PROFILE
- Asiwaju Adegbuyi grew up in Ibadan.
- His late father, Alhaji F.A Adegbuyi was a community leader, Babalaje.
- He had his secondary school education in Awe, Oyo State.
- He had his A’ Levels in Ijebu Ode School of Basic Studies
- Thereafter he proceeded to University of Lagos where he had his first degree in law.
- He went back to the same school for his masters; while in law school.
- Asiwaju Adegbuyi got married to Mrs. Bose Adegbuyi . Years down the line They have three lovely children.
- His first daughter is in the University of Warwick studying masters degree in law.
- His second born, a boy is a law student in the University of Essex,
- His last born is a foundation student in law in the university of Leeds.
INTRO
Asiwaju Bisi Adegbuyi, is the new Post Master General appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari. Till his appointment he is a private sector grounded practitioner. He is a lawyer by profession and an ICT investor with over 30 years of experience in the field. In the last Four months he has been drafted into public service with the mandate to revive NIPOST and use it to generate viable employments that will boost the nation’s economy among entrepreneurial Nigerians.
In this interview with selected ICT editors, the erudite Chief Execuitve of the public asset, reckons that with a new Nigeria Postal Service(NIPOST) under his watch, over 70 million youths will soon be gainfully employed, entrepreneurs across value chains will grow in profits and poverty will be a thing of the past with full integration of Digital Economy policy he seeks to implement in office, DAYO PAUL reports. Excerpt.
BODY
What really informed this NIPOST workshop and significantly what impact will the workshop have differently on Nigerians?
THE starting point is to look at how does a nation progress. Countries that have prospered have relied heavily on small and medium scale businesses as they are supposed to be protected by technology.
The essence of this workshop/seminar/ customer forum is to drive home the point that the world is moving to a transformation by deploying technology. And therefore the workshop which is a venture of the Nigeria Postal services is in a position to propel the technological advancement of Nigeria.
The Need is for us to encourage our Small and Medium scale businesses by giving them the necessary tools. What does technology has to do with NIPOST for instance with workshop? The truth of the matter is that the our world is changing, our competitors who are having a free-day due to the fact that for sometimes our institution has been unable to match them would now be repositioned, re-engineered and strengthened by subscribing to global best practices. What do I mean by that? There is digitilisation and there is globalization, all of these are anchored on the deployment of technology.
So if you don’t want to be left behind. If you want to be part of the team that is changing the money so you need to do what your competitors are doing infact you need to do more than them. And that is the need of this workshop. And it wouldn’t have come at a better time when Nigeria is having challenges with the economy having relied so much on oil. No that all that part is over. We need to put on out thinking cap, we need to use what God has given our people, the entrepreneurs, the young men and women out there in use.
There is this issue that I want Nigerian to know, the demographic architecture of Nigeria consists of 65% of the youths and approximately to put them at 70million people. The 70million people we are talking about don’t know whether NIPOST exist neither do they patronise NIPOST at-all. So the strategy we are going to deploy, and again for the fact that I am from the private sector background, is to see how we can drive these 70million people to the POST and offer them services. There are entrepreneurs out there who are in to various things. The first thing a business man/woman should do is to consider your cost. If you take the cost out of it, that would grow yourself and grow your company/profit.
Now, Tell me the National institution that has the reach, the network, the coverage, like NIPOST,,,, these are some of the things that we are going to do. We are not limited to the workshop. The workshop will be the engine room however we need to modernize what we do so that we can be competitive.
If you see the life on-hold on obsolete equipment ofcourse it would amount to somebody who is being asked to run against an Usain Bolt and is not putting on hi spike shoes of course he/she would be defeated. That is why it is important for us to deploy technology and then subscribe to Information Communication Technology (ICT) and then internet penetration. Digital Economy is the new way to go. It is the new way to make money.
Countries of the world that are having material resources are also engulfed with challenges. Take a look at Botswana and Angola. Botswana is at exponentially growing rate, though it has diamond but it has used its resources very well. But there are countries that don’t have mineral resources. What they do is knowledge economy, using brain, the endowment, the intelligence of their people. And that is what we should be doing here in Nigeria. And NIPOST is set to do just that by; (One) deploying technology, (TWO) Getting into the part of the exponentially growing E-commerce.
