Insurgency, fraud pose risks for credible Nigerian election

Nigeria has made an effort to clean up voter registration for elections next February, but holding a credible poll is a daunting prospect amid chaotic distribution of ballot cards and an Islamist insurgency that could disenfranchise millions.

Nigeria’s last presidential poll in 2011 was deemed the cleanest to date in Africa’s most populous nation, but since previous elections had been characterised by ballot box snatching, intimidation of voters by armed thugs and completely made up results, this was a modest achievement.

The election will test whether Africa’s biggest economy can improve its patchy record on democracy.

“Looking at overt, simple forms of election manipulation, in 2011, there was a decrease and we think … that trajectory is going to continue,” Thomas Hansen of Control Risks says.

Yet questions remain over whether the coming elections will actually continue that trajectory.

The race largely between President Goodluck Jonathan and former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari on Feb. 14 is expected to be Nigeria’s most closely fought since the end of military rule in 1999, which will encourage both to play dirty.

A violent Islamist Boko Haram insurgency that has killed thousands will make voting almost impossible in swathes of the northeast, possibly disenfranchising millions.

New technology, such as biometric I.D. card readers, should make ballot box stuffing harder. But glitches have caused hundreds of thousands of voters to be struck out.

TEST FOR NIGERIA

The election must be seen as credible to avoid violence by the losing side. In 2011, 800 people were killed after Buhari lost to Jonathan.

The growing polarisation of Nigeria between the largely Muslim north and majority Christian parts of the south, and ugly rhetoric on both sides, send ominous signals.

“The demonisation of the opponent, the threats of violence, the accusations of plans to rig the election, the whipping up of ethnic and religious sentiments. The clouds are indeed dark,” wrote Azuka Onwuka in The Punch daily this month.

When Jonathan ran in 2011, northern elites said he scrapped an unwritten deal to rotate power between north and south every two terms. Amid the heightened tension, parties could use minor irregularities as an excuse to whip up violence.

Three states in the northeast under a state of emergency will be too dangerous for most election observers.

There are more than a million Boko Haram displaced who cannot vote unless the law changes to allow them to do so away from home, a move Parliament is considering.

Borno electoral commissioner Tukur Saad said the state had registered 11 camps for refugees, but many more were unregistered in schools and mosques.

Since many displaced did not take their voting cards when they fled, they may be unable to vote.

“Creating polling units in camps does not mean people will not be disenfranchised,” said Idayat Hassan of the Abuja-based Centre for Democracy and Development. “How many will actually have identification of any form with them?”

Insecurity will prevent voting in many places. Most of Borno’s 1.76 million voters won’t be able to vote.

“It’s a very tricky situation … We may only be able to hold the vote for … 600,000 voters,” Saad told Reuters.

TECHNICAL ‘GLITCHES’

The electoral commission has culled duplicates and fake names from the register in order to issue biometric voter cards, in a bid to curb practices like ballot box stuffing.

But 11.5 million people were, in some cases wrongly, struck off the list this year, electoral commission (INEC) spokesman Kayode Idowu said, owing to data collection problems.

The total voter count fell to 58.9 million, from 70.4 million at the end of 2013. Voters wrongfully removed will have to queue up to re-register. Some won’t bother.

The fact that many were in strongholds of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), such as Lagos, rather than those of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), angered the opposition.

“I am worried this is the beginning of a plan to disenfranchise Lagosians,” Lagos state governor Babatunde Fashola, himself stuck off the list, said last month.

Another worry for election observers is whether the card readers will be deployed in time and if they will work.

INEC says it anticipates the inevitable failure of some readers so extras will be supplied. The readers will run on batteries to escape frequent power cuts.

Idowu said that if a machine fails and a replacement is unavailable, the election will be delayed in that area. That would draw out an already fraught process.

In the Niger Delta, Jonathan’s home region, a history of political thuggery looks set to continue.

Two security sources say large amounts of weapons are being imported into the region. In past polls, militias carved out areas where they controlled voting. That could happen again.

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Plunging oil sets up winners and losers amid economic turmoil

Plunging oil prices are not proving a sole negative for the Nigerian economy, as new investors prepare to capitalise on cheaper assets amid an economic turmoil that threatens to bankrupt at least five states.

From bankers to oil barons and profligate Nigerian state governors who refused to save for the proverbial rainy day, the 45 percent slump in crude oil this year presents opportunity as well as pitfalls.

“Nigerian oil assets are much cheaper now and present a good time to take positions,” said Diekola Onaolapo, CEO of Eczellon Capital, a Lagos based boutique investment bank, in a Dec.15 interview with BusinesDay.

While firms like Eczellon that just launched a $250 million Private Equity (P.E) fund targeting oil and gas deals are looking to buy beaten down assets, those who gorged up on debt to finance acquisitions when oil traded above $100 per barrel are having to restrategise.

Oando which financed the acquisition of Conoco Philips Nigerian assets for a consideration of $1.5 billion had total debt in its balance sheet of N351.71 billion ($2.093 billion), while debt to equity ratio, which measures the proportion of debt in the capital structure of a company was 163.38 percent, the highest among its peers.

Oando’s share price has lost -31.42 percent year to date, while Seplat, which raised $500 m in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in April this year, at N576 per share, has lost -51.35 percent of its value since the shares started trading.

Both have underperformed the Nigerian benchmark equity gauge which has plunged by -26.22 percent in the period.

Oando has adopted hedging on future crude production, ensuring it is adequately protected over the next few years, if oil prices stay below ~$97/barrel, according to Ainojie ‘Alex’ Irune, Head Corporate Communications, Oando Plc.

“This effectively ensures the company receives income pegged approximately to the above price,” said Irune.

Seplat says it is expanding its horizon outside the production of oil and investing in gas projects which are less risky and volatile.

“The gas business is far more stable than the oil business. You don’t have the disruption like you have in oil,” said Austin Avuru, Chief executive officer of Seplat.

However, lower oil prices mean lower revenues, which could translate to strains in the credit repayment ability of some of the upstream oil companies.

This is where the bankers may feel some stress.

“The loans to the indigenous companies were mostly structured with an assumed oil price of $70-75/bl. In the event that oil prices test the break-even levels, a couple of banks expect these loans to get restructured,” said Adesoji Solake, Renaissance Capital’s SSA banking analyst, in a Dec 01 note.

Brent for February settlement was down $1.79 to $59.42 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange as of 11:31 a.m. local time yesterday.

Slumping oil prices which are seen trading below $50 next year by analysts, will further crimp the budgets of state governors who are particularly vulnerable.

