BusinessDay 31 Oct 2017

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Tuesday 31 October 2017 24 BUSINESS DAY C002D5556 THE BIG HEART DIGEST In association with Delta State Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Developement Agency (DEMSMA) Diversification: Okowa, top aides, want Deltans to take to agric option MERCY ENOCH Introduction: Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State seems deep in belief that agriculture, specially in the area of commercial agric venture, is the way to go in the new quest for diversification of the economy. He has particularly said that to boost farming, there must be processing companies to buy up the produce and attract more youths into farming. Whenever opportunity presents itself, the commissioners in the state would take their leader’s agric message further; how to make agric the mainstay of the state economy beyond oil. The Okowa-led administration has embarked on a lot of programmes (both those he initiated and those adopted from Fg schemes) to achieve this lofty dream. Thus, thousands of Deltans including the youths are keying into the programmes to better their lives. Some of the aides that the Big Heart Digest ran into in recent occasions talking about agric as the new venture avenue include the Commissioner for Information, Patrick Ukah; Commissioner of Ministry of Agriculture, Austin Chikezie; and the Executive Secretary, Delta State Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (DEMSMA). Commissioner of Information: Patrick Ukah Patrick Ukah, during an inspection of tomato harvest day of a company at the premises of the Delta Urban Water Board, along Okpanam Road, Asaba was shocked to find what some Deltans have done with the product. A tomato farmer, Alex Okunbor, CEO of PeaceAlex Governor Okowa Patrick Ukah for Information Enterprises, had revealed that the hybrid tomato which is from India, takes just 75 days to nurse, transplant and harvest, and takes 19 days before it goes bad. Okunbor had displayed a bucket-full of the tomatoes and handed it over as sample to the top government officials that were present. Impressed by the discovery on the hybrid tomato, Ukah said though he is a public servant, he has been encouraged to go into farming of tomatoes. He therefore urged fellow Deltans to go into farming, Austin Chikezie Shimite Belo of DEMSMA especially tomato cultivation. The land to farm on is not a problem because land is available, said Ukah. He reiterated the state government’s determination to partner with the private sector to develop the agricultural potentials of the state. According to him, the state government has taken agriculture as top priority to diversify the economy of the state. Commissioner of Agric, Austin Chikezie Contributing, Austin Chikezie said the state government would partner with Okunbor to share in his wealth of experience in tomato cultivation. He stressed that it was a sure way of empowering the youths. He said that the company would help in training staff of his ministry in the best process of hybrid tomato farming. At another occasion, Chikezie urged youths to key into the SMART agenda of the state government by going into fish farming to boost their income and improve on their standard of living. The state government had segmented the CBn Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) into public and private sectors. He said that the state government in its determination to revive the agricultural sector has flagged-off the sale of fish in the CBN/ABP at Ugbisi, Udu Local Government Area of the state. “The production scheme had to be segmented to avoid glut in the supply of the commodity at harvest as the off-takers intend to process the harvested fish and brand it ‘Delta Fish”. On the private Anchor, 682 farmers were engaged across the state under the Mega Fish Farmers Multipurpose Cooperative Union which had eight off takers in the private window. He added that the first phase would generate 2, 000 Metric Ton of fish. Chairman of the Mega Farmers Union, Christopher Egwuyenga, explained that 682 farmers had turned out 2,046 tons which was equivalent to 046.000kg of fish, saying that over 200 workers both skilled and unskilled have been generated in line with the SMART agenda of the State Government. Executive Secretary of the DEMSMA, Shimite Bello Shimite Belo says more people have taken to farming under the Okowa administration. Hear her: “There is a lot more action in farming especially in the area of cassava. Stems are available for people to go and farm with Vitamin A. Even people that you never have seen in the farm are going there to see that some work is done “As you can see, we now have to do with finding market outlets for products. So, at the end of Okowa’s tenure, we will see production in cassava, especially cassava to starch and garri, plantain, improved processing of oil, and in rice. These are the things I know Okowa would leave behind as legacy because that’s where he is putting his money in. “We have people growing a lot of things but where a lot of money we have given out is going to. We give out money for rice threshing equipment etc. Sometimes, we have not given out micro-credit; we have given out small loans up to N23 million for people in processing. Since more people are now farming, we now need to have processing equipment. So, people will see rice, garri revolution in Okowa’s tenure. “I’m calling on Deltans to go into the value-chain of agriculture, not just agriculture. There is packaging, branding, lebelling, processing, production, marketing, negotiating, etc. Some, you would not see soil and insect face to face but you’re also needed because now we have to bag our own rice because we are not importing. So, we have to go into designing, licensing and tagging. So while I’m joining in saying go back to agriculture, I’m not joining everybody to say go onto to the farm, because there are some places in agriculture that people are not touching in the state and I just want them to explore the value-chain not just production and then processing. “As for my agency, as far as we have enough funds, we will do the best we can. They said that we are coming out of recession. We believe that that is the case. But we don’t have money like before. With the little we have, we will support the people we can support. We will do the best we can as long as our money can afford”. Editorial coordinator’s corner: Utilise oil revenue for