It is true that mails have declined, by what percentage? If mails have declined, parcels and packages have increased exponenetially, so, these are the issues that we are going to be addressing as we progress.
Question
In the area of quality, you were talking about patronizing made in Nigeria products,,,,How has NIPOST strived in this area and again to ensure that the quality of home grown products match up?
Again that is why we are saying technology as a tool to reposition Nigeria and even the workshop. if you think that we are going to be romantically and patriotically talking about made in Nigerian goods, we will be deceiving ourselves, because an average consumer or a customer or a buyer, is face with choices and if what you are offering is inferior or uncompetitive to what is available, he/she is going to go to where to find value for his/her money.
Don’t let us be esoteric about this made in Nigerian goods advocacy. We have to look at the fundamental. What are the fundamental? How cost effective are you? What kind of technology are you doing? If for instance you are suppose to patronize NIPOST for logistics and delivery, so that your cost can come down, but you were going to do it yourself, people doing that with NIPOST, would be far and ahead of you and therefore you are out of the business.
And that is why it is important that what we have we must leverage on it, the reach, and the network. We are not going to rely only on mails, Logistics, warehousing, real estate, warehousing, that is my first,,,,, I have been an employer for 30 years,,,, to include financial services and financial inclusion, it a whole lots of value chain. But as I have said, this is the first time we are going to get the Nigerian people to get use to what we are doing in NIPOST. So that that huge market, the energetic, brilliant entrepreneurially driven Nigerian youth would be found useful for NIPOST and the money they are making would be part of the money we also going to make from them.
Look the process service that are in the world today, apart from USPF, the biggest, the most profitable, the largest, some countries; Kenya, What’s the population of Kenya, It simply means if we get 60million Nigerian youths to patronize NIPOST, you offered them value, you give them what they really need to advance their businesses and services, we would make more, more and more money than people can ever imagined.
This, however, required strategic thinking. It required somebody from the private sector who has passion, who has clarity of thought on how to go about all these things. We are also going to look at the legislative framework. Let us not deceive ourselves, if we want to compete with our major competitors out there, if we want to be of the global best practices then we must do away with the beaucracy that we are confronted with.
However, as I have said in other places, it is going to be the interaction, what a called the dialectical process of the forces of pieces that are meeting to produce synthesis to the state of equilibrium.
QUESTION
You talked about financial inclusion and I am glad NIPOST is coming up using technology to drive whatever they are doing,,, but my challenge is the issue of patronage. If NIPOST comes up with technology driven products, look at government for instance, how are you going to convince government to look into the way of patronizing NIPOST and her government agencies as well?
Government is already convinced by bringing for the very first time a Postmaster General from the private sector. They have seen the need for NIPOST to be ran as a business enterprise. So you don’t need to convince government, a government has been convinced. A government that is faced with dwindling oil revenue, a government that wants tackle all avenues of making money would have to look at NIPOST which is like a goldmine. However, there are obstacles we must clear-off the way, well, depending from where you are coming from, some people will see challenges and some will see obstacles and while others will see the unbelievable opportunities that are behind the formidable of obstacles and challenges. And that is the kind of person I am. i am strategically about it.
We have collaborations with all critical stakeholders. The Executives and the Legislature and it is going to be a kind of symbiotic relationship. Legislatures are elected to serve the people. If NIPOST is taking this position we can generate huge employment. When you generate huge employment, you generate huge money, the entrepreneurs are enhanced, they are giving the opportunity to reduce their cost, the economy would move and the value chain is very long and recession as we should all know is not a crime…
EMAIL CANNOT KILL THE POST,,,
People have experienced it in the past, what were the strategies put in place to get out of recession? These are some of the indices we are discussing to get Nigeria out of this recession using a critical national institution. Go and the book of Winnie, how POST OFFICE created America. America does not joke with their post office. The same thing when we were growing up, the first set of account I opened was with P and T in OYO.
Even in communication, the affectionate aspect of it, do not believe what people say that the emergence of the email will kill the post that is not true. It is largely exaggerated. They have taken 20% away from us and they have given us 50%. I said it earlier, that mail will decline but packages and parcels are growing exponentially, thee-commerce ecosystem is such that we need to deploy technology, back-end payment solutions and all of that, merchant aggregations, these are people that we are bringing on-board, proposals have been sent it and we are under studying them.
