Many a time in every society, there are men who are never celebrated, these are dissenting individuals, such men are few in every Epoch, they don’t subscribe to the fallacy of the slippery slope, or put it succinctly, they don’t join the bandwagon, they would rather swim in strange waters  against the tide, walk their own walk, such men would rather roam in the wilderness of hope charting new paths that may seem unpopular but soon to become the highways of the society, these are men of uncommon wisdom and direction. Such men are always accused of disrupting the status quo of their society and are easy to brand as rebels, but such disruption if allowed to stay becomes the enduring legacy for better institutional framework for a stronger technology and economics-savvy society seeing that Enterprise and tech-innovation have become the utopian focus of modern society. These men are infinitesimal emerging candles in our society that the winds of selfishness, greed, corruption and avarice cannot put out, one of such men is Victor Alewo Adoji an emerging disruptor, enterprise innovator, a managerial technologist, an economist and a people’s management professional.

This is a man that is little understood by many. He could best be described as the Apostle Paul of our time. When writing the Pauline Epistles, Paul was seen by many as a man beside himself because of his many words and unfathomable wealth of wisdom. Such manner Adoji loves his people to the point of discomfort.

Here is a man that is drunken with Empathy for his people. Empathy connotes that you wear the shoes of the people with the people to know where it hurts them the most.  He sees their pains, he feels their anguish, he is grieved by what they are going through, he said,” You have toiled for years retired in pains because you have not been paid Let me hold you. You labour in pains only to beg for your wages in anguish and endless delays Let me hold you. Your business can't sell because the economy is going down and the government is without clue. Let me hold you. You are at home more than you are in school while those responsible keep their kids in private schools for the rich. Let me hold you. I feel your pain, your tears and helplessness. I come with hope and solutions that these phase shall be our last down in Kogi I am Victor Alewo Adoji...let us hold our hands and work together for the future”

These were his words when in 2019, Adoji offered himself to serve his people as the Governor of Kogi state. Although that was not to be, he never gave up, later he gave the Kogi East senatorial seat a shot and that also did not materialize, but men of vision are never discouraged. They only rest awhile to resurface again. In his quest for the number one seat of the state, his vision according to him is “to establish kogi state as the tenth largest economy in Africa with best-in-class corporate governance practices” and his  Mission is “To transition kogi state into an Enterprise state through leveraging its enormous material and especially human resource endowment to make it an irresistible component across value chains and productive partnerships that respect our advantages and peculiarities”

His Motivation as captured in his policy document titled “Beginning the Future, our social contract” is, “I am a product of Nigeria’s Public Institutions and posterity will be harsh on beneficiaries like me, if I sit back as an onlooker and watch those institutions continue to collapse”

          His agenda is the disruption and obliteration of the current blight of his home state Kogi as a “Civil Service state”. He believes that the assertion is being fore grounded on a flawed understanding of the subtleties at play in the confluence state.

          The Implication of letting such assertions stand have eluded the various Governments since the creation of the state. This ignorance, the lack of conscious efforts to transcend beyond the boundaries of the present dismal economic position of the state. The Successive Governments have been Prioritizing consumption over investment and recurrent over capital expenditure.

True that the population of Civil servants in the state is over 15,000 while the entire population of the state stands at four million. Adoji believes that an insignificant 0.3% of the population is not enough Justification for the nomenclature of a “Civil Service State. Political leadership in the state is expected to show Resourcefulness and novelty by pro-actively driving the state to an enterprise economy. In his words, “the transformation of the Kogi economy through prioritization of value addition and revenue generation can only be accomplished in the context of enterprise orientation” he Opined that  “Excellent examples of burgeoning enterprise state are found in the eastern part of Nigeria where  the apprenticeship system (which has churned out more millionaires than all of Nigerians educational system) has created a number of  employers of Labour and wealth. The only missing link is the Synergy between institutions of the state and the apprenticeship ideology to create a powerhouse of enterprises and entrepreneurship “

Being one who is enterprise driven and a wealth creator, he advocates for a developmental pathway that will engender a “developmental planning that can bequeath a comprehensive and coordinated response to our socio-economic and Socio-political challenges.

He decried the over dependence of successive Governments on loans as a pathway to solving developmental plans but rather, public private Partnership (PPP) can be valuable sources of Funding.

          Adoji believes that the public Private Partnership (PPP) “can be reliable sources of Funding. And because PPP Funding is very sensitive to dialectics in the Socio-economic and Socio-Political environments, it is essential to address such indicators as ex-ante”. This, for Adoji is a major justification for a steady and innocuous transition to an enterprise state as a strategic and sustainable imperative”

As a youth mobiliser, he believes strongly in Youth entrepreneurship and punctures the reliance on the security architecture alone in solving security issues.

