Dr. Segun Musa is a logistics and transport expert, Managing Director/CEO, Widescope Group, in this interview with Pearl Ngwama he harped on the need for sustainable policies both in the transport and other sectors of the economy to protect investments and woo investors. He was of the view that sustainability in the transport sector entails ensuring that our mode of transportation aligns with international best practices. He called for a target in place for every individual that is superintending over the ministries, departments and agencies; otherwise they will just operate litmus test. He condemned the idea of political compensation and policy somersault, saying the latter has remained a bane to investments in Nigeria.
EXCERPTS
Could you share your thoughts on the future of sustainable transportation in Nigeria?
Thank you very much. Starting with sustainable transport system in Nigeria, we can only have a sustainable transport system in Nigeria if we have a policy drive. There must be a regulation that will align our transport system with international-best practices. And that can only be achieved if we have a policy drive that we can use to continue appraising performance and also improving and aligning to regular change.
Presently, what we run in Nigeria, we call it Stone Age Transport System where every mode operates independently without complimenting one another. And there’s no way you achieve the best of results when you have the mode of transportation operating independently without complimenting one another in a symbiotic way. So for us to have a sustainable system in place, we must be able to define what we stand to benefit from each of the modes of transportation.
And we must be able to define how best they can complement one another and how best they can integrate the movement of traffic. As we speak, we don’t have a policy drive in place that can actually propel international standard transport system or holistic transport system. What we have is independent litmus test where every actor, be it the minister, the MDs, the general manager or secretary of agencies, ministry and parastatals, will just come up with an idea, probably gotten from a journal or anything, and he will start implementing. Nobody tried to do what we call impact assessments. And that’s why we’re where we are today because some of those policies are contributing to the collapse of the transport system in Nigeria. Until we begin to look at what is the trend that is advancing transport system to be able to drive economy in developing countries that is where we begin to have a sustainability that can actually support the government policy in revamping the economy. Because when you look at transport, transport is the starting point of every economy, it is the motive force behind every economy. If we don’t have effective transport system in place, definitely there’s no way you can drive your economy.
Transport system is just like the blood in our body. If there’s any stoppage anyway, you realise that place will not be functional. And that’s why we are having a lot of challenges when it comes to economy development in Nigeria because most of the economic policy did not align with the kind of transport system we are operating.
What the government needs to do is to integrate a workable policy into the economy policy, so as to be able to drive the economy effectively. In a situation where you don’t have effective transport system, the economy will not tax it, talk less of flying.
You only have the economy policy, but nothing to move it beyond where it is. And that’s why you continue seeing the government policy on the economy being repeated annually. The government will tell you that today; we want to make sure we put effort to boost our economy through agriculture. We want to build our economy through production but you realise that, that is what is going to be repeated the next year when they are reading the next budget, because the last one they did, did not taxi, talk less of flying.
Otherwise, they will be able to assess and appraise performance of the last one so that they can now say the in next one we take it from where we stopped last year. But rather than saying we are picking it from where we stopped last year and continue from there, they rather say we want it to be a repetition.
So for us to have sustainability in the transport sector, we must be able to ensure that our mode of transportation aligns with international best practices. And we’re able to have a sustainable policy drive that will ensure that we have a kind of holistic transformation, where you’ll be able to put what we call target in place for every individual that is superintending over those agencies, departments and ministries. If we don’t give them targets, they will just operate litmus test.
But when they know there’s deterrent in place, that if you are not meeting targets, the best thing for you is either to resign, or you go to jail. But it’s more honourable that once you didn’t meet your first immediate target, you’ll be advised to resign. So it’s not going to be a business as usual, that this ministry is for so, so and so person that supported us during election, so that is a source of income for him. Who is your representative? You be the minister and be delivering to whoever has sponsored you? No. If we continue doing that, we’ll not be able to put the right peg in the right hole.
And if you observe for the past about eight years now, what we’ve been having in the transport sector has always been compensation, political compensation. And they will tell you, that person has been in business for long now, after he was once a commissioner for this. Being a commissioner for transport does not make you a technocrat. You must be wide pooled in knowledge before you can superintend over such a technical department or agency or ministry. If you don’t put the right people to superintend over it, definitely you start messing it up. Even if you have the workforce, the civil servant, the perm sec, and the rest of them, that have a clue or have wide pool knowledge, if you put somebody that is limited in knowledge to superintend over them, there’s little or nothing they will achieve. Because the objective of the person that superintends is different from their own objective and when they see the objective of whoever is superintending over them, they will just align with that person in order to get their own interests covered. So for us to have a sustainable system in place, we have to start by putting the right peg in the right hole. We have to set a target for whoever is going to superintend.
We must have a short-term target and we must set a long-term target. If you fail the short-term target, you’ll be advised to resign. But probably anybody manoeuvres, you appeal, you do this and do that, and they now give you the long-term target and you now fail, you go to jail.