Oil revenues accounts for up to 75 percent of the Federal budget, however in some states it goes as high as 97 percent.

If the decline of crude oil prices in the global market continues for another three months, states’ economies will collapse, warned Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, at an event on Tuesday.

“Five states are close to bankruptcy and cannot pay salaries as we speak,” said Bismarck Rewane, CEO of Financial Derivatives Company, at the BusinesDay energy conference held in November.

While oil prices may rebound by the end of 2015 as lower prices take out U.S shale producers, there is still the distinct possibility of oil triggering a black swan event, such as a sovereign blow up, as the continued freefall of the Russian Rouble despite a surprise rate hikes signal.

Such an outcome would worsen Nigeria’s already lowered growth prospects for 2015.

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Boost for local content as Berger Paints wins NLNG coatings contract

Berger Paints Nigeria Plc has emerged a beneficiary of the Nigeria Local Content Act as it has won a contract to manufacture and supply coatings for two new NLNG carriers to be built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Korea.

Consequent upon this, the management of Nigeria LNG has paid a visit to Berger Paints in Ikeja, Lagos, as a step required in the monitoring of the implementation of the Nigeria Local Content Act.

Receiving the Nigeria LNG Limited team at the premises of Berger Paints Nigeria Plc, Tor Nygard, managing director, Berger Paints, said his company was glad to be partners with NLNG in delivering the Nigeria Content Act.

“We will like to let you know that since the discussions on the participation in delivering the Local Content Act in Nigeria started, we have taken steps to demonstrate our commitment to the act by scaling up the standards of our operations and products,” Nygard said.

After a factory tour for the inspection of the paints to be shipped to Korea, Henry Agbodjan, head of shipping and knowledge transfer for Nigeria LNG Limited, said, “I am very pleased with the quantum of investments in terms of equipments which Berger Paints has deployed in ensuring the manufacture of paints and coatings locally. In compliance with global standards, their products are at par with those produced by KCC in Korea, which will be used by Hyundai Heavy Industries in the coating of two new NLNG vessels.”

The managing director of Berger Paints went on to assure the visiting team of the company’s capacity to do more than it is currently doing in view of the upgrade to full automation of its production facility in a bid to improve its offering. He further said the automation would have major positive impacts on production volume, costs, product quality and turn–around time. He also reiterated that Berger Paints was committed to delivering global quality to Nigerians at affordable prices.

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Maritime safety in Nigeria: A necessity for human development (2)

The impact of human development on maritime safety in Nigeria will be examined using the Human Development Index (HDI). 

This is because the HDI is one of the ways in which the contribution of human capability to maritime safety can be analysed. It was recently reported that Nigeria ranks 153rd out of 187 countries in the United Nations HDI. It is necessary to subject this report to further analysis as it affects maritime safety in Nigeria.

Life expectancy

According to the World Health Organisation, life expectancy is the average number of years a person can expect to live. Thus, the average life expectancy in Nigeria was put at 52 years in 2011, while it is the 17th lowest in the world. This abysmal ranking, when viewed within the context of this article, was as a result of polluted waters, oil spills, ship wrecks, untreated sewage, heavy siltation, acidification, overfishing and destruction of coastal and marine habitat.

However, as a result of shift to double-hull tankers, oil discharges and spills to the sea have elsewhere been reduced by 63 percent, and tanker accidents have gone down by 75 percent and industrial discharges by 90 percent. This is not the same story in Nigeria as most of the ships operating in the oil and gas sector are single-hull and are very old. In fact, the number of ship wrecks is of major concern to maritime experts in Nigeria. It is a clear demonstration of NIMASA’s inability to cope with its mandate as a maritime safety enforcement agent.

High carbon emissions from ships resulting in environmental pollution and consequently affecting marine life and their ability to recover from extreme climatic conditions increase the cost of human health risk. Most seafarers indulge in various habits injurious to health such as excessive smoking, drinking of alcohol. These are health-threatening habits that may affect life expectancy and performance of seafarers. An assembly of healthy and skilled Nigerians is required as a contributory tool to maritime safety. Consequently, Nigerians must change their attitude towards having a safe maritime environment in order to increase their life-expectancy rating.

Education

With rapid changes in technology and the world becoming increasingly knowledge-based, education has become an important driver of human development. The quality of education is a critical factor for improving the quality of human resources in general and in particular for developing new skills, cultural values and behavioural pattern needed in the marine industry. An educated and healthy workforce is critical to increasing productivity in all sectors of the nation’s economy. In order to sustain shipping, the IMO through the International Safety Management (ISM) Codes frames the Safety Management Systems so that ship owners/operators could meet high training standards. For instance, the Standard of Training, Certification and Watch-keeping (STWC) Conventions 1995 amendment to the 1978 version for seafarers established training requirements for mariners based on the level of their licence, the ship type and minimum standards of safety. According to Ornitz, “The STWC Conventions provide guidance to training institutions as they teach safety and quality management, and also integrate classroom learning with real life experience.”

In Nigeria, NIMASA has accredited some training institutions to train those aspiring to be seafarers in line with IMO requirements. The government has also recently established a maritime university in Delta State, Nigeria, while training others in countries such as the Philippines and Egypt, amongst others. There are other private institutions within the country managed by individuals and the government-owned Maritime Academy, Oron, offering maritime-related courses up to post-graduate level. Whilst it is conceded that an appreciable level of success is made in maritime education in Nigeria, serious questions still remain regarding the quality. This is because in the past decade, the country has drifted to a situation of low academic standard. The proliferation of maritime schools has not helped matters as most students are ill-prepared for the marine profession.

For instance, “in 2012, out of 1,540,250 students that wrote the WAEC examination, only 789,288 representing 51.71 percent obtained 5 credits and above including Mathematics and English”. This has been the pattern in the past few years. The implication is that only few students possess the aptitude to study maritime-related courses which are mostly science-based. Importantly, there are no government-owned ships for those who are just graduating from maritime institutions to develop practical skills in marine engineering, navigation and seamanship. It could be argued that it is not necessary for the government to buy ships when in the last two decades there has been a decline in the number of skilled people to operate Nigerian-owned vessels.