diversification = Okowa IGNATIUS CHUKWU Most persons are talking about diversification but if they are told what it takes to diversify a distressed economy, they would flee. It would either take heavy and steady borrowing over a period of at least 10 years (ensuring that every kobo is invested) or to dedicate a section of the nation’s income to steady investment in the new agreed sector, such as agric. This second option could be immediately painful. Most Nigerians are used to good life, and this good life is sponsored by oil. Gov Ifeanyi Okowa has voted for the second. He wants Nigeria to put aside crude oil revenues to fund agric over a period of time. By this, Nigerians would have to tight their belts for about 10 years, but the result would shock the world. Speaking at a dinner he hosted for the Presidential Economic Diversification Initiative Team Visiting the state, Governor Okowa said that the fall in oil price was a wake-up call to the leaders to spend the dwindling oil revenue on the diversification of the national economy so as to provide employment for the youths of the country. He said; “I wish to appreciate the Minister For Niger Delta and leader of the team for bringing the team to Delta State. Diversification of our economy is the biggest challenges facing our nation. For a long time we prided ourselves on our oil economy, but we need to diversify as the oil economy was not inclusive, it did not provide the much-needed employment for all. Recession with attendant fall in oil price in the last three years is a wake up call that we need to sit back and look into ways to spend the oil money to diversify the economy. We need to look at ways to provide employment opportunity for our youths. We are presently on the right path to fix our economy through diversification especially in agro-business”. In this, he says peace is first ingredient. He also wants attitudinal change among the youths.
Tuesday 31 October 2017 BDTECH In association with BUSINESS DAY 25 ‘Nigerian government needs to draw up realistic cyber security policies’ The latest cyber security global threat index released by Check Point software technologies limited shows a slight improvement in Nigeria’s cyber security ranking. In this interview, Rommy Okonkwo, Country Manager Check Point Software Limited speaks to Jumoke Akiyode Lawanson about the importance of cyber security in organisations and government institutions. He also proffers possible solutions to further secure Nigeria’s cyber space from threats and compromise. Excepts. Checkpoint recently released its latest cyber security threat index, what is this all about and where does Nigeria stand in this index? The threat index ranks Nigeria at 13th position, which shows improvement from August to September 2017, dropping four places from its former 16th position on the global ranking. If you look at the index, you will realise that the top three most wanted malware in Nigeria today are rooted; which is the large scale malvetting used to deliver various malicious websites such as payloads which is synonymous to accounting firms. They are scams, hardware, exploit kits and ransomware. The second one is ramnit and the third is lucky. Checkpoint is dealing with these by creating solutions to secure your systems from all these malwares and I believe that this is likely contributory to Nigeria’s improvement in the global threat index ranking. Checkpoint is a cyber security company that protects over 100,000 organisations across the world, what sector do most of your clients come form and which organisations are mostly affected by security breaches online? Checkpoint is actually not limited to the number of customers that it currently provides security services to, but as for today, virtually all the banks are being covered by checkpoint solutions. Five years ago, we sold to the financial services sector in Nigeria secure solutions for data protection and we have presence in the financial services sector. However, we also provide services to telecommunications service providers, manufacturing services, oil and gas industry, insurance companies and a few Fintech companies and largely to the public sector government, which is actually our key focus today. Financial institutions in Nigeria are cyber security conscious and have taken various steps to secure data; however, can you say the same for government organisations in the country? How safe are citizen’s data collected by government agencies? Any government that is not aware that the world has gone beyond the physical and is now digital and does not have a plan in place as to how it will protect its key infrastructure including its defense, ports, electricity and other key revenue generating streams is not preparing for the future. I am not sure that Nigeria is exactly where it should be as a country Rommy Okonkwo, Country Manager, Check Point Software Limited. but I know that there are plans in place, the awareness for security keeps growing and that is the first step. We keep hearing of government agencies bracing up to cyber security challenges and they try to put things in place to make sure that the environment is protected because this is the only way the government agencies, ministries and parastatals can function effectively. You will agree with me that when an organisation is down, the cost of bringing it back up is very high and the down time negatively impacts the business which also impacts the revenue. Would you suggest that security processes be put in place first before the enforcing the need for biometric data such as those collected for BVN, SIM card registration, PVC, National driver’s license etc which are yet to be harmonized and may not be secure? We need to first draw up what the security policies should be for individuals and then for government and agencies. Government needs to first decide what our security policies should be across all board; these processes for security should be readily available before we can start thinking of how to implement them. For instance, you work in an organisation, you may not be able to appreciate what security your organisation has put in place if you don’t understand what the organisation’s security policies are. You should be able to know that certain documents should not be within the reach of certain people; likewise, the government should draw out its security policies of all its sectors and institutions before going ahead to implement data