BusinessDay 22 Aug 2018

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BUSINESS DAY Opinion BELL IHUA Dr. Bell Ihua is a public opinion polling expert and Chief Executive Officer at NOIPolls. He writes from Abuja. It was Falz the bahd guy who recently called out critics for “shooting down the messenger and missing the message”, as he responded to the backlash on his “This is Nigeria” video. Perhaps, this is new territory for Falz, but not so for social researchers and public opinion pollsters. We are often criticized for the results and findings of our polls; more so, by people who have neither read the research report nor understand the methodology adopted in conducting the poll, survey or research study. The rise or fall of any piece of research or public opinion poll lies in its methodology. In other words, what determines whether anyone should give a hoot about the findings of a poll or what confers credibility on any piece of research are NEWS YOU CAN TRUST I WEDNESDAY 22 AUGUST 2018 Who is scared of public opinion polls? in its ability to answer some questions – how was the poll conducted? How was primary data collected? How were the questions worded? How representative is the data? What’s the sample size of the poll? And what’s the margin of error, amongst other questions. Public opinion polls are an essential part of the politics, democracy, markets and social life in developed societies. From political predictions and approval ratings, to titles of Hollywood movies and song-of-the-week picks, polls are tools used to measure and gauge public opinion on issues affecting the society. Let’s take a step backward to define “public opinion”; it simply refers to the mind, thought and expression of the general population on a particular issue or subject matter. Is public opinion polling new? Certainly not, polling isn’t new. It was Jacques Necker, French statesman and Finance Minister under King Louis XVI, who in the 18th century, first emphasized the importance of L’opinion publique, as he advocated for the publishing of government accounts and budgets in order to boost public confidence in the years preceding the French Revolution. However, public opinion polling was popularized in America. It was George Gallup, founder of the renowned Gallup Poll and father of public opinion polling, who in the 1930s concluded that there was no difference between polling on toothpaste and politics. In recent times too, pollsters like Stanley Greenberg, have been hailed as the father of modern polling techniques and described as a man who doesn’t just have a finger on the people’s pulse, but has an IV injected into it. How useful are polls? For governance to be effective, it must be inclusive and participatory. Opinion polling is significant tool that can enhance inclusiveness and participation in governance. In the United States for instance, polling has become an entrenched part of democracy, as the need to understand what the public think is considered to be at the heart of governance. This disposition was aptly captured by Abraham Lincoln, who was quoted to have said “what I want to get done is what the people desire to have done, and the question for me is how to find that out exactly.” President Franklin When we say a poll is “scientific”, it simply means the poll has been conducted through a set of rigorous processes and quality control mechanism to produce certain results; and that those processes can be replicated to produce about the same result, with some level of confidence and percentage of replicability Roosevelt relied on pollsters like Emil Hurja and Princeton professor Hadley Cantrill to shape strategies and public policy; same with President JF Kennedy. Likewise, President Ronald Reagan’s White House relied on polling support from Dr. Richard Wirthlin; while Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush relied heavily on the polling gurus like Jeremy Rosner, Justin Wallin and Al Quinlan. Apart from the United States, there’s evidence to suggest that several global leaders and members of parliament (MPs) have in the recent decades relied on opinion research to help shape public policyand reforms in their countries–from Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Julia Gillard, to Presidents Nelson Mandela, Mikheil Saakashvili, and Viktor Yushchenkoto mention a few. Conducting scientific polls Beyond media vox-pop and adhoc straw polls, which involve people responding to a set of questions without reference to how respondents are selected; there are certain indicators that can make a poll, survey or research study scientific. When we say a poll is “scientific”, it simply means the poll has been conducted through a set of rigorous processes and quality control mechanism to produce certain results; and that those processes can be replicated to produce about the same result, with some level of confidence C002D5556 and percentage of replicability. Several terminologies can be associated with polling, such as: Research population, Sampling technique, Sample size, Fielding and data collection, CAPI and PAPI, Questionnaire design, Question wording, margin of error, randomization and stratification amongst others. These would normally make up a full module in a survey research course, or an article for another day. My intention isn’t to make readers polling experts from this one article; but to help demystify the myth often associated with public opinion polls in Nigeria, and appreciate what makes good versus bad polls. Consequently, I would like to touch on a few of those terminologies that I consider fundamental to public opinion polling. Research population All polls are based on samples drawn from larger populations.The purpose of every opinion poll is to attempt to use a sample to make inferences or form conclusions on the larger population. With a population of between 180 and 200 million Nigerians, is it possible to access the entire population Continues on page 36 Remaking the university tradition: The town and gown model TUNJI OLAOPA, PHD Olaopa is Professor of Public Administration, Lead City University, Ibadan tolaopa2003@gmail.com tolaopa@isgpp.com.ng The university is one of the most fundamental of all institutions that a state can leverage as the turning point for its developmental efforts. In fact, the university is a key factor in the emergence of any developmental state worthy of its onions. This is not only because universities represent the human capital development citadel that defines the contribution of higher education to national development, but essentially also because universities are the interface any nation has to the emerging knowledge society. Permit me to outline two quotes that speak to my reflection about university tradition. The first quote is from Benjamin Disraeli, the former British prime minister: “A University should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.” Let us call this the idealist understanding of the university as a place of sublime thought where professors and students contemplate the forms of good, of the beautiful and the sublime. This is an institution that assists humans to cultivate noble and cultured conduct and attitude