The shortfall between educational provision and demand for places in the nation’s maritime industry is so substantial that many youths spend most precious time searching for work. This is because graduates of maritime institutions lack skills and qualifications that are pro-industry. This has undermined the government’s local content effort as foreign ship owners are not willing to employ most Nigerian seafarers. Instead, it is Indians, Filipinos, Greeks and Chinese that are mostly employed to work onboard most merchant ships in Nigeria. NIMASA therefore has a regulatory responsibility to ensure that standards stated in the ISM Codes are maintained in all institutions accredited to offer marine-related courses. The truth about maritime safety is that seafarers must possess “a culture that is characterised by rationality, inquisitiveness, motivation to learn and acquire new knowledge, focus on quality and deep roots in excellence”, while ship owners and operators must be committed to safety of crew, ship and the environment by ensuring that they provide competent, well-trained and motivated staff to maintain their vessels promptly.

Literacy

In the last 30 years, the number of tertiary institutions has increased exceedingly. Nigeria can now boast of 37 federal universities, 47 private universities, 38 state universities, 21 federal polytechnics, 36 state and 22 private polytechnics as well as numerous colleges of education. There are equally numerous maritime institutions accredited and not accredited by NIMASA in the country. In 2013, however, a newspaper reported that 10.5 million children were out of school. This, according to the then minister of state for education, Nyesom Wike, was “indeed an embarrassing literary statistics on Nigeria”. It was also reported that the number of illiterate adults has increased over the past two decades to reach 35 million. By implication, about 40 percent of Nigerians of working class (15-65 years) are illiterate. Consequently, the nation is not producing technologically-literate citizens who possess the qualities to engender maritime safety. This is because the ship is a complex system whose safety requirements are to be provided by males and females who possess necessary skill, knowledge and experience. Low levels of literacy and education in general can impede human development in a country and indeed the marine industry in a rapidly changing technology-driven world. Improving the nation’s literacy level requires commitment at all levels of government.

GDP per capita

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is most times used as an indicator and not as a measurement of a country’s standard of living. This is based on the assumption that all citizens will benefit from their county’s economic production. The standard of living of people in a country is determined by factors such as income, quality and availability of employment, class disparity, poverty rate, quality and affordable housing. Other factors include hours of work to purchase necessities, inflation rate, affordable or free access to healthcare, cost of goods and services, environmental quality, climate and safety, amongst others. But what do seafarers want? They want to live long, fulfilling lives, not just to be very rich.

It is regrettable to state that maritime safety cannot be at its peak in a nation where unemployment is high, environmental quality is below average, incidence of disease is high, and life expectancy is below average. Even, when the GDP is improved or rebased, neither maritime safety nor human development is enhanced. This is because GDP is a measure of economic quantity, not economic quality or welfare, let alone social or environmental well-being. The risk of shipping is high in Nigeria regarding maritime safety, as most ships are very old and not seaworthy. This is evidenced by the number of ship wrecks along the nation’s coastline. It was recently reported that “the nation’s coastline particularly in Lagos area is harbouring about 200 shipwrecks and abandoned ships”. This has posed danger to navigation as well as the environment. The health of people is compromised by the toxic water occasioned by decay of the wreckage. The Lagos State government has requested for N25 billion to salvage these abandoned vessels. In the same vein, NIMASA placed an advertorial in one of the newspapers directing the owners of the abandoned ships to make necessary arrangements for salvage. It is expedient to know how these ships found their ways into Nigeria’s maritime space.

The opportunities available for those operating in the shipping industry are unlimited. However, the prospect of those in shipping providing adequate maritime safety is limited because of shortage of skilled staff. Additionally, factors such as polluted waters, low level of literacy, insufficient knowledge coupled with limited funds have impaired the capability of those who are operating within the nation’s shipping industry to provide maritime safety. Consequently, maritime safety is secondary and at its ebb because Nigerian shipping companies are benefitting only from a fraction of the opportunities available. For Nigerian ship owners and operators to tap into these opportunities, the government must create enabling environment, attitude of individuals must change positively, people must be given quality education, and there must be leadership commitment at all levels to sustaining safety culture. It is only then that human development can be a prerequisite for maritime safety.

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Banks’ technology adoption not fast enough for some regulators – SAP study

While technology is changing every aspect of banking operations, 77 percent of participants in a recent survey say the greatest impact will be on customer satisfaction and regulatory compliance. 

Some regulators, however, believe banks are moving too slowly.

“The Benefits of Innovative Information Technology in the Banking Industry” was conducted by the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, New York University’s Stern School of Business and Management, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts North-Western Switzerland, the Business Transformation Academy (Basel, Switzerland) and SAP SE.

The study uncovered various trends in banking, most notably a large disconnect between regulators’ expectations and the ability of banks to meet compliance and reporting requirements. However, many financial institutions have plans to increase their budget for Information Technology (IT) to invest in the necessary banking solutions to meet these changing requirements.

Throughout the study, a clear consensus prevailed that regulatory requirements are the primary driver of business model changes.

Regulators agree that required levels of risk reporting in banks cannot be met given existing IT infrastructure. As one regulator noted, “IT budgets have to significantly increase to meet the current and future requirements.” Indeed, 61 percent of survey participants expect an increase in their IT budget of at least 25 percent in the next three years. Regulators ranked new provisions that are regarded as the main cost drivers for the future IT infrastructure for banks.

According to the study, the top cost driver is the Basel Committee’s guideline on principles for effective risk data aggregation and risk reporting (BCBS 239), followed by Basel III, Dodd-Frank, the recommendations set forth in the Liikanen Report, Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and Markets in Financial Investments Regulation, European Market Infrastructure Regulation and multi-curve valuations.

Regulators defined which features will characterise a state-of-the-art IT infrastructure from a regulatory standpoint. The ability to conduct automated ad hoc stress testing is key, as well as the ability to produce timely, complete, granular balance sheet data and counterparty data for the entire bank.

In order to achieve a sustainable infrastructure, regulatory authorities and auditors recommend banks make the following improvements: Implementation of a central data warehouse, Improvement of data and process governance, Introduction of more automated processes, and Flexible and customised modules for automatic analysis, stress scenario generation and ad hoc stress testing. Others are: Enhanced capabilities and data analytics for product valuation and bank enterprise risk management calculations, as well as enhanced capabilities for legal entity- and jurisdiction-specific analytics.

As banks adopt advanced technologies to decrease the time lag on reporting, regulators have laid out their expectations.

For reporting on regulatory and economic capital on a group level, institutions should aim for final results within 10 business days from the effective date. Interestingly, there is a common expectation that in the near future the time frame deemed acceptable for delivery of information will not exceed one day, granting near real-time visibility.

Banks are largely in agreement that their current systems need updating, according to the study. Respondents to the online survey expressed little confidence in the ability of their current systems and processes to simulate the potential effects of business decisions on various figures, including economic capital and regulatory capital, in real time.