“Socio-economic renaissance like Job creation, wealth creation, encouraging entrepreneurship (Especially in the Creative Industry) and creating social safety nets are recommended as panacea to the resorting of security challengers challenges.

He further advocates for Agripreneurship, Youthprenuership/ ICTPreneurship, Social Security Engineering, the development of the Tourism and entertainment industry proper health care and qualitative Education and a host of others as pathways to solving these Multifaceted and Myriads of challenges facing his state and people.

But who is Victor Alewo Adoji?

Born to Late (Elder) Benard A. Adoji and Deaconess Rebecca Adoji, His Primary and Secondary Education were at the St. Paul’s Primary School (Now Mohammed Bankano Primary School) Sokoto and Federal Government College Sokoto respectively.

Victor has a diploma in project management from the international Business management institute Germany. He obtained Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Jos, two MBAs with specializations in corporate strategy, leadership and sustainability, as well as five graduate (masters) degrees in Economics, public Administration, and international affairs, Entrepreneurship, Managerial psychology and social Welfare.

His first doctoral degree, received from the University of Panama was focused on credit Management. The second is a doctoral degree in Business Administration from the Leeds Becket university UK, is focused on leadership, corporate governance and people’s management. Dr. Adoji holds several professional certifications, memberships and fellowships. He is a Fellow, Institute of Credit Administration (FICA) and a British International Certified Credit Fellowship (ICCF). His fellowships also include, Fellow, Chartered Institute of Public Management of Nigeria, Fellow, Institute of Credit Administration (FICA) and Fellow, America Academy of Project Management (FAAPM). Aside being a Certified Procurement & Project Management Specialist (CPPMS), and a Master Project Manager (MPM), he is also a Member of several Professional and academic bodies in Nigeria and beyond including, but not limited to, Nigeria Economic Society (NES), Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM), Institute of Chartered Economists of Nigeria (ICEN) and Institute of Transformational Entrepreneurs and Leaders (ITEL) Dr. Adoji is an economic development consultant. 

Adoji worked with Zenith Bank for Seventeen years of a productive and untainted career.

In his postscript, Adoji restated that he is convinced that the terrible and deteriorating quality of education as well as low level of school enrolment in kogi state is a result of institutional failure to create incentives for parents to educate their children. 

He is also convinced that our extant creative talents and the accurate enterprise – entrepreneurship -public sector partnerships would provide the needed stimulus for innovation. His concluding thoughts are his burning desire to change the present narrative of the state from poverty alleviation to wealth creation by using a Business led approach to economic development which in his words “has vast potential for transformation and posterity”

He is quick to douse the tension of the cloud of hopelessness hanging over the state whereby the people believe that all politicians or elected representatives  are the same, and the panacea is “to tackle the very real challenges that we face -from the majority being in the lowest socio-economic class to a lack of futuristic institutions, we need to believe that we can work together to solve real problems”

In his encouraging words he said, its not too late, “there is hope to hold unto, and there is action we can take,….we must agree on a shared agenda, we must stand together shoulder to shoulder …..”

“Too often we have been distracted with handouts and deceived with nuances too small to halt the degradation at hand, we know the cardinal issue we need to deal with and we must summon the fortitude to recognize them, face them and fight to fix them together to begin the future we deserve”

These are golden words engraved on marble, shot in the right direction with an intended impact. Whether this impact will be positively felt by the people, shall be seen and evident in the coming days as we approach another electoral season.  

 

                                                                                            

 What is your view about broadband penetration in the country and how will it help in achieving Nigeria’s digital economy drive?

Nigeria has come a long way in broadband penetration. As at 2015 when the current EVC of the NCC, Danbatta, was appointed, broadband penetration was between four per cent and six per cent. In December 2018, the country surpassed its 30 per cent broadband penetration target and today the country can boast of 43.3 per cent broadband penetration, with another target of attaining 70 per cent broadband penetration by 2025.

So with the current broadband penetration level, Nigeria is ripe to achieve its digital economy drive. We have reached a point at our broadband penetration level, where nothing can stop us as a country from achieving our dream of the digital economy. With sufficient broadband penetration, businesses will grow and new businesses and companies will spring up. With broadband, companies will save cost and the country will generate new streams of revenues, despite the challenges that come with the digital economy.

 People have called for collaboration in order to achieve a digital economy. What form of collaboration do you think can lead to achieving the digital economy?

