Tag Archives: Africa

Politics, Naija, issues

Reforming Nigeria’s Asset Privatization Approach

I came across a post on X recently that sent me back to the troubled history of Nigeria’s privatization programme.

It reminded me of the 2003 NITEL-Pentascope scandal. NITEL, Nigeria’s state-owned telecommunications company, was not just another public enterprise. It was responsible for critical national infrastructure, including Nigeria’s access to the SAT-3 undersea cable, a major artery for international connectivity.

Yet NITEL was handed over to Pentascope, a Dutch firm that was barely a year old, reportedly had only eight employees, including the janitor, and had no serious experience managing a major telecommunications company.

Within a year, NITEL moved from a ₦15 billion profit to a ₦19 billion loss. More than 250,000 homes reportedly lost their phone lines. It was not a complex failure. It was a failure hiding in plain sight.

For me, Pentascope is not just a bad chapter in our telecoms history. It is the perfect lens through which to examine many of Nigeria’s privatization heartbreaks: ALSCON, Ajaokuta, Delta Steel, and the 2013 power sector unbundling.

In that same X thread, someone argued that Nigerians should simply “move on” from these failures. It reads like an innocuous statement from a frustrated citizen, but never a good idea. Moving on without understanding what went wrong is not closure. It is willfully inflicted amnesia, acting mature. Nations that forget their policy failures do not heal from them. They repeat them, and usually at a higher cost.

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Public Policy and the Critical Factors of Time, Skills, Resources, and People (2)

Skills – The Engine of Policy Execution

Skills are the lifeblood of effective policy implementation. Public policy is about ideas translated into action, and the competence of the individuals and institutions involved determines whether those ideas thrive or flounder. While the vision of a policy may be grand, without the right skills to design, execute, and adapt it, even the best-intentioned efforts will fall flat. Conversely, skilled policymakers bring so much wisdom into how governments deliver on their mandate and promises.

In public policy, skills operate on multiple levels. Policymakers require analytical skills to craft sound policies, negotiation skills to build consensus, and foresight to anticipate challenges. On the other hand, the bureaucrats and technocrats who implement these policies need the technical know-how to translate concepts into actionable programs. Then there are the citizens, whose awareness and participatory skills can significantly influence a policy’s reception and success.

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Public Policy and the critical factors of time, skills, resources, and people

Recently, I have been meditating on the general concepts of Time, Skills, Resources, and People and how they interplay to produce desired outcomes. Initially, these thoughts were rooted in private considerations—how best to manipulate these factors for beneficial results. But, as is often the case, my reflections wandered to a familiar domain: public policy.

Having invested the last 15 years of my life working in, studying, learning within, and partnering in the area of government affairs and public policy, I can’t help but view concepts through this lens. It’s second nature for me to contextualize almost anything within the framework of public policy, whether or not they are explicitly connected. Interestingly, these four factors—Time, Skills, Resources, and People—are implied in almost every aspect of policy, yet they are rarely purposefully factored in during the pursuit of policy goals.

At a fundamental level, I believe exploring these four factors individually and applying them to public policy will be incredibly useful for anyone in this field—whether you work directly in public policy, study it academically, or intersect with it in a cross-functional capacity.

Also, since recent research suggests that the adult attention span now averages 8.25 seconds, I’ll present this exploration as a four-part series. My hope is that this structure will not only respect your time but also encourage deeper thought and engagement with each concept.

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