Despite increased regulatory pressures for banks to update their Information Technology (IT) infrastructure, banks remain largely focused on short-term success. As one auditor voiced, “To date, many financial institution tend to implement work-around and small scale solutions, but this will create significant issues in meeting potential future requirements.”

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Why The billboard goes digital

When Jeremy Male rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange last Thursday, he became one of a handful of chief executives to have performed that ceremonial duty, marking a corporate milestone, twice in one year.

Male, who is British, had already stood on the dais in March, at the side of Leslie Moonves, head of CBS, as they celebrated the spin-off of billboard advertising group CBS Outdoor from its parent. Male was then six months into the post of CBS Outdoor’s CEO.

The second Wall Street appearance, complete with change in ticker symbol, finalised the transformation of CBS Outdoor into Outfront Media. It also caps a year in which Male has overseen the group not just shedding its name but adopting a new tax structure and cutting the last ties to CBS as he pursues ambitious growth.

When he arrived in New York from France’s JCDecaux, one of the leading outdoor advertising companies, to head the group, it was very much in the shadow of CBS, the US broadcaster best known as the home of David Letterman, Survivor and The Big Bang Theory. “Coming over to the US, with a British accent, I’d say ‘CBS Outdoor’ and people would say, ‘Oh, what show is that?’”

Outfront’s reinvention comes as the out-of-home advertising sector – billboards, subway ads, bus shelters – is being reshaped by data, technology and the ubiquity of mobile devices, like the rest of the media industry.

It is also growing: global outdoor spending is projected to expand 4 per cent this year, and to maintain its 7 per cent share of the total advertising market over the next five years, according to Magna Global, Interpublic’s ad buying and research group.

Interest in outdoor is driven at least partly by operators converting their signs to more profitable digital displays, such as the often animated adverts illuminating Times Square and Piccadilly Circus like oversized television screens.

While just 1.5 per cent of Outfront’s inventory has been converted to digital signs, they already account for 10 per cent of its revenue. A single digital board can carry several ads a day and campaigns are cheaper and quicker to produce than traditional billboards. Male expects digital to reach 25 per cent of sales within three years, especially as the declining cost of electronic displays means advertisers can get more bang for their buck.

Additional digital inventory means Outfront can offer advertisers flexible and timely campaigns, including the ability to react fast to an event, such as flashing a message when a local team scores in a football game. “We’re not too far away from having an app where [marketers] could just say, ‘OK, I want this message on all of our screens across the world for a 10-second period’.”

Technology will enable billboard owners to use data to improve audience targeting, make campaigns interactive and connect outdoor messages to the other media people see, especially on the mobile phones carried by so many consumers wherever they go.

“What you can tell from the handsets that go past is where it started out, what it did, what websites it visited  . . . The data mobile devices capture is allowing us to add far more value to our locations,” says Male. Outfront has collaborated with Dash Labs, a mobile app maker, to collect demographics on drivers passing a billboard in Los Angeles.

Such data collection raises privacy concerns, but Male says it is collected in aggregated form without personally identifiable information, or taken from apps where consumers have opted to share location information.

“I don’t think it’s quite going to be Minority Report,” he says, referring to the film where ad displays target individuals, using their real names in real time. “But I do think being able to give that enriched audience data will add value for advertisers and therefore for us because what you’ll find is that each board has a personality of its own” – based on the types of people passing by.

The increasingly mobile-driven, fragmented media landscape offers a “fascinating” opportunity for Outfront, Male says. He acknowledges that “huge swaths of money” are going into digital advertising budgets that can narrow their target down to individuals.

But marketers still want to reach mass audiences too, and with traditional viewership for television shows fragmenting and declining, especially among younger people, Male says outdoor is poised to help reach huge groups of people with ads that cannot be fast-forwarded with a remote control. Commuters stuck in a traffic jam gaze up at big striking billboards; in cities such as London and San Francisco, pedestrians pass displays on bus shelters.

“We are one of the few media that, in a low-cost way, still has that one-to-many opportunity . . . We are reaching young, urban, affluent people on the streets, and they’re the people that advertisers want to reach. It’s no coincidence that brands such as Apple and Google are significant users of out-of-home.”

Apple spends some 10 per cent of its US marketing budget on outdoor ads, while the top 100 US advertisers together spend 2 per cent, he says. (The figure in Europe, is closer to 8 per cent.)

In his office on the 17th floor of Manhattan’s Chrysler Building, the tall, silver-haired Male looks relaxed for someone giving up one of the most recognisable brand names in US media. His purple tie matches the balloons festooning the entrance and the signs proclaiming Outfront’s new name and logo.

When he first arrived in New York, one part of his task of transforming the operation was clear: Moonves had announced at the start of 2013 that CBS Outdoor would be spun off as a real estate investment trust. Reits pay almost no corporate tax but must pay at least 90 per cent of their taxable income as dividends. The conversion into a Reit was completed in July.

The next decision – rebranding – was, Male says, necessary for the group’s increasingly digital future. In CBS, “you had this incredible brand that, in a way, we felt slightly parallel to. We knew we were never going to replace CBS as a consumer brand but we always felt we could go out and create a great new media brand.”

It was not the first time Male has taken on reshaping a company. In 1994, he made the leap from Germany’s Tchibo Coffee to outdoor advertising when he joined TDI, a US-based advertising group focusing on transportation that had just won the first private contract for London’s Underground and buses. Male was responsible for turning the London transport network’s in-house marketing division from “a civil service” operation into a competitive ad agency. Over six years, he built TDI’s UK and European business, before moving to JCDecaux, where he led the UK, northern Europe and Australia business.

Amid the corporate changes of recent months, Male also bought the US’s largest private portfolio of billboards from Van Wagner, including boards in New York’s Times Square and Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip. Overall, Outfront’s aim is to become the top billboard own¬er in the US’s 25 biggest markets. Male says it is still pursuing acquisitions to round out its holdings.

Along with the new name, the company is signalling its ambitions with a new in-house creative studio and a consumer insight service to help brands design their outdoor campaigns.

“That’s absolutely where we wanted to position the brand, which is a new market-leading brand that is associated with media. We’re now Outfront rather than outdoor or out-of-home.”

Second opinion: Insider on an outsider

As CEO of Omnicom’s Outdoor Media Group, North America’s largest buyer of outdoor advertising, Dave Yacullo advises marketers on billboard space.

He says Male “brings this track record of leadership and results in Europe and abroad” from his time at JCDecaux and TDI. But at the same time, “he hasn’t come in with the mindset of, ‘we had this great success over in Europe and we will just apply what works to the US’. He really understands the nuances of the market.”