I quite agree that collaboration is necessary to achieve the digital economy. VDT, which I operate, for instance, has its focus on providing the enabling infrastructure for broadband growth in the country. In achieving the digital economy, we have to consider all sides of the digital economy framework like the consumer side, producer side, enterprise side, and regulatory side. The enterprise side of it has to do with industries, factories and offices, and that is where VDT plays a key role in the country’s digital economy drive. Our retail, business is fast-growing and supporting the digital economy growth of the country.

 Telecoms operators are asking for seed funds to sustain their telecoms business. Do you see funding as a challenge to achieving digital economy in Nigeria?

Nigeria is an emerging market and as a player in the emerging market, I strongly believe that telecoms operators need seed funds for their businesses. Naturally, it is very difficult to operate in an emerging market because the cost of sustaining a business is on the high side. There are so many things militating against raising funds in an emerging market like Nigeria. The Nigerian economy, for instance, has not enjoyed economic salability, and the country has to devalue her currency severally to stabilise the economy, yet the economy kept dwindling and it is difficult for businesses to thrive in a dwindling economy like ours. For this reason, funding of long term projects like the telecoms project has been a herculean task for business owners. The situation is also affecting infrastructure companies because they need huge money to purchase equipment for infrastructure rollout. VDT operate on the infrastructure aspect of telecoms business and I can tell you the fact that it is difficult to raise money for infrastructure and service rollout. Those clamouring for seed funding for telecoms business are right and government must see to that in order to keep telecoms business running. Just like the Bank of Industry and the Agricultural Development Bank, the telecoms sector needs a telecoms bank that will fund telecoms business in the country.

The multinational players in the telecoms sector do not have much funding challenges like the local players do, so the government must support local and small players in the telecoms sector to grow and sustain their telecoms businesses.

 So how small is VDT in the telecoms sector, when it has operations outside of Lagos?

VDT is a small telecoms operator that is focused on the retail aspect of telecoms business, but even at that, there are several telecoms operators that are even smaller than VDT in terms of their operational capacities. If VDT, as small as it is, still struggle to raise funds for major projects, you can imagine how the smaller operators will be struggling even more than VDT to raise funds for capital projects, hence the need for seed funding for local and small telecoms operators.

 Given the scenario where only a few companies are offering fiber-to-home services in Nigeria, where the majority of people now work online from home as a result of the new normal caused by COVID-19 pandemic, what is the possibility of sustaining working from home?

Connectivity has gone far beyond offering fiber-to-home services. Today, many operators offer wireless services just like VDT. With wireless services, people can still work conveniently from home with their wireless devices without depending outrightly on fiber-to-home service that has to do with fiber optic cables. So the combination of wireless and wired services can conveniently sustain the new normal, where people can work from outside of their offices without getting to the office. Once there is adequate coverage of fiber and wireless connectivity, the tempo could be sustained. It is technology-enabled and it is all about the internet and broadband connectivity. For example, today, Nigeria boasts of 43.3 per cent broadband penetration, but 40 per cent of that penetration level is from wireless connectivity, and that is where VDT operates, providing wireless connectivity services to homes, offices and schools. What we need are incentives.

 What kind of incentives do local operators need to remain competitive in the telecoms business where the big players operate?

The incentives can be in various forms. The telecoms regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), said they were giving palliatives to infrastructure companies (InfraCos), but such palliatives need to go round the small operators and VDT should be considered for palliatives because we need support to sustain our kind of telecoms business.

 VDT is into wireless connectivity, just like several other operators, yet we have little presence of free wireless hotspots in public places where people could connect to the internet for free like it is the case with most developed countries of the world. Why is the case of Nigeria different?

Yes, people could get free connectivity in public places like airports and malls in developed countries, but it is not so in Nigeria because of the issue of lack of adequate funds to operate free internet services in public places. The free wireless internet services you experience at airports and malls in developed countries were installed by small players who got funding from the government, but in Nigeria, it becomes difficult to set up free wireless hotspots where there is no funding from the government. Lagos State tried it some years ago by using small operators to establish free Wi-Fi hotspots in some parts of Lagos, but I do not know if those hotspots are still working because of funding and sustainability. There has to be continued funding for installation and maintenance for such projects to be sustained. The operators cannot go to the bank to take a loan for such projects because of the two digits interest rate that is involved in bank loan, which makes highly expensive and risky to take a bank loan for telecoms business.

 What happens to the USPF funding for telecoms operators. Why can’t small players take advantage of such funds to provide free Wi-Fi hotspots?

If the telecoms regulator channels the Universal Service Provisions Funds (USPF) to small operators, then I think they should be able to provide free Wi-Fi hotspots in some designated public places across the country. In developed countries where you experience free Wi-Fi hotspots, they are being funded by the government and we need our government to do so in Nigeria.