There must be a deterrent in place. So that it is not anybody that is announced as a minister, people start jubilating, because they know the implication. Even people that want to come and influence you to cut corners, to do all kinds of unethical conduct, you’ll be able to tell them that look, there’s a deterrent in place. If I fail to achieve this, and you people, you are around me, trying to tell me to do otherwise, I’m the one that will face the music; that will suffer it. So if there is a deterrent factor in place, people will be able to sit tight. And if they don’t know their onions, they won’t even bother to take it. Then when you give a lot of people appointment to be ministers, they will say we are sorry, we are not interested. So people that know they can meet target will be the ones that will be saddled with that responsibility because there is a deterrent in place.
You have a target, you have a deterrent, and you are looking at the deterrent, you are looking at your target, and you know you can’t meet this target, you just resign immediately. So for us to be able to have a sustainable system in place, we must devise a policy through a national interest.
You see, when you want to design a policy, the first thing you do is to look at your national interest within the circumference of that particular sector. And that’s where most of the policy we’ve been designing has failed because we won’t be able to attend to our national interest.
You look at where the foreign actors can participate. You look at where the indigenous actors that we call local content can participate. So there won’t be conflict of interest because you know the nationalities and the local content interest have been protected. Once you’re able to do that, and the policy drive is able to address that, everybody will know their limits and investors will have confidence that once I take a loan or I muscle my resources together and invest, a government will not come tomorrow and truncate all my investment and rubbish everything.
And when there is no sustainable policy in place that will protect my investments, whatever I have to invest, I will divert into something that will yield income for me immediately because I know another government will come and say, look, I’m not interested in this, go and cancel this, or go and do this, go and do that. This is because most of the projects that we do in the transport sector, we don’t have what we call agreement under favourable terms. If there’s no agreement under favourable terms, it will be difficult for either indigenous or foreign investors to come and invest. Somebody invested hugely into anchorage safety and security and the minister came up and said who approved it? Something that has passed through legislation and the presidency has approved, but because the president has left, another president has come in place; he just jettisoned it and cancelled it. And the person has put in a lot of resources into it. Do you think the foreign investors looking at such a kind of unorganised system will come and put his investment in such an environment where there’s no consistency in policy? So for us to have a sustainable system in place, we must have an understanding with the state actors, which are more of the civil servants and the public that look, if we’re investing, what guarantees safety and security of our investments? I won’t invest my future in an environment where government will come tomorrow and say, look that is the agreement with the last government because government should be continuum.
I’m not a politician, what concerns me with what the past government has done. I’m a business person, I’ve invested my future in this investment, so why must you come and truncate it at no fault of mine?
And that’s why when the President goes globetrotting everywhere around the world, the investor will just look at him and smile because of the past records and experiences of other investors that have gotten their finger burnt.
In other words, you’re lamenting about policy somersaults in government?
Yes, policy somersaults it has been a problem. I need consistency in policy because today, a government will just wake up and say, we are removing tariff on so-and-so, and it takes effect, or we are changing tariff, and it takes effect, it will backdate it. You destroy my projection. How can you bring a policy today and you backdate it? You’re not even giving me room for me to strategically position myself to absorb it and I know what’s going to be the effect, whether I’ll continue investing or not. And these are the major problems that have not been able to allow us to have sustainable system in place.
Do you think our government is putting adequate measures in place to address the challenge of Carbon Emission, especially in the transport sector where we witness a lot of emissions?
When you are talking about carbon emission, it is a global issue and a lot of measures are being put in place because whether we like it or not, depletion of the ozone layer is real and you will observe this year the snow in Europe was going out of hand.
They’ve never had it this bad for a very long time. And a lot of natural disaster that is happening now is as a result of the depletion in the ozone layer. So every government must begin to look at what measures need to be put in place.
And it’s not just that it’s affecting Nigeria, it’s affecting global neighborhood, so we must begin to look at how we ensure that we also encourage our neighbours within the same zones or region or continent to have alternative to emission of carbon. So we can begin to look at employing electrical vehicles. What are the challenges of electrical vehicles? What are the challenges of CNG? This is because we cannot just introduce a system that you are not looking at the merits and demerits. We have had cases of some these CNG gases exploding, not only in Nigeria but even in other parts of the world. Although the government has come up to say some of those CNG cylinders are fake and this and that.
How do you put measure in place that it will be affordable so that people do not end up buying the fake one because if it’s capital intensive what’s the essence. If you want to put a measure that will address a global challenge you must be able to see how we can get it at a reasonable cost that will guarantee safety and security in place. Otherwise you can’t force it but you can only encourage people through measures and incentives that will save them from spending so much money as well as secure their lives and property.
So the government must begin to look at what are the measures we can use in transport system to reduce the emission of carbon and ensure that the depletion is also secure within our confines and in the transport sector – airline, sea, rail as well as motorway.
The National Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) was licensed to conduct holistic accident investigation but NIMASA is in disagreement with them, what do you have to say about this?
You see, what we have in Nigeria, and it’s very, very sad; we have what you call a group of consultants. Being a consultant simply means that you’ve read widely in a particular system, or you’ve understood a particular system theoretically.
But when you are talking about technocrats, you’ve not only read widely or studied widely, but you have a wide pool of practical experience. So for you to be a technocrat, you must have post-working experience as well as post-qualification experience for you to be an authority to understand or to comprehend policy drive and the impact of policies in every sector.