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Why The billboard goes digital

When Jeremy Male rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange last Thursday, he became one of a handful of chief executives to have performed that ceremonial duty, marking a corporate milestone, twice in one year.

Male, who is British, had already stood on the dais in March, at the side of Leslie Moonves, head of CBS, as they celebrated the spin-off of billboard advertising group CBS Outdoor from its parent. Male was then six months into the post of CBS Outdoor’s CEO.

The second Wall Street appearance, complete with change in ticker symbol, finalised the transformation of CBS Outdoor into Outfront Media. It also caps a year in which Male has overseen the group not just shedding its name but adopting a new tax structure and cutting the last ties to CBS as he pursues ambitious growth.

When he arrived in New York from France’s JCDecaux, one of the leading outdoor advertising companies, to head the group, it was very much in the shadow of CBS, the US broadcaster best known as the home of David Letterman, Survivor and The Big Bang Theory. “Coming over to the US, with a British accent, I’d say ‘CBS Outdoor’ and people would say, ‘Oh, what show is that?’”

Outfront’s reinvention comes as the out-of-home advertising sector – billboards, subway ads, bus shelters – is being reshaped by data, technology and the ubiquity of mobile devices, like the rest of the media industry.

It is also growing: global outdoor spending is projected to expand 4 per cent this year, and to maintain its 7 per cent share of the total advertising market over the next five years, according to Magna Global, Interpublic’s ad buying and research group.

Interest in outdoor is driven at least partly by operators converting their signs to more profitable digital displays, such as the often animated adverts illuminating Times Square and Piccadilly Circus like oversized television screens.

While just 1.5 per cent of Outfront’s inventory has been converted to digital signs, they already account for 10 per cent of its revenue. A single digital board can carry several ads a day and campaigns are cheaper and quicker to produce than traditional billboards. Male expects digital to reach 25 per cent of sales within three years, especially as the declining cost of electronic displays means advertisers can get more bang for their buck.

Additional digital inventory means Outfront can offer advertisers flexible and timely campaigns, including the ability to react fast to an event, such as flashing a message when a local team scores in a football game. “We’re not too far away from having an app where [marketers] could just say, ‘OK, I want this message on all of our screens across the world for a 10-second period’.”

Technology will enable billboard owners to use data to improve audience targeting, make campaigns interactive and connect outdoor messages to the other media people see, especially on the mobile phones carried by so many consumers wherever they go.

“What you can tell from the handsets that go past is where it started out, what it did, what websites it visited  . . . The data mobile devices capture is allowing us to add far more value to our locations,” says Male. Outfront has collaborated with Dash Labs, a mobile app maker, to collect demographics on drivers passing a billboard in Los Angeles.

Such data collection raises privacy concerns, but Male says it is collected in aggregated form without personally identifiable information, or taken from apps where consumers have opted to share location information.

“I don’t think it’s quite going to be Minority Report,” he says, referring to the film where ad displays target individuals, using their real names in real time. “But I do think being able to give that enriched audience data will add value for advertisers and therefore for us because what you’ll find is that each board has a personality of its own” – based on the types of people passing by.

The increasingly mobile-driven, fragmented media landscape offers a “fascinating” opportunity for Outfront, Male says. He acknowledges that “huge swaths of money” are going into digital advertising budgets that can narrow their target down to individuals.

But marketers still want to reach mass audiences too, and with traditional viewership for television shows fragmenting and declining, especially among younger people, Male says outdoor is poised to help reach huge groups of people with ads that cannot be fast-forwarded with a remote control. Commuters stuck in a traffic jam gaze up at big striking billboards; in cities such as London and San Francisco, pedestrians pass displays on bus shelters.

“We are one of the few media that, in a low-cost way, still has that one-to-many opportunity . . . We are reaching young, urban, affluent people on the streets, and they’re the people that advertisers want to reach. It’s no coincidence that brands such as Apple and Google are significant users of out-of-home.”

Apple spends some 10 per cent of its US marketing budget on outdoor ads, while the top 100 US advertisers together spend 2 per cent, he says. (The figure in Europe, is closer to 8 per cent.)

In his office on the 17th floor of Manhattan’s Chrysler Building, the tall, silver-haired Male looks relaxed for someone giving up one of the most recognisable brand names in US media. His purple tie matches the balloons festooning the entrance and the signs proclaiming Outfront’s new name and logo.

When he first arrived in New York, one part of his task of transforming the operation was clear: Moonves had announced at the start of 2013 that CBS Outdoor would be spun off as a real estate investment trust. Reits pay almost no corporate tax but must pay at least 90 per cent of their taxable income as dividends. The conversion into a Reit was completed in July.

The next decision – rebranding – was, Male says, necessary for the group’s increasingly digital future. In CBS, “you had this incredible brand that, in a way, we felt slightly parallel to. We knew we were never going to replace CBS as a consumer brand but we always felt we could go out and create a great new media brand.”

It was not the first time Male has taken on reshaping a company. In 1994, he made the leap from Germany’s Tchibo Coffee to outdoor advertising when he joined TDI, a US-based advertising group focusing on transportation that had just won the first private contract for London’s Underground and buses. Male was responsible for turning the London transport network’s in-house marketing division from “a civil service” operation into a competitive ad agency. Over six years, he built TDI’s UK and European business, before moving to JCDecaux, where he led the UK, northern Europe and Australia business.

Amid the corporate changes of recent months, Male also bought the US’s largest private portfolio of billboards from Van Wagner, including boards in New York’s Times Square and Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip. Overall, Outfront’s aim is to become the top billboard own¬er in the US’s 25 biggest markets. Male says it is still pursuing acquisitions to round out its holdings.

Along with the new name, the company is signalling its ambitions with a new in-house creative studio and a consumer insight service to help brands design their outdoor campaigns.

“That’s absolutely where we wanted to position the brand, which is a new market-leading brand that is associated with media. We’re now Outfront rather than outdoor or out-of-home.”

Second opinion: Insider on an outsider

As CEO of Omnicom’s Outdoor Media Group, North America’s largest buyer of outdoor advertising, Dave Yacullo advises marketers on billboard space.

He says Male “brings this track record of leadership and results in Europe and abroad” from his time at JCDecaux and TDI. But at the same time, “he hasn’t come in with the mindset of, ‘we had this great success over in Europe and we will just apply what works to the US’. He really understands the nuances of the market.”