 Telecoms development is largely tilted towards urban cities, while the rural and underserved areas remain impoverished of telecoms services. Is it not possible for the operators to use the gains made from cities to deploy services in underserved and unserved areas of the country?

The NCC had rightly said Nigeria has 114 access gaps and about 25 million Nigerians are not connected to broadband. Nigerians should not expect telecoms operators to invest their gains in unserved areas of the country because investments love profit. Every business person will want to invest in areas where investments are easily recouped. They invested money and the need profit and they cannot get that kind of profit in underserved and unserved areas, and no investor will want to invest in such places unless there are incentives from the government and that is exactly what the USPF funds are meant to achieve. More profits are made from urban areas because of the population and no operator will install 3G and 4G networks in rural areas where the return on investment is very low.

 Given the fact that Nigerian youths and small business owners form the bulk of Nigerian population and start-up organisations, to what extent can government tap into the strength of their numbers to drive tech development across the country?

Youths and start-ups, no doubt, have the numerical strength to drive technology development and help Nigeria to achieve its digital economy drive a lot faster, but they do not have the capital for expansion. So the government needs to see their numbers as an opportunity to tap into by providing incentives for them. One of the incentives is to provide them with cheap capital, supported by training and education. The government also need to provide a better business enabling environment for our youths and SMEs to enable them to thrive and become employers of labour. They need protection in their business with special preference to help them grow with less stress. It must be a conscious effort on the part of the government to address youth unemployment in the country, and this is one of the better ways to achieve it. It is not enough for the government to be collecting taxes from organisations without developing its youths. So part of the money generated from taxes should be invested in youths and SMEs development. If the SMEs are protected today, they will surely grow large to compete with the exiting large enterprises in the telecoms sector, who also started very small, but became very large with time because of the initial support they got from their government.

 What is your view about regulating technology activities in the country, in relation to the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation(NDPR), which the National Information Technology Development Agency is championing?

The NDPR, which the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is currently promoting, is a good move by NITDA, and they should be commended because data protection and regulation have become global issues. The data regulation embarked upon by NITDA will compel big and small organisations to be mindful in handling personal data, because data is now the new oil that will boost the Nigerian economy if properly regulated, analysed and put into proper use.

 Do you agree with those calling for monetisation of data, who felt that Nigerians are sitting on a huge amount of data that are not properly being utilised?

I quite agree with those calling for monetisation of our data because Nigerians are not making good money from data, yet we have data all around us. We need to first organise our data before we can monetise it. This is true because data that needs to be monetised, must first be structured, organised and cleaned up, to enable monetisation. We have a lot of personal, organisational and national data all around us, but we need to structure them to make the best out of the data.

For instance, in the retail part of our business, it was after we reorganised the organisational data that we started making good money from it. So data must be first organised and structured before monetisation of the data can work effectively. Data simple helps organisations to make good business decisions and predictions that will help the organisation to avoid wastages and in turn, make a good profit. So data has to be organised and well analysed for better decision making that will be profitable for the organisation.

 How will you assess the implementation of the new National Broadband Plan, which seeks to achieve 70 per cent broadband penetration by 2025?

Efforts on the part of the government to meet the 70 per cent broadband target as enshrined in the new National Broadband Plan, is ongoing, but some people are of the view that we could effortlessly achieve the target by 2025, because of the springing up of start-ups and FinTech operators who are actually driving new software applications that will make the digital transaction a lot more possible. Telecoms operators are also busy deploying 3G and 4G networks, which are broadband enablers. All these put together will fast-track broadband penetration without conscious efforts.

 You chaired one of the panel sessions during the National Dialogue Forum on Telecoms and ICT, recently organised by the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON). What is your assessment of the forum?

I must congratulate the organizers of the National Dialogue Forum on Telecoms and ICT because it was a huge success in promoting telecoms and ICT activities in the country. So much was said about how Nigeria could harness her digital resources for the building of our national economy, and the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, was able to give guidelines and timelines on how Nigeria will achieve her digital economy drive. The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta, was also able to throw more lights on what the commission is doing to achieve digital economy through the commission’s Eight Point agenda, which majorly focused on broadband penetration and utilisation. We can’t talk of digital economy without talking about telecommunications technology on which the digital economy rides on, and I quite appreciate what that ministry and the NCC are doing in this regard. Paper presentations at the forum were focused on broadband, funding, investments, regulation and the challenges and opportunities that abound in digital economy and how best to harness the opportunities and also turn the challenges into opportunities.

 

Source: https://bit.ly/32uTUPi