Category: Business

Megacity, mega commute: Lagos and life on the road

Ochuko Oghuvwu is surprisingly chirpy for a man who spends upwards of 30 hours a week in his car, commuting to and from his office in Nigeria’s financial hub, Lagos.

Then again, he has just started the working week after two whole days without having to battle giant pot-holes, monster traffic jams, roadworks, irate drivers and police checkpoints.

Oghuvwu’s stockbroking firm in the Ikoyi area of Lagos is only about 32 kilometres from his home in Ojo, due west towards the border with neighbouring Benin.

The drive to the office should only take 45 minutes to one hour.

But those days are as rare in Lagos as 24 hours of uninterrupted electricity from the national grid.

Instead, the trip normally takes him three hours – even longer in the June to September rainy season – despite him being behind the wheel from 5:30 am.

“I wake up early to beat the major traffic,” he told AFP.

“Those that wake up later end up spending more time. On a day like a Monday, if you leave the house at 6:30 am, you spend more than four hours in the car.”

Oghuvwu, a marketing executive in his early 40s, is far from a rare breed in Nigeria’s biggest city.

Hundreds of thousands of people like him also spend nearly as much time commuting as the statutory working week in countries such as France.

He could even be considered a late riser. Others who live nearby set off a full hour earlier to beat the infamous “go-slows”, as local call traffic jams.

“We get exhausted. We’re always tired. For somebody in my position, I just lock the door of the office and have a little nap for 20 to 30 minutes,” he said.

The time spent crawling bumper to bumper with other cars, motorbikes and battered yellow taxis, packed buses and overloaded trucks has taken its toll on his Volvo S90.

The constant stop-start means brake pads need checking every other month and the services of panel beaters to smooth out the inevitable dents and scrapes from the quest to keep moving.

But the gruelling commute has also affected his social life and the amount of time he spends with his family.

Ughuvwu’s children, aged between six and 14, are usually asleep when he leaves the house and when he returns.

“At the weekend I don’t go out,” he added. “I mainly stay at home. I don’t want to face the traffic. It’s ruined my social life.”

Traffic on Agege Motor Road in Lagos. (Pic: AFP)

Officially, Lagos is said to be home to some 12 million people.

But many estimates put the figure at about 21 million, in a city spread over 910 square kilometres.

New arrivals hunting a slice of Nigeria’s economic growth heap pressure on the already creaking infrastructure. Land shortages and a lack of housing has pushed up real estate and rental prices.

Fuel subsidies and cheap, second-hand cars often imported from Europe have put more vehicles on the road.

As a result, a long commute is a necessary evil for all but the wealthiest.

The managing director of the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (Lamata), Dayo Mobereola, admits they need to act now to prevent total gridlock.

“This problem has been going on for almost 40 years,” he said.

“We’ve started addressing it over the last five years and we have a roadmap now to address the issues as they are today and also to plan for the future as well.

“If we don’t do anything then in the next five years there’s almost going to be a stand-still.”

Master plan
Lamata’s $20 billion, 30-year master plan is based around integrated public transport.

Its proposals for nine designated bus lanes and seven suburban train lines, built with Chinese money, are designed to get people out of their cars.

Slum clearance is essential, although campaign groups claim that residents are given little or no warning that their homes are earmarked for demolition and no compensation afterwards.

Work has slowed because of legal disputes, while some slum dwellers move on and set up home elsewhere, to be cleared another day.

More affordable accommodation within Lagos would help cut commuting times, suggested Oghuvwu, as prices where he lives are nearly two-thirds cheaper than in the city.

Water taxis along Nigeria’s southern, Atlantic coast and the lagoons that stretch around the city could also help tackle the gridlock.

Failing that, businesses could relocate from the traditional trading hubs of Lagos Island, Ikoyi and Victoria Island to the suburbs, he added.

For now, though, his life – and everyone else’s – is dictated by traffic.