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Why The billboard goes digital

When Jeremy Male rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange last Thursday, he became one of a handful of chief executives to have performed that ceremonial duty, marking a corporate milestone, twice in one year.

Male, who is British, had already stood on the dais in March, at the side of Leslie Moonves, head of CBS, as they celebrated the spin-off of billboard advertising group CBS Outdoor from its parent. Male was then six months into the post of CBS Outdoor’s CEO.

The second Wall Street appearance, complete with change in ticker symbol, finalised the transformation of CBS Outdoor into Outfront Media. It also caps a year in which Male has overseen the group not just shedding its name but adopting a new tax structure and cutting the last ties to CBS as he pursues ambitious growth.

When he arrived in New York from France’s JCDecaux, one of the leading outdoor advertising companies, to head the group, it was very much in the shadow of CBS, the US broadcaster best known as the home of David Letterman, Survivor and The Big Bang Theory. “Coming over to the US, with a British accent, I’d say ‘CBS Outdoor’ and people would say, ‘Oh, what show is that?’”

Outfront’s reinvention comes as the out-of-home advertising sector – billboards, subway ads, bus shelters – is being reshaped by data, technology and the ubiquity of mobile devices, like the rest of the media industry.

It is also growing: global outdoor spending is projected to expand 4 per cent this year, and to maintain its 7 per cent share of the total advertising market over the next five years, according to Magna Global, Interpublic’s ad buying and research group.

Interest in outdoor is driven at least partly by operators converting their signs to more profitable digital displays, such as the often animated adverts illuminating Times Square and Piccadilly Circus like oversized television screens.

While just 1.5 per cent of Outfront’s inventory has been converted to digital signs, they already account for 10 per cent of its revenue. A single digital board can carry several ads a day and campaigns are cheaper and quicker to produce than traditional billboards. Male expects digital to reach 25 per cent of sales within three years, especially as the declining cost of electronic displays means advertisers can get more bang for their buck.

Additional digital inventory means Outfront can offer advertisers flexible and timely campaigns, including the ability to react fast to an event, such as flashing a message when a local team scores in a football game. “We’re not too far away from having an app where [marketers] could just say, ‘OK, I want this message on all of our screens across the world for a 10-second period’.”

Technology will enable billboard owners to use data to improve audience targeting, make campaigns interactive and connect outdoor messages to the other media people see, especially on the mobile phones carried by so many consumers wherever they go.

“What you can tell from the handsets that go past is where it started out, what it did, what websites it visited  . . . The data mobile devices capture is allowing us to add far more value to our locations,” says Male. Outfront has collaborated with Dash Labs, a mobile app maker, to collect demographics on drivers passing a billboard in Los Angeles.

Such data collection raises privacy concerns, but Male says it is collected in aggregated form without personally identifiable information, or taken from apps where consumers have opted to share location information.

“I don’t think it’s quite going to be Minority Report,” he says, referring to the film where ad displays target individuals, using their real names in real time. “But I do think being able to give that enriched audience data will add value for advertisers and therefore for us because what you’ll find is that each board has a personality of its own” – based on the types of people passing by.

The increasingly mobile-driven, fragmented media landscape offers a “fascinating” opportunity for Outfront, Male says. He acknowledges that “huge swaths of money” are going into digital advertising budgets that can narrow their target down to individuals.

But marketers still want to reach mass audiences too, and with traditional viewership for television shows fragmenting and declining, especially among younger people, Male says outdoor is poised to help reach huge groups of people with ads that cannot be fast-forwarded with a remote control. Commuters stuck in a traffic jam gaze up at big striking billboards; in cities such as London and San Francisco, pedestrians pass displays on bus shelters.

“We are one of the few media that, in a low-cost way, still has that one-to-many opportunity . . . We are reaching young, urban, affluent people on the streets, and they’re the people that advertisers want to reach. It’s no coincidence that brands such as Apple and Google are significant users of out-of-home.”

Apple spends some 10 per cent of its US marketing budget on outdoor ads, while the top 100 US advertisers together spend 2 per cent, he says. (The figure in Europe, is closer to 8 per cent.)

In his office on the 17th floor of Manhattan’s Chrysler Building, the tall, silver-haired Male looks relaxed for someone giving up one of the most recognisable brand names in US media. His purple tie matches the balloons festooning the entrance and the signs proclaiming Outfront’s new name and logo.

When he first arrived in New York, one part of his task of transforming the operation was clear: Moonves had announced at the start of 2013 that CBS Outdoor would be spun off as a real estate investment trust. Reits pay almost no corporate tax but must pay at least 90 per cent of their taxable income as dividends. The conversion into a Reit was completed in July.

The next decision – rebranding – was, Male says, necessary for the group’s increasingly digital future. In CBS, “you had this incredible brand that, in a way, we felt slightly parallel to. We knew we were never going to replace CBS as a consumer brand but we always felt we could go out and create a great new media brand.”

It was not the first time Male has taken on reshaping a company. In 1994, he made the leap from Germany’s Tchibo Coffee to outdoor advertising when he joined TDI, a US-based advertising group focusing on transportation that had just won the first private contract for London’s Underground and buses. Male was responsible for turning the London transport network’s in-house marketing division from “a civil service” operation into a competitive ad agency. Over six years, he built TDI’s UK and European business, before moving to JCDecaux, where he led the UK, northern Europe and Australia business.

Amid the corporate changes of recent months, Male also bought the US’s largest private portfolio of billboards from Van Wagner, including boards in New York’s Times Square and Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip. Overall, Outfront’s aim is to become the top billboard own¬er in the US’s 25 biggest markets. Male says it is still pursuing acquisitions to round out its holdings.

Along with the new name, the company is signalling its ambitions with a new in-house creative studio and a consumer insight service to help brands design their outdoor campaigns.

“That’s absolutely where we wanted to position the brand, which is a new market-leading brand that is associated with media. We’re now Outfront rather than outdoor or out-of-home.”

Second opinion: Insider on an outsider

As CEO of Omnicom’s Outdoor Media Group, North America’s largest buyer of outdoor advertising, Dave Yacullo advises marketers on billboard space.

He says Male “brings this track record of leadership and results in Europe and abroad” from his time at JCDecaux and TDI. But at the same time, “he hasn’t come in with the mindset of, ‘we had this great success over in Europe and we will just apply what works to the US’. He really understands the nuances of the market.”

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EQUIPPING THE BGT FLEET WITH WORLD-CLASS PERSONNEL

NLNG SHIP MANAGEMENT LIMITED

NSML is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nigeria LNG Limited, set up to give dedicated attention to providing, developing and managing high calibre personnel for NLNG's maritime business, with aspirations to provide such services to third parties in the future. NSML fully kicked off its activities in 2010 and is currently in its nascent organisational development phase.