THE CASE OF A LAWYER WHO WAS NOT TALKING ABOUT REPOSITIONING OF POST OFFICE
There was a lawyer talking about national conference, he was not talking about how to restructure POST OFFICE so that we can deliver the goods to our people. Is it impossible to use the post to reduce poverty among our people? Is it impossible to use post to create wealth? Is it impossible to help our people who are particularly in the rural area,,, particularly because most of most of our locations in the rural areas. There is a nexus and a connecting link between the people and he post.
QUESTION
In terms of job creation, a well positioned NIPOST can create as many jobs as how many can you give us an idea?
I am not an economist. The truth of the matter is that there is the NIPOST of the past and the new NIPOST> we are laying a foundation. As you know NIPOST is a microcosm of Nigeria. The story of nIPOST is the story of Nigeria. When President Muhammadu Buhari came two years ago but people have been complaining now, buy it is very easy to do the super structure, but the real foundation is always difficult.
I have been a real estate lawyer for so many years and I know that when you are doing the foundation nobody would see what you are doing but when you are done with the foundation and you begin to put the building blocks, you will begin to see the hazard and all of that, it is t that level we are laying the foundation.
But, haven told you that we are going to work with the Nigerian youths about 70millions of them, we are going to help our people in the rural areas, farmers, artisands, new method of planting, new method of doing things, where can you export your goods to, they don’t know but we do because we belong to the Universal Postal Union (USPS) in 192 countries.
That is an international gate way, for people to know where you are, for you to people to know where the people are, the people that will need your goods, if you are doing that, but the multiplier effect of that on employment, I am not an economist but its logical that would create not to talk of financial inclusion and financial services, that is huge.
We are talking about selling our stamps. I do not talk about stamp duties. We are talking about selling out stamps, affixing it, address it, you denote it manually and then we also have the capacity to deploy E-stamps. You would never imagine the number of young men and women that would become agencies selling our stamps when we begin the enforcement of the Section 89 of the Stamp Duties Act. We are working underground. You people should just wait for a new NIPOST, a NIPOST that will be alive to its responsibility, a NIPOST that will be market friendly, a NIPOST that will be customer friendly, a NIPOST that will be not rely on just bake and mortal mail movement and all of that, but a NIPOST that will go into other areas I have mentioned in the course of this interview.
QUESTION
You are coming from a private sector background with a lot of Goodness initiatives, I want to find out from you sir, few months into your post now, now that you have spent about three going to four months on ground, I like to find out what is your impression about what you met on ground about NIPOST?
It’s a story of the good, the bad and the ugly. I have told you, NIPOST Is a microcosm of Nigeria, you would see signs that would get you excited and yes we are going to make progress, you also see sign of dilapidated infrastructure, low staff moral, people that have not been trained but must be ready to be trained or otherwise, they will be left behind because what is going to happen to NIPOST is what we call breeze-way.
And it is blowing. You better join the train and be part of the new system. We are going to train our people and re-train. I mean the first thing I did when I came in was to begin visitation to territories and see things for myself. I have been to places and I haven’t completed it. But what I have seen is a mixed bag. We have properties scattered all over Nigeria that we can use but don’t blame the people that have been there before from the system. When you are within a system, you only look out to how do I balance both and then make ends means.
Somebody from the private sector would do beyond that, he would do strategic thinking, would do Public, Private partnership (PPP) and bringing in people from the private sector who are already coming in torrent, because I am one of them. And again, you need to do legislative reforms, amend your laws by virtue of the fact that I am one of them and they know where I am coming from and they are ready to support me. These are the things that have been difficult in the past that would not be difficult for us to do.
I can make this public, World Bank in conjunction with Nigeria, had contracted a services of Dutch consultant in the last, five to eight years. And the reports have not been implemented. These are the things that I would do by virtue of my training as a lawyer to reposition NIPOST into a business making organization.
NIPOST AND UNIVERSAL SERVICE OBLIGATION
But don’t forget NIPOST is also a function of social services. We have universal service obligation that we must render to our people in the rural areas whether we are going to make profits from there or not. That is the way it is done all over the world. You are going to strike a delicate balance between the need for you to make money from the post and the need to serve
That delicate balance is not difficult for me because of my background as a politician, an activist and now an accidental public servant of-course.
Cheers, handshakes and Thank You sir.