In the afternoons, many workers are out of the office door and on their way home as soon as the clock chimes four, car radios tuned to Lagos Traffic Radio 96.1 FM to hear about tailbacks and accidents.

Oghuvwu himself usually leaves about 4:30 pm – and he’s all too aware of the consequences.

“That extra 30 minutes costs me an additional one hour on the road,” he said.

11 years ago

African Queen returns to Nile waters 60 years on

Sixty years after Humphrey Bogart steered her through crocodile infested waters, the African Queen is back plying the Nile.

Lovingly restored, the boat is operated by Cam McLeay, a New Zealand adventurer and Nile enthusiast, and took its first passengers for a ride in December.

“The African Queen belongs on the Nile. So it is so important to have the boat back home over 60 years after the film was made,” McLeay told AFP.

Cam McLeay stands on his boat with his colleagues on the shores of the River Nile in Jinja, Uganda. He bought the boat, made it functional and will use it to offer cruises on the river Nile in Jinja. (Pic: AFP)

In 1950 Bogart and Katherine Hepburn flew into Uganda together with a huge team from Hollywood to shoot the movie of the same name.

The film told the story of a prim missionary and a gruff adventurer, the captain of the African Queen – two totally different characters – who in true silver screen fashion end up falling in love despite the odds.

Hepburn wrote a frothy account of the making of the African Queen, which was shot between Uganda and neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, subtitled “How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Houston and almost lost my mind”.

Based on a 1934 novel by C.S. Forester, the movie was set during World War I in German-occupied east Africa.

“There were actually two of these boats, one of them was in Congo and this is the Nile’s African Queen,” explained McLeay, who recounts his love affair with the Nile.

“I’m very attached to the Nile. I’ve travelled the full length of the river, from the Mediterranean to the source in Nyungwe,” the father of three recounted. “I’ve been up and down the river for 16 years.”

Back in the 1990s he set up a rafting company in Uganda’s Jinja area, and then had an eco-lodge built on an island in the river.

McLeay says he wants his projects to be sustainable – from both an economic and an environmental point of view.

He then started thinking about a river boat to do trips and sundowner cruises for tourists, showcasing the scenery and the very varied birdlife.

“Just on this section here, we have over 100 species of birds. It’s just beautiful to be on the river here at the sunset on the Equator,” he told AFP.

McLeay learned of the existence of the African Queen when on holiday on Kenya’s island of Lamu, where traditional Arabic-style sailing dhows with lateen sails are common.

“I was looking for an authentic African boat to run on the Nile and I was thinking of buying a Swahili dhow,” he recounted.

“Then this hotel owner said: ‘Why don’t you buy the African Queen? She’s from Uganda!'”

A week later McLeay had gone to Nairobi and tracked down Yank Evans, a septuagenarian who explained how he had found the hull of the boat abandoned in northern Uganda’s Murchison Falls national park 20 years earlier and had done it up.

When he left Uganda for Kenya he brought the boat with him.

Another five years went by between the boat’s return to the banks of the Nile and the start of services on the river.

One of the challenges was to rebuild the steam engine, which was more than 100 years old.

In the movie, directed by John Huston and released in 1951, the boat was powered by a diesel engine that was made to look like a steam engine.

But when Evans restored it he decided to fit a real steam engine and had one airfreighted from Britain.

“When we got this boat, the boiler had been sitting around for a very long time,” explained Gavin Fahey, the African Queen’s captain and mechanic, adding that he had to strip down the engine and re-machine it.

McLeay explains that he has tried to recreate an atmosphere of times gone by on board his African Queen, the time when huge tracts of Africa were – for Western adventurers at least – still virgin territory waiting to be explored.

“Gavin wears the same kind of clothes as Humphrey Bogart. We have adopted the fez for the waiters, which is associated with the Sudan, where the Nile makes most of his journey,” McLeay said.

“And we are serving gin and tonics, like Humphrey Bogart drank in the movie.”

Keeping the engine fed with wood has virtually no environmental impact, McLeay says, since he is using wood left over from a construction project, and he has planted trees to ensure supply when that stock runs out.