NSML has continued to pursue the Nigerianisation Plan currently on the BGT vessels. From amongst its workforce of the shipboard officers, Nigerianisation has yielded six Captains and four Chief Engineers, all of which have now been deployed to the newly created NLNG Shipmanagement Services (NLNGSS).

From 2002 to 2011, a total of 182 cadets completed their cadetship training program in UK maritime colleges. As part of their training, all cadets go on board BGT vessels for practical experience; this is aimed at instilling in them the discipline required for succesful career at sea and at meeting the competency certification requirements of the STCW 9f regulations.

While in 2008 to 2010, a total of 72 Cadets were recruited. Their cadetship training started at Warsash Maritime Academy and Glasgow College of Nautical Studies (now City of Glasgow College) in the UK which takes three years. In 2011, 10 were recruited and they have commenced training in the UK in January 2012.

NSML currently has 153 Nigerian officers in its employment and has extended its portfolio to cover the management and training of cadets, a function previously handled by fleet managers SSML and AESM. Currently, BGT utilizes the services of 343 Ratings employed by GMS. This number is expected to grow to 400 in 2012 when NSML will commence direct employment and management of Ratings as approved by the NSML Board of Directors.

NLNG continues to support the Nigerian Maritime Academy, Oron, to train manpower for the industry. Warsash Maritime Academy, Southampton, was engaged to review the Academy's STCW 93 courses. They (Warsash Maritime Academy) are also required to help facilitate the accreditation process of Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron, to enable them issue MCA approved certificates. The cost for these projects which includes purchase, installation and test-running some equipment for the Academy is fully borne by Nigeria LNG Limited. The COmpany has spent ofer US $100,000 on the equipment, besides sponsorship of four lecturers and a Life craft Technician to United Kingdom for training recently. In 2010, NLNG made a donation to facilitate training of officers in Proficiency in Survival Craft and Rescue Boat (PSCRB) worth N40 million to the Academy.

Year of Recruitment/Graduation	Total number of Recruited Cadets	Total number of Graduated Cadets
1998	11	0
1999	13	0
2000	19	0
2001	25	11
2002	9	12
2003	23	19
2004	0	24
2005	29	8
2006	28	21
2007	27	0
2008	34	29
2009	22	23
2010	16	22
2011	10	24

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NLNG plans multi-billion naira dry dock in Lagos, shops for investors

Nigeria may soon be able to save huge foreign exchange through the construction of a dry dock for the maintenance of large ocean going vessels in Badagry Lagos State, as the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited has reached out to the investment community – representatives of banks and other financial institutions, promoting the potential for a new dockyard in the country.

This follows the conclusion of feasibility studies by Royal HaskoningDHV, an independent, international engineering and project management consultancy, headquartered in the Netherlands.

The thinking for the establishment of a dry dock in Nigeria is coming on the back of NLNG’s US$1.6 billion contract with shipbuilders, Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries, for the building of six new vessels.

The volume of the fleet spurred the thinking of the need for maintainance locally.

Observers of Nigeria’s maritime sector have long lamented the absence of an operational dockyard to cater for very large crude carriers (VLCCs) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers, as existing dockyards can only handle smaller vessels.

Lack of such a facility has meant that owners of large vessels in Nigeria and the West African region, have had to pay large sums of money to docking facilities located mainly in Asia, Europe and the Americas, which can accommodate such large vessels.

NLNG, leveraging on the agreement with the ship manufacturers, secured a number of lucrative opportunities beneficial to the Nigerian economy, including the training of about 600 young Nigerians in various aspects of ship-building, procurement of goods from Nigerian companies and the feasibility studies for building a dockyard.

Feasibility studies for citing the dry-dock were carried out in seven places—Badagry, Lekki FTZ, Ladol Island, Ogogoro Island, Olokola FTZ, Onne and Bonny, before consultants identified Badagry as the best-in-class location for the dockyard.

Babs Omotowa, NLNG’s managing director and chief executive officer, at the investment forum held at the proposed site for the dockyard in Badagry said: “This dry-dock, when completed, holds huge potential for the investment community. Our LNG vessels and very large crude carriers (VLCC) of other companies in the oil and gas and marine industries, which are currently maintained overseas, resulting in millions of dollars being spent overseas, will soon be maintained in-country with tangible value-adds for the Nigerian economy,”

The dry-dock is also planned to be operated and managed according to international standards, and when operational, will generate revenue and add jobs to the economy.

Captain Temi Okesanjo, Nigeria LNG’s General Manager, Shipping Division, speaking to investors at a forum to discuss the potential of the proposed dockyard, said: “I can confidently tell you that if we have a dockyard here, Nigeria LNG with its current 13 vessels in our fleet will be one of your patrons. When our company receives its six additional vessels from Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries, those vessels will also be maintained here.

“ I have no doubt the other players in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry will also be looking to service and maintain their vessels at this ship yard once it becomes operational,”

NLNG is owned by four shareholders. They are the Federal Government of Nigeria, represented by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC (49%), Shell Gas BV, SGBV, (25.6%), Total LNG Nigeria Limited (15%), and Eni International (N.A,) N. V. S. a. r. l (10.4%).

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Rallies Investors For New Nigerian Dockyard - NLNG

Nigeria LNG (NLNG) Limited has reached out to the investment community— representatives of banks and other financial institutions— promoting the potential for a new dockyard in the country.

The dockyard, for location in Badagry, follows the conclusion of feasibility studies by Royal HaskoningDHV, an independent, international engineering and project management consultancy headquartered in the Netherlands.

The studies come as one of the benefits of NLNG’s US$1.6 billion contract with shipbuilders, Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries, for the building of six new vessels.

“This dry-dock, when completed, holds huge potential for investors and for Nigeria. Our LNG vessels and very large crude carriers (VLCC) of other companies in the oil and gas, and marine industries, which are currently maintained overseas, resulting in millions of dollars in capital flight, will soon be maintained in-country with significant value-added for the Nigerian economy,” said Babs Omotowa, NLNG’s managing director and chief executive officer at an investors forum held in Lagos.

NLNG, leveraging on the agreement with the ship manufacturers, secured a number of lucrative opportunities beneficial to the Nigerian economy, including the training of about 600 young Nigerians in various aspects of ship-building, export of goods from Nigerian manufacturing companies, and the feasibility studies for building a dockyard.