collection. The second thing is infrastructure. You cannot talk of a functional security without talking about the infrastructure which it sits on top of. Have the Nigerian government put the necessary infrastructure in place today? Regardless of this, we can say that the different ministries are putting in a lot of effort to make sure that they are productive by putting in the right security but as far as I am concerned, I think there is still a lot of work to be done with regard to cyber security across all the government agencies Ḋo you think that the federal government would be more active in securing Nigeria’s cyber space when our critical national infrastructure such as electricity is fully digitized? You and I know that the world is a global village and that is basically why we can sit in Nigeria today and do an online placement in the United States of America, unlike before when you had to fly there to be physically present. A few years ago, when predictions where made about how connected the world would become, many of us though it was a joke but look at where we stand today. Everybody talks about internet of things (IoT) and this is where the world is going today. Everything is virtually going to be done through the internet because what drives this online craze is the internet. So with all that I am saying now, the Nigerian government would only shooting itself on the foot if it chooses to ignore what is going on in the world. We need focus. If it is the focus of the government to be efficient in her decision making and productive in her dealings across all boards, then the government must make sure that her key infrastructures are connected in real time and fully digitized because this is what the west has done many years ago. We cannot successfully trade internationally if we are not connected in real time and therefore, productivity and efficiency is being affected. What significant changes are checkpoint cyber security solutions making in Nigeria’s financial services sector since it was introduced five years ago? What we have done over the years is to create awareness and let the industry be aware of what is happening. Some of the things that we are talking about today are things that have been in existence for a couple of years back in the West. Five years ago, the awareness for cyber security was very low, but what we did by coming in was to prepare the ground for what we have seen from global trends. Although the banks will never give figures as to how much they have lost as a result of a cyber attack so as not to scare their customers. So some of them, even when their systems have been breached or compromised, they will not come out publicly declare what they have lost. However, I know that banks get compromised and hacked repeatedly, almost on a daily basis. What they do is to be reactive; some of them don’t act until they are affected, but that should not be the mindset of someone who wants to be efficient and productive in his dealings. What we preach today is pro-activitybe there before anybody and put your house in order before the cyber criminals get to your place. The key impact of our solutions is that we have drastically reduced the rampant malware across most of these institutions. Our solution basically makes sure that the malware in most cases are completely eliminated. On a scale of one to 10, I would say our solutions stand at eight. What are the challenges faced in pushing cyber security solutions to enterprises and government agencies in Nigeria and Africa as a whole? One of our biggest problems is awareness. Security awareness and consciousness in Africa is not where we want it to be. What I have also seen over the years as a challenge is trust. Security is not like a server or a physical object, so when you mention it to the management, they cannot actually see what you’re charging them for. So some people find it difficult to buy the idea of investing in security. Another major challenge in Nigeria is the non-enforcement of the cybercrime act. There have been no successful conviction of cyber criminals and some have even argued that the punishment which is often a fine is not grave enough. The question some businesses have asked is; ‘we have run this business for so long and nothing happened, how come you are telling us now that we have to spend this much to put our company in order’? But we have also had instances where people come to us and say that they need help with securing their digital space. Have you ever thought of how much you would lose if your company is hit by Ransomware attack? The whole world was shaken with the last Wannacry attack and the effect was felt worldwide. We are going to see more of that because the cyber criminals will keep innovating and it is only the people that are not ready that will fall victim. The government needs to take authority of security challenges. Do you think high cost is a major reason for low adoption of cyber security solutions in Nigeria? People who know the value of cyber security would go for it to save them the stress in the long run. The excuse of high cost can be explained as being penny wise and pound foolish because buying something that costs $100 and would last for 10 years is better than buying something for $5 when you know it would only last for six months. What drives organisations to invest in security is the value and the mindset of the people that of the people. Because the day you are breached, the integrity of your organisation is also at stake, apart from the amount of money, time and critical data lost. Has it been easy for checkpoint to play in Nigeria’s IT industry since it was established 5 years ago; especially since most organisations are already comfortable with purchasing older cyber security solutions? Checkpoint Nigeria understands the local market. You cannot know the American market more than Americans themselves, in the same way; you cannot know the Nigerian market more than Nigerians themselves. We know that there are bottlenecks in this industry, but if you are running a particular business it always helps to get someone indigenous, experienced and someone who has the ability to network. Honestly speaking, it has not been easy playing in this market but the essential thing is to continue to device strategic means to make sure that the business runs smoothly because the challenges will always be there.
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