“It’s probably more environmental friendly then a modern boat,” he says. – Sapa-AFP

11 years ago

Queens of Africa, Naija Princesses take on Barbie

With a booming economy in Nigeria and more black children than anywhere else in the world, Taofick Okoya was dismayed some years ago when he couldn’t find a black doll for his niece.

The 43-year-old spotted a gap in the market and with little competition from foreign firms such as Mattel Inc, the maker of Barbie, he set up his own business. He outsourced manufacturing of doll parts to low-cost China, assembled them onshore and added a twist – traditional Nigerian costumes.

Seven years on, Okoya sells between 6 000 and 9 000 of his “Queens of Africa” and “Naija Princesses” a month, and reckons he has 10-15 percent of a small but fast-growing market.

“I like it,” said five year-old Ifunanya Odiah, struggling to contain her excitement as she checked out one of Okoya’s dolls in a Lagos shopping mall. “It’s black, like me.”

Dolls dressed in local attire are arranged on a table at a workshop in Surulere district, in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos. (Pic: Reuters)

While multinational companies are flocking to African markets, Okoya’s experience suggests that, in some areas at least, there is still an opportunity for domestic businesses to establish themselves by using local knowledge to tap a growing, diverse and increasingly sophisticated middle class.

There’s no doubt about Nigeria’s economic potential. Economist Jim O’Neill has this year popularised it as one of the “MINT” countries – alongside Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey – that he sees as successors to the first wave of emerging markets he dubbed the Brics (Brazil, Russia and India and China).

With around 170-million people, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country by far, and its economy is growing at about 7 percent, vying with South Africa as the continent’s largest.

Several multinational firms have been here for years. Drinks group Diageo, for example, now sells more Guinness in Nigeria than in the beer’s traditional home market of Ireland. South African grocer Shoprite has seven profitable stores in Nigeria and plans to roll out hundreds.

While Western economies struggle, the appeal of emerging markets for toymakers is clear. Between 2006 and 2011, developed countries saw toy sales grow just 1 percent a year, versus 13 percent in emerging markets, according to Euromonitor data.

But in Nigeria, basic goods aside, consumerism is in its infancy, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs.

“When it comes to sectors like spirits or beer, or even cement, all the international players are already there,” said Andy Gboka, London-based equity analyst at Exotix LLP Partners.

“Other sectors, such as toys or less-developed industries, provide a huge potential for local companies.”

Tailored to local tastes
Mattel, the world’s largest toy company, has been selling black dolls for decades, but said its presence in sub-Saharan Africa was “very limited”. Furthermore, the firm does not “have any plans for expansion into this region to share at this time,” according to spokesperson Alan Hilowitz.

There are good reasons for foreign companies to be cautious.

While Nigeria sees thousands of births every day, two thirds of children are born into families unable to afford anything off the shelves of most toy shops.

Multinationals also cite poor infrastructure and corrupt port authorities as reasons for steering clear.

South Africa’s Woolworths pulled out of Nigeria last year, blaming supply chain problems, though analysts said it also misread the local clothes market.

The longer companies such as Mattel wait, however, the more time Okoya has to build his business and shape consumer tastes.

At a small factory in Lagos’ Surulere suburb, his workers stitch brightly patterned West African fabrics into miniature dresses and “geles” – traditional head gear.

Nigeria’s three largest ethnic groups of Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa are represented in the “Queens of Africa” range so far, highlighting the growing sophistication of consumers – and the need to tailor products to local tastes.

The dolls go for between 1 300 Nigerian naira to the special edition 3500 naira ($22), while cheaper “Naija Princesses” sell for 500 to 1 000 naira apiece. Okoya makes a profit margin of about one third, and as well as selling at home, is increasingly shipping to the United States and Europe.

He plans dolls from other African ethnic groups, and is in talks with South Africa’s Game, owned by Massmart, a part of Wal-Mart, to sell to 70 shops across Africa.

Like Barbies, Okoya’s dolls are slim, despite the fact that most of Africa abhors the Western ideal of stick-thin models.

Okoya said his early templates were larger bodied, and the kids didn’t like them. But he still hopes to change that.

“For now, we have to hide behind the ‘normal’ doll. Once we’ve built the brand, we can make dolls with bigger bodies.”

11 years ago

Nigeria offers promise for investors looking for the next growth story

If you want an idea of what Nigeria can offer the world’s more fearless investors, raise a glass to South African supermarket chain Shoprite. Last year, its seven Nigerian branches sold more Moët & Chandon champagne than its 600 South African stores combined.

Nigeria may be best known for Islamist militants, bomb attacks, advance fee fraud and large-scale oil theft, but with a population of 170-million and a decade of annual growth rates around 7%, it also offers some outsized returns for investors willing to take the risk.

Just ask FTSE-listed Afren, whose share price shot up 9% in November when it discovered a “giant” oilfield in Nigeria, which is already the continent’s biggest energy producer.

But it is not just the traditional, grubby business of oil extraction that stands to make a mint. A youthful population is showing glimmers of a consumer boom: outside Ireland, Nigeria is the biggest market for Guinness, while brands from Porsche to men’s luxury clothes brand Ermenegildo Zegna have scrambled to open shops recently.

Champagne bottles displayed at a roadside shop in Lagos. (Pic: AFP)

“It’s caught on with investors. They recognise that there’s a resemblance to what we saw in Asia [in the 1980s] and those who missed the incredible growth story [there] now have the opportunity to invest in the next growth story,” said Charles Robertson, global chief economist at Renaissance Capital.

The group forecasts that Nigeria’s GDP will hit $5tn (£3tn) by 2050, which would be on a par with Japan today as the world’s third-biggest economy. A statistical rebasing exercise next month – in which the base year for calculating GDP will be changed from 1990 to 2008 – could lead Nigeria to rival South Africa for the spot of the continent’s largest economy, with a value of close to $400bn. That would mean the economic output of Lagos, the vibrant commercial hub, alone overtaking Ghana.

Despite a decade of breakneck growth, two-thirds of Nigerians still endure crushing poverty.

After decades of false starts, Nigeria is slowly addressing its feeble electricity generation. It still produces only enough to power one vacuum cleaner for every 25 inhabitants.

“Nigeria cannot be ignored any more as an investment destination, but I’m not convinced [the Mint group – four countries identified as emerging economic giants, the other members being Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey – is] where it fits in,” said Samir Gadio, an emerging markets strategist at Standard Bank.

“If you take a closer look, Nigeria is the least developed, trails in terms of manufacturing base and displays limited economic diversification.”

Gadio said that the government relies on oil for up to 80% of its income. Shocking education levels – especially in the north, where one report found only a fraction of 16-year-olds could add up two numbers – have provided a way in for the Boko Haram Islamists. The attacks have sometimes shut down swaths of the north, prevented truck drivers from delivering goods there and prompted traders to flee south.

Along the southern shores, too, where 2m barrels of oil are pumped each day, militancy has increased amid anger as decades of oil wealth have failed to trickle down to people living in the heart of the oil industry in the Niger Delta.

Corruption and lack of transparency pushed Nigeria down nine places to 147 out of 189 countries on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index this year. Business people say local oligarchs have such a stranglehold on most sectors of the economy that it is impossible to operate unless you “know someone”.

“If you don’t have the right person holding your hand in this country, you’re going to get your fingers burnt,” said the director of a multinational food brand.

But some see potential progress from a low base.

“The challenges we have here, if you look at them differently, they’re actually opportunities,” said former bank chief executive officer and business magnate Tony Elumelu. “For example, infrastructure is a limiting factor but it’s also an opportunity for investors.”

His gleaming glass and chrome office overlooks the leafy Lagos suburb of Ikoyi, which nicely sums up how Nigeria’s economic growth has failed to radiate. Tucked behind high walls, there are more millionaires living in this part of Lagos than anywhere in Africa, and most cities in the world. But the potholes are some of the city’s worst and flooding caused by blocked drains quickly turns roads into rivers, where sometimes barefooted fruit-sellers can be seen wading through with baskets on their heads.

Clearly, there’s a lot that needs doing – and no doubt plenty of money to be made doing it.

Monica Mark for the Guardian

11 years ago

Young landless Ethiopians find hope and security in beekeeping

In the Tigray region of Ethiopia, increasing numbers of young people have no access to the land and its resources. Farming land here is already scarce, and many farms are very small. Many young people risk their lives by migrating to countries in the Middle East to work in domestic servitude, while others are resigned to living in extreme poverty.

With no opportunities to work close to home, Gebre Egzaibher (21) felt forced to take a dangerous job as a traditional gold miner close to the Eritrean border. He would stand for 18 hours a day in a river bed panning gold deposits for the equivalent of a £1 a day, and contend with occupational hazards, such as being shot at by Eritrean militias.

“I had no choice. My father was sick and my younger brothers and sisters had only one meal a day. I needed to work to support them,” he says.

As life expectancy increases the potential for sub-dividing plots of land reduces, leaving many of Ethiopia’s young people with no assets and limited employment opportunities.

The issue of landless youth is fast becoming a national crisis in Ethiopia where 30% of young people are unemployed.

In Gebre’s hometown of Sero Tabia, where 2 200 families live, 560 young people are unemployed and have no access to land for earning a living.

The prospect of earning money in Middle Eastern countries as a domestic maid or as a construction worker has spurred many young Ethiopians to overseas. But for some the dream has became a nightmare as employers exploit them and ignore their rights.

Last month, the Ethiopian government ordered the repatriation of more than 100 000 young Ethiopian migrants illegally working in the Middle East and placed a travel ban on workers going to the region for six months.

To help mitigate this crisis of land scarcity and spiralling youth unemployment, Farm Africa, an NGO, which has directors based in Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, has begun supplying beehives to 900 landless young people in the Tigray region to give them a resilient means of making a living.

Gebre smiles as he proudly puts on his bee-keeping protective clothing for the first time and delicately removes the roofs from two beehives to inspect his new bee colonies.

“I am very happy today because I know these bees will help improve my future security and give me what I never thought possible – hope,” he says.

Ethiopia is Africa’s largest honey consumer and producer. (Pic: Reuters)

In his first year Gebre expects to sell 16kg of white honey after keeping 15% of his harvest for household and nutritional purposes. He stands to earn £150 a year and has the option of increasing production by splitting the bee colonies.

The project will have a ripple effect, says Desta Araya, Farm Africa’s project coordinator. “After the first year of beekeeping and training, the beneficiary will supply another member of the landless youth with one of their bee colonies. If every targeted youth does this the impact is potentially unlimited.”

Ethiopia is Africa’s largest honey consumer and producer. The white honey produced in the Tigray region is widely regarded as a national delicacy and in high demand across the country.

Young landless families in Tigray suffer high levels of poverty and malnutrition. Women in the region suffer in particular from poor nutrition and a recent survey showed that nearly a third were underweight, while more than half of the children under-five were affected by stunted growth.

Letebrahane Gebreegizeabre (28) struggled to feed her family of four, earning just £1.25 a day as a farm labourer. This was just enough to feed her children a single daily serving of injera, a sour pancake.

This year, Farm Africa gave her two beehives. “With my additional income from selling honey I will save enough money to buy a sheep, a goat and more bee hives,” she says. “I look forward to supporting my family with three meals a day and giving my children an education.”

In Tigray, the erratic rainfall and a population expected to jump from 90-million to an estimated 278-million by 2050, makes the issue of land access seem insoluble.

But small acts can have big effects; Farm Africa’s beekeeping programme gives young people an opportunity to build their own businesses and reduce their dependency on diminishing land access.