that goes into the making of an urbane intellectual. This was the original design derived from Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum; a place where people go to contemplate the universe and human existence. However, and like other human institutions, the university has also been subjected to several transformations arising from both the benign and tumultuous social changes that the human societies and political communities have witnessed over the centuries. Universities have been transformed from the con- It is a measure of arrogance that makes a university thinks that it has sufficient capacity to impose its thoughts and paradigms on the society without a corresponding collaboration with that society. The town and gown initiative ensures that the university draws on professional and scholarly elements to buttress its relevance towards the society templative Ivory Towers of Plato, Aristotle and the medieval period, to modern institutions responding to global capitalism and the consumerist culture.The university, in other words, has now been brought into serious conversation with its multiple and often complex environments. This is how Alice Waters graphically depicts the siting of a particular university: “I really appreciate the many neighbourhoods of Berkeley. There is still the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. And it has the University of California, which is the greatest gift, to my mind, to be close to it. It keeps the place alive.” In this instance, the University of California is brought into constant discourse with its neighbourhood, in the same way that most other universities sited within the cities are compelled to dialogue with them. The neighbourhood or town imperative becomes all the more accentuated when we also factor into the situation the context of development for any nation. The university in Nigeria is conditioned by the crisis of development in Africa. It is within this context of institutional reform to regenerate structures of development that I have situated myself as an administrative scholars and reform advocate. It has been obvious to me for a long time that higher education and the university specifically, have fundamental role to play in the reform architecture of the Nigerian state. It therefore seemed the right aspiration for me to desire to return to the university at some point in my career as a public servant. That point came in 2015 when I had to retire from the civil service. Retirement did not come as a surprise as I had been nursing the idea of setting up a structure within which administrative, intellectual and professional ideas about institutional reforms could have a space for synergy. When the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP) came into existence, it contained the germ of an idea that seems to me to be similar to what Alice Waters meant when she narrated the geographical location of the University of California. ISGPP is conceived to be a center where town and gown meets, engages and collaborates on the reform issues that will enable the Nigerian state to perform better than it is presently doing for the sake of democratic governance and development. This town and gown tradition came to me easily. It is one of the most enduring lessons I learnt from the bureaucratic leadership acumen of Chief Simeon Adebo, and the administrative achievements of the old Western Region as an administrator/scholar. It was immediately obvious to Adebo that if he must succeed as the head of the civil service under the political astuteness of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, he needed more than the input of public servants in the translation of policies into concrete infrastructures that benefit the people. So, he leveraged the contiguous presence of Continues on page 36 Published by BusinessDAY Media Ltd., The Brook, 6 Point Road, GRA, Apapa, Lagos. Ghana Office: Business Day Ghana Ltd; ABC Junction, near Guinness Ghana Limited, Achimota – Accra, Ghana. Tel: +233243226596: email: mail@businessdayonline.com Advert Hotline: 08034743892. Subscriptions 01-2950687, 07045792677. Newsroom: 08169609331 Editor: Anthony Osae-Brown. All correspondence to BusinessDAY Media Ltd., Box 1002, Festac Lagos. ISSN 1595 - 8590.
WEST AFRICA ENERGY intelligence oil gas power Wednesday 22 August 2018 C002D5556 BUSINESS DAY POLICY Saudi Aramco’s strategic positioning holds lessons for NNPC Page 5 finance people appointments L-R: Layi Fatona, managing director, ND Western; Austin Avuru, MD/CEO, Seplat, Godswin Ihetu, out-going chairman, Petroleum Club and Tunde Afolabi, incoming chairman, Petroleum Club at the annual general meeting of the club in Lagos recently. Debrief When will Nigeria’s unsold Libyan crude still attracting hefty freight premiums Page 6 OPEC weekly basket price DAY PRICE 17/8/18 70.36 10/8/18 71.88 3/8/18 72.61 27/7/18 72.81 20/7/18 71.06 Source: OPEC crude head for China? FRANK UZUEGBUNAM China’s biggest oil suppliers are the Middle East, Russia and West Africa but the United States has also become an important global supplier since it opened up its market for exports in 2016. Right now, Chinese oil importers are shying away from buying US crude as they fear Beijing might soon exclude the commodity from its tariff list in a trade dispute between the two countries. Not a single tanker has loaded crude oil from the United States bound for China since the start of August, Thomson Reuters Eikon ship tracking data showed, compared with about 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) in June and July. It takes an average of 6 months for crude imports from US to arrive China so the impact of the Asian country’s stoppage of oil imports from Trump’s country may not be reflecting in the market fundamentals now. Otherwise, there should be some impact on Nigeria’s loading programme now. Current loading programmes for Nigeria’s largest streams show an overhang of some 30 cargoes persisted from an originally planned 59 cargoes. Nigerian differentials has fallen enough to whittle down an overhang of unsold cargoes. Forcados and Bonny Light were offered at the same levels around $1.30 above dated Brent and $1.10 - 1.20 a barrel, October loading programmes for Bonny Light, Qua Iboe and Forcados show Qua Iboe will be down sharply at 183,000 bpd down from 253,000 bpd in September. Bonny Light crude exports were set at 153,226 barrels per day (bpd) for October on five cargoes, in line with September. Exports of Forcados crude oil set at 208,161 bpd for October on nine cargoes of different sizes, down slightly from September. The Bonga schedule has six cargoes for October. Can China snap these Nigeria’s crude overhang to replace US oil? As the face-off with US intensifies, China has been turning to the Middle East, West Africa and Latin America, according to shipping data and traders but how much of that extra demand is coming to Nigeria cannot be determined at this point. Last year, China imported an average of 1.48 million barrels a day from West Africa mainly from Angola and Nigeria.
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BusinessDay 22 Aug 2018

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