The people we showcase more often are people that are consultants. A majority of them have been saddled with superintending over most of these sensitive departments and sectors. About four or five years ago, in the wisdom of the government, they decided to migrate to NISB, they were called the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) initially because they are limited to aviation.
But in the wisdom of the government, they decided to say, look, we don’t want you to cover aviation alone again. We want you to cover the holistic transport accidents; the railways, the ocean, the air, the road, name it. They are saddled with a wider responsibility but because we are not organised and there’s conflicts in the Acts that set up most of these agencies, it has not been repealed and amended, so you continue having the same conflict of interest. As we speak today, NAFDAC and SON organisations are still having conflicts, because it has not been streamlined.
Just recently, the National Assembly is talking about the National Transport Commission (NTC). They want to convert the Shippers Council to the National Transport Commission. To me, it’s nonsensical, it makes no sense. The Shippers’ Council role is not the same thing as the Transport Commission. They are two different bodies. There’s no way you can integrate them. The essence will be defeated. Shippers Council is to promote and encourage shippers to have a level playing field and to protect their interests within the transport sector. That’s the role of the Shippers Council. It’s a Council organised for shippers. How can you migrate them from the Shippers Council to now superintend over the holistic transport system? Are they going to be defending the shippers or defending the transport system? But the conflict has always been within the shippers and the transport sector. Maybe there’s an increase in tariff or there’s an increase in charges or there’s a levy that is affecting shipment of goods. That is their role; to mediate between the shippers and transport actors.
Now you want them to migrate from being the council that protects the interests of shippers to now be the council that regulates the transport sector. It won’t happen because number one is either they compromise the interests of the shippers or they compromise the interests of the transport system for one of them to have balance. It has always been a conflict between the two. So in a situation where you are now saddled with that transport system, how do you protect? Because of the transport system you are saddled with, you have already seen that, oh, they need to maximise their profit for them to remain in business and you don’t want them to see you as the one frustrating them from yielding their income. Whatever they present to you, you take it hook, line and sinker because you have to also protect them as their regulator. The same time, you want to protect the shippers so that whatever they want to carry will come at a reasonable cost. There’ll be conflict of interest. Those that are agitating for it, I don’t think they understand the implication.
And do know one funny thing with most of these laws, when they are coming out, you will never see the technocrat coming to discuss or debate at the Assembly. They select people that will support it. They have a way of doing it. They select people that’ll say, yes, we agree, it is the best thing that has ever happened or is the best thing that is going to happen or is the best thing that will happen. They will always align. I remember when SEMA Law was to be passed. I was lucky to represent my association at the Assembly. When it was my turn to talk, immediately I picked up the microphone and I started addressing; the Customs officials were there, all the hierarchy of Customs were there and I started talking and the members of the Assembly were applauding me.
And because of my presentation at the Assembly, they have to say, we have to start looking into this and this and that. Do you know the next one they did? They didn’t invite me. They didn’t allow me to participate. The only thing we heard was to say they transmitted it to the federal government to sign. Because some of us, we don’t need anything from all these government agencies other than for them to do the right thing but some of us will need them to influence one thing or the other for us. So people that know that they need the customs to influence something for them whatever the customs want they will promote it.
And that is a problem we’re having. As we speak today, I doubt if we have any freight forwarding association that is bold enough to engage any government agency. I doubt it. You know, we have Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), we have the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), and others, hardly can we see any one of them that can engage any government agency constructively and say the truth to their face because some of them have interests. It might not be all of them, but probably the people that superintend over those associations, some of them have interests.
What they mostly do is to present challenges through press releases; we are talking about press releases. It is not the issue. The issue is when you push out a memo directly to the agency, not to the media. Directly to the agency in a constructive manner that will address the major challenge. Press release is just an advertisement. When you pay a visit to any of those agencies and you’re able to tell them the truth; that is when you will be relevant.
I served as the chairman of NAGAFF at the airport for eight good years. I represented all the freight forwarders in Nigeria in anything the federal government wanted to do. When they were building Kwara Airport, I was the one representing them, when we are to build Imo State Cargo Airport I was the one that represented all the freight forwarders in Nigeria and when we were to build Akanu Ibiam Cargo Airport, I was the one that represented the freight forwarders. During Yar’adua, when they proposed federal road reform, when they wanted to start building, I was the one that represented them. I was the chairman of the committee that stopped the scrapping of FERMA and Federal Road Safety under Yar’dua.
The issue is that number one; I’ve not compromised my integrity. You see, the only thing that people don’t understand is that if a leader compromises his integrity, he has compromised the interest of the association.
So you must ensure your integrity is intact for you to propel that association to greater heights. When people are dangling money before you now and you ignore it and say, no, I have to do the right thing. When you avoid doing a bad job that they can use against you anywhere, you know you’ll make money there, but you care less about the money.
You say, look, I have to do the right thing. When you refuse to collect bribes, you are building your integrity. And that was what I did for 12 good years. Nobody will ever say that Musa has collected bribes or anything relating to that.