt’s role
To revive the economy, government has to boost the agriculture sector, subsidise fertilizers, loans for equipment to improve agriculture.
Enact laws to make all available spaces for farming.
State governments can encourage joint venture in agriculture and the produce can be shared. By that, you earn money and food to feed the citizens.
We saw oil and forgot the importance of agriculture. States can invest in other states that have comparative advantage in agriculture.
In Europe, there are farms all around but in Nigeria, you see undeveloped large portions of land. And we complain of shortage of food.
Again, government has to encourage potential and businesses
Establish industrial hubs and give soft loans at low interest rates to small businesses.
The SMEs is where you have the middleman power to boost development.