Feasibility studies for citing the dry-dock were carried out on seven locations — Badagry, Lekki FTZ, Ladol Island, Ogogoro Island, Olokola FTZ, Onne, Bonny — before consultants identified Badagry as the most suitable location for the dockyard.

Observers of Nigeria’s maritime sector have long lamented the absence of an operational dockyard to cater for very large crude carriers (VLCCs) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers. Existing dockyards can only handle smaller vessels.

The absence of such a facility has meant that owners of large vessels in Nigeria and the West African sub region, have had to pay large sums of money to access docking facilities located mainly in Asia, Europe and the Americas, that can accommodate such large vessels.

The dry-dock is also planned to be operated and managed according to best international standards, and when completed, will generate revenue and add jobs to the economy.

“I can confidently tell you that if we have a dockyard here, Nigeria LNG with its current 13 vessels in our fleet will be one of your patrons. When our company receives its six additional vessels from Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries, those vessels will also be maintained here. I have no doubt the other players in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry will also be looking to service and maintain their vessels at this ship yard once it becomes operational,” said Capt. Temi Okesanjo, Nigeria LNG’s General Manager, Shipping Division speaking to investors at the forum to discuss the potential of the proposed dockyard.

NLNG is owned by four shareholders, namely, the Federal Government of Nigeria, represented by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC (49%),  Shell Gas BV, SGBV, (25.6%), Total LNG Nigeria Limited (15%), and Eni International (N.A,) N. V. S. a. r. l (10.4%).

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Commitment To Increase Domestic Cooking Gas - NLNG

Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited has affirmed its commitment to providing the nation with sufficient volumes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) otherwise known as cooking gas, based on production operations from its six train facility at Bonny, Rivers State.

This assertion was made by the company’s chief executive officer, Mr. Babs Omotowa during a presentation titled NLNG’s Role in Developing the Domestic LPG Market at the Nigerian Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (NLPGA) conference today in Abuja, where he was represented by Nigeria LNG’s Marketing and Development Manager, Mr. Abdulkadir Ahmed.

“NLNG’s intervention in the domestic LPG market began in 2007 with the dedication of some 150,000 metric tonnes of cooking gas annually, in response to an acute shortage of the product in the market at the time.
Only last year, the company further increased this volume by sixty-six per cent (66%) to 250,000 metric tonnes in readiness to meet growing utilisation of cooking gas by Nigerians”. 

According to the company’s chief executive, only about 600,000 metric tonnes of cooking gas have been absorbed by the local market since NLNG’s intervention in September 2007 because of market inefficiencies across the LPG value chain. These he added, include the absence of a functioning cylinder manufacturing plant, inadequate storage, poor transportation network and infrastructure, limited jetty availability and low-priority berthing given to LPG vessels, which have all conspired to thwart the market’s ability to absorb NLNG’s increased supply.
Advocating increased investment across the value chain to enable sustained and reliable product availability, Omotowa noted that NLNG which currently supplies some eighty per cent (80%) of the total cooking gas consumed by Nigerians, has also subsidised the product to the cost of about $50 million since the intervention began.
Other critical areas of possible intervention as highlighted by the NLNG CEO include terminal operation and development, distribution and retail, promotion and awareness and government policy and incentives for full maturity of the domestic LPG market.
Also speaking at the event, Dayo Adeshina, President, Nigerian LPG Association added:

“Due to Nigeria LNG’s intervention, the domestic LPG is not where it was when it came on the scene in September 2007. NLNG has been at the forefront of stabilising supply which has brought some obvious gains, including an almost seventy percent reduction in price from between N6,500 and N7,500 for a 12.5kg cylinder to its current price of between N2,800 and N3,500. But other stakeholders still have some way to go for the public to fully enjoy the gains of this intervention,”

NLNG is owned by four shareholders, namely, the Federal Government of Nigeria, represented by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC (49%), Shell Gas BV, SGBV, (25.6%), Total LNG Nigeria Limited (15%), and Eni International (N.A,) N. V. S. a. r. l (10.4%).

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NLNG Securing Court Protection Order From US For LNG Finima/ Others

NLNG SHIP

BonnyGas Transport Ltd and Nigeria LNG Ltd. have taken steps before the Court in NewYork to protect their vessel LNG FINIMA and other assets from arrest orattachment by competing claimants seeking payment for the same parcel of fueldelivered to the vessel, after insolvency of the OW Bunker company contractedwith left the physical supplier unpaid.

The invoiced amount is being paid into Court to be released to the partyadjudged entitled to receive it, and in the meantime no steps can be takenagainst any Bonny Gas or NLNG assets.

This renders redundant an arrest order obtained last week by the physicalsupplier in Louisiana, and operations in the Bonny Gas fleet should be able tocontinue normally and without interruption by any of the competing claimants.

NLNGis owned by four shareholders, namely, the Federal Government of Nigeria,represented by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC (49%), Shell Gas BV, SGBV, (25.6%), Total LNGNigeria Limited (15%), and Eni International (N.A,) N. V. S. a. r. l (10.4%).

KudoEresia-Eke

GeneralManager, External Relations Division

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Multiple Post Within 15

Yes, 336 referrals are what I got in just 7 days for just 30 min of effort. How did I do that? That is the question which I am going to answer in this blog post.

Before we start, let me tell you that this is no trick, no secret. It’s pure ethical marketing strategy. In fact after I reveal this strategy, some of you might think “Why I did not think of that?” Yes, it’s that simple. I would try to make this post as short as possible and to the point. Just make sure that you read it till the end.

Step 1:

Find a program to promote. It can be anything of your choice. Your own website, youtube video, blog, affiliate program etc

Step 2:

After selecting the program, your next step is to login to facebook and search for facebook groups related to niche of the program you wish to promote. For example if you wish to promote some online earning program than search for “Online income”, ”Online earning”, ”Make money online” etc You will be surprised to see that there are thousands of such group available with average 4000 people in each group. Join as many facebook groups as possible. More groups you join, more people you will reach.

Step 3:

This is the most important step. Step 1 & 2 were basic and 99% of you will be aware of effect of facebook groups. But the problem that most people face is that marketing on facebook groups is very time consuming. Posting on mere 100 groups might take 3-4 hrs of your time and cause a headache.

Last month I came across this tool and things have changed since them. That tool is SlackSocial.com. In short slacksocial is a social media management tool which will allow you to schedule post on multiple facebook groups in just 1 click. Yes 3-4hrs of effort reduced to just 2 minutes. More over slacksocial is extremely reasonably priced so that everyone can afford it plus it has free option too. SlackSocial also has an affