Sunday 24 December 2017

European Analysts Examine GTBank/Innoson Saga - The Possibilities

By now it is clear that the GTBank/Innoson/EFCC saga now involves every Nigerian including those in diaspora. Interestingly, a team of analysts in Europe, have carried out an independent analysis of the issues on ground and have established the facts. They decided to remain anonymous for now until the outcome of the court cases. 

According to them, the analysis was carried out through examination of evidences from both GTBank, Innoson as well as the Nigerian Police. Other persons that were interviewed includes, some top Managers in GTBank, Chief accountant at Innoson Motors, Customs personnel and others.

While all the details of the examination will not be presented, a summary that would enable you have a proper and comprehensive view is presented below.
Analysis if based on events from 2009 to 19th December

There are three primary issues:

Issue 1: Innoson's Case Against GTBank

Issue 2: GTBanks Case Against Innoson For Forgery

Issue 3: Innoson's Case With Customs and GTBank

Let's take them one after the other

1. Innoson's Case Against GTBank (Awka, Enugu)
  • Innoson sued GTBank to court (Federal High Court, Awka) for unlawful deduction from his account. (FHC/Awk/ Cs/2012)
  • The court heard the case and the final outcome of this was that GTBank was ordered to pay a sum of N4.77bilion to Innoson.
  • GTBank appealed this judgement. (CA/ E/288/2013)
  • The court of appeal made a ruling that ordered GTBank to pay a N6 billion to a an interest-yielding account in the name of Chief Registrar of the Court (this is the same as pay the money to the court, to keep until all is finalized)
  • GTBank went to the supreme court. That is where this Issue No. 1 is currently.
The analysts continues to monitor this case, currently in the Supreme Court.


2. GTBank's Case Against Innoson for Forgery
  •  GTBank sued Innoson for forgery through the Nigerian Police (FHC /L/565C/2015)
  •  After about a year, the Police withdrew the charges and decided to first do an investigation
  • GTBank sued Innoson to court, this time obtained an order for Innoson's account to be frozen. (Sept. 2014)
  • This order was set aside a year after by Federal High Court, Lagos.
  • At this point, Innoson believed that is have suffered losses during the months his account was frozen. So he sued GTBank to court for damages up to the tune of 30 billion Naira. This case is currently in the high court. 
 The analysts continue to monitor this case...


3. Innoson's Case With Custom and GTBank (Ibadan)
  • Innoson sued GTBank and Customs Service to court (Federal High Court Ibadan) for auctioning his goods 
  • The Court heard the case and ruled that GTBank pay Innoson 2 billion Naira
  • GTBank appealed the judgement (CA/I/258/2011)
  • The court of appeal heard the case and affirmed the previous judgement, ordering GTBank to pay N2billion to Innoson
  • GTBank appealed to the Supreme Court
  • The Supreme Court dismissed the dismissed the suit
  • This is the current status of this issue

Involvement of EFCC
Effort was made to reach EFCC and they provided anonymously some information that we would like to share.
They pointed out that, Mr. Innocent have been invited several times but refuse to appear, therefore he was arrested. However, proofs of  the earlier invitations was requested but for now it has not been provided.

Possibilities
If Supreme Court affirms the decisions of the two other judgements, then GTBank have to pay the said amount. If that happens, then that increases the possibility of the N30 billion suit successfully scaling through and that would deal a fatal blow on GTBank as a financial institution. If this happens, then it means that the only way GTBank would survive is by the intervention of the CBN, which would always happen anyways

There are a number of other issues, but for now these are the summary. We would monitor the situation and provide updates as information become available to us.


Tuesday 5 December 2017

How Handle Issue of Competition in the Workplace

 Competition is a common enemy that we all collectively have to fight. The hard part is that even those that compete still suffer from the same negative consequence of this trait. So let's discuss how to handle it, but first, we would look at why you don't have to compete and why some do it.

Why You Don’t Have to Compete With a Colleague in the Workplace
I am writing based on the many years of experience I have gathered from the work environment. I am actually writing not out a ill-feeling but out of a desire to let fellow employees learn from my wealth of experience.  

Why Some Persons Compete One question you always need to ask is why things go the wrong way, except that some persons are so engrossed in their jobs that they don’t take some time to consider things from various perspectives. Let’s first outline why some choose to compete instead of aim for excellence.  

1. Lack of Well Thought-out Goals If one does not have set objectives in our career, then one taking actions and decisions that lack focus. This is even worse when the decision impact negatively on persons in your team.

Typical Example
An example would be a team member in the ICT department that fails to improved his skills and knowledge-base to keep pace with the latest trends in technology. What happens when other team members tends to move at a faster pace? He would end up seeing them as a threat. But the truth is this: In the ICT world, nobody is a threat to anyone.
The fact is: No one can limit your growth in anyway. That is the case of where i worked in the ICT department. There’s this guy, a manager, a Nigerian that sees himself as the ‘Lord of the Rings’. But the real fact is that, he is just another technician. If he is actually a ‘Lord of the ICT Rings’ as he claims, he would not be in the local ICT department here, spending years connecting cables and troubleshooting network faults and harassing colleagues. He would be in Silicon Valley or maybe where I am currently or maybe carrying out a research. This guy saw me as his biggest threat when I actually have a focus beyond the walls of the premises. He continued writing reports against me which are actually not true with the aim of getting me out of the department. I would write on the full story on a different article  

2. Incompetent Persons in Position of Authority When you have an incompetent persons in position of authority, the result would be a team that is not coordinated. Especially when managerial skills is lacking, then he would not have a grip on the members of the team. When a more competent team member works on the team, he naturally sees him as someone to compete with. I personally have go grapple with this particular issue for a time in my workplace.  

3. Lapses in the Logistics/HR Department of the Organization The role of the logistics/personnel department of an organization is to handle issues related to personnel as well as relationship between members of the organization. If in a department, a not very professional technician is elevated above engineers, the result would be unnecessary competitions. I also experience a similar situation during the years I would with an Oil Servicing/Construction company. When persons are elevated to managerial positions due to their technical skills, the result is also unpleasant and is known as ‘Halo Effect’ in Project Management. Another serious lapse would be when the company lacks standards in terms of salaries of employees. Lack of standards kills productivity. Assuming there is no standard in terms of the monthly salary. Then you find out that an employee with a degree and several relevant certifications is paid a fraction of the salary of another employee with just a high school diploma.  

4. Preferential Treatment of a Female Employee for Whatever Reason Some employees in positions of authority have abused this position by allowing their rapport with a female employee to affect the job to the detriment of other employees and the job at large. I would stop here and hope you understand what I’m saying.  

Negative Impacts of Competition in the Workplace
1. Low Productivity
2. Lack of good Interpersonal Relationship among team members
3. Low morale for those negatively impacted
4. Lost time due to disagreements

My Personal Advice
I would like to give a few words of advice to my beloved colleagues in the workforce to enable them cope with this ugly trend. One thing to bear in mind is that you may not be able to change the existing structure of an unprofessional work environment. You can change your viewpoint and attitude towards the situation. The following points would help you cope.

 1. Define Your Goal in Your Workplace This is the first thing you need to outline possibly as soon as you take up the employment. Having goals you give you a focus. Do you want to work with the company for 2 years, 5 years, 10 years? Do you plan to spend the rest of your career life in the particular company? Do you aspire for top position of a manager? Do you want to learn on the job?  

2. Maintain Good Communication
Maintain communication with team members and with you superiors. Remember that an aspect of  

3. Acquire Some Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal skills also known as soft-skills allow you to maintain good relationship with your colleagues. This kind of skill tends to create to ease any tension that may result. This may means spending few minutes discussing general issues of life(not related with job) with colleagues or acknowledging his efforts or even a pat on the back. O maybe simply asking about the family.  

4. Grow Your Professional Prowess
This is one thing you need to do to grow in your careers. Spend time reading to understand the concepts of your jobs. Get professional certifications if possible and continue to make needed improvements in your field of study,  

Final Notes
We need to make needed effort to avoid making the workplace a competition ground. If we are caught in between, we need try to ease the tension created by applying the 4 points I made. Thanks a lot for reading and if you do thing that this article needs to be improved, feel free to leave a comment below on your views.

Monday 27 November 2017

Steps to Finding and Managing Capital - Part 1

This is a paper presented at the Valedictory Session/Entrepreneurial Workshop for the Executive and Principal Officers of the 25 Local Government Council of Delta State - 18th and 19th October, 2017

Introduction
It is fair to say that at the center of any business enterprise is finding and utilization of capital. In classical econonic theory, there are four factors of production which are:
  • Land
  • Entrepreneur
  • Capital
  • Labour
In this list, capital is that aspect that bonds all three together. In many instances, it equates to cash but often, it means much more than that. It is the ability to mobilize enough capital to start a business that could make the difference between quick successes or a stunted growth. In fact, it could even mean the difference between commencing and not commencing a business at all.

In this article,  we would explore the various sources of capital that you can leverage on. The principle to bear in mind is that capital should strictly be treated as capital and not profit. Capital is meant to be a facilitator, an enabler - a means to an end and not the end itself.

In simple terms, capital should be spent strictly for business, not for pleasure or any other thing. One this principle is understood, then it will help you answer the next question

What Capital Do I Need
The volume or size of capital is not fixed, but dependent on two basic questions:
  1. What kind of business do I want to engage in?
  2. What facilities are available
1. What Kind of Business
In answering the first question, a background study of the different businesses or enterprise opportunities must have been carried out. In some Instances, this information can be gotten informally, especially if one is going into a well-known business direction (even then, effort must be made to obtain certain empirical specifics as to fund requirements outlays). Since no two businesses are exactly the same as they operate under different variables.
In other instances, a formal study requiring a professional input can be carried out. This is called feasibility study. Feasibility studies are meant to establish the capital needs of the business and its expectation or return capital.

What Facilities are Available
The funds available to be utilized as capital are generally categorized into two broad categories.
  • Internal Sources
  • External Source
We would discuss these two

Internal Sources: As the name implies, these are funds that can be sourced from within. They include personal savings, funds from family members, stocks and equities, inheritances and heirlooms. Monies drawn from these are generally uncollateralized and less stringent in mobilization and utilization. The monitoring and control processes to access their efficient utilization are less stressful and less cumbersome.

External Sources: These are funds from outside your personal cycle. A key feature of externally sourced funds is that they are formal. This requires formal agreement between the lender and the borrower. So in some instances, even family members can by the conditions attached to the release of these funds become external or formal sources of capital. A formal capital source can be in form of loans, grants, endowments or charitable advances.

We would now outline and discuss these sources of funds in the next part.
Sources of Capital



Friday 27 January 2017

Give Me One Reason Why I Should not Give Specific Details!

Give Me On Reason Why I Should not Give Specific Details!

I would like to thank you again for stopping by.
I have been provoked to make this article in response to repeated call from different quarters telling me I should not give specific details of events happening in my workplace. The article have to do with “How to Succeed in a Challenging Work Environment”. I appreciate the advice of these well-meaning person. 
I want to point out that I write strictly for learning purposes and dissemination sound information.
But, I have a bad news, though. The fact is that I have dozens of articles with specific details including names of the company, the persons involved in the events, the phone numbers and other relevant details needed to verify any article I am going to write. And I am going to publish them, if not me, someone else would still publish all of them if necessary and at the right time. As for all these persons telling me not to include the specific details like actual names in my articles, my question for them is,
  • What is one good reason why I should not do that?
  • What would make your articles authentic if  it is not verifiable and contain specific details?
  • Why should we be afraid of expressing our view in this information age? Or are we still living in the dark ages?
  • Beside why should one not speak out especially in a situation that personally affects him?
I would like to point out clearly that the first step in giving advice is to first make effort to understand the situation and circumstances of the  person expressing his objections. Then you will be in the right position to give a well thought-out and informed advice.

Why I choose to Write
 I would take some few lines to let you know why I decided to express my views in writing.

1. My IT Background: As an Information Technology Professional, I feel the obligation to pass authentic and verifiable information to those who need it. I work as a Lead Software Engineer in the ICT Department and as such would not cringe in fear of expressing sound facts and relevant supporting arguments and details.
2. I have the Facts: Another important point is that I’m not just making up stories. I actually relate based on situations I have experienced or I have been through. As such I have the guarantee that the actual facts are presented as they are and lessons can be learnt from it.

3. I Feel a Relieve: Generally, if expressions are kept inside, it sometimes leads to depression or other more serious effects. So I found out that when I express myself in writing, then, I could feel some kind of relieve that some burden has been taken off my chest.

Reasons Not Why I Choose to Write This subtitle seems not clear  to me but I would like the point out that I’m not writing for negative reasons. So I would say the reasons below are not and never would be reasons for my writing. I strictly write for learning purposes.
  • I don’t intend to undermine the reputation of anyone or any organization. As I repeatedly mentioned I write to teach and inform
  • I don’t write to fight a cause. I don’t have anything to fight for, so I’m not writing to fight any authority or to draw some attention to some cause.
Once again, I would like to thank everyone that have advised me, I sincerely appreciate and for sure this response shows that I’ve carefully considered your advice. 

Saturday 21 January 2017

How to Succeed as a Sa1p3m Staff(in a Challenging Work Environment)

How to Succeed as a Sa1p3m Staff (or any other challenging work environment) Thanks for stopping by.
  • I would like to share this update with you on how to succeed in a challenging work environment for  a professional.  What really is a challenging work environment? For me, Sa1p3m is not just a typical example, but an exceptionally challenging one and I would tell you why in a moment.
So some of the topics we are going to discuss includes the following:
  • What factors make a work environment challenging
  • How does a challenging work environment affect productivity and effectiveness
  • What effect does a challenging work environment have on the workforce
  • The role of management
  • The role of staff union
  • How to manage a challenging work environment
Let’s begin with the fir first point: What factors make a work environment Challenging ?

What Makes a Work Environment Challenging? Disregard for Standard Practices (Unprofessionalism): When an organization fails to maintain a certain level of standards, then you will find it challenging as a professional. A typically example is when job roles are not properly defined and you find the same employee working on different roles in a unsystematic way,  and you find yourself in the team, it’s going to be challenging to cope.

Incompetent Head of Unit/Unskilled Managers: Managerial skills which includes leadership and interpersonal skills is the key to managing human resources. When a manager is incompetent and lacks these skills, it would be a disaster for him to have persons under him. An example is a head of department would lack basic communication skills and resort to shouting and insulting employees under his unit. I a situation like this he would not have a grip on the personnel neither will he earn their loyalty

Manager being less qualified than Team Member: Example is a Technician managing a team made up of engineers!(I find these amusing). Unfortunately, that is the situation in some department in Saipem. Example is ICT department. I rest my case!

How does a Challenging Work Environment Affect Productivity and Workforce 
In simple terms, it reduces productivity as employees would be low on morale while other try to find a way out of the situation by looking elsewhere. 

  The Role of Management and Staff Union The bulk of the blame for having an avoidable challenging work environment goes to management of h organization. This is because they are aware of the situations that make the workplace challenging for their employees. They also hold the power to make necessary changes to improve the situation. Staff union also have the role of fighting to ensure that management does not exploit the employees in any way.

How to Cope
The few suggestions below has helped many cope with challenging work environment
  • Improve your confidence by developing more professional skills: This you can achieve by getting professional certification in your field of study.
  • Enhance Communication in Line With Corporate Standards: Make your concerns known to those in positions of responsibility but avoid any form of confrontation.
  • Avoid Complaining: This would not help matters. Don’t spent time complaining or even discussing with team members who may not see the matter in an unbiased perspective
  • Don’t Compromise Professionalism: No matter what, don’t compromise laid down standards or best practices. Don’t do things the wrong way just because every other person does it that way.
  • Get Instructions in Writing: If you are given an instruction by an incompetent boss, make him put it in writing, say an email. This would ensure that he bears responsibility of the outcome.

I personally have applied these recommendations and have found the workplace not as challenging as it used to.

Thanks for your time and I hope this has been informative for you. If so leave a comment to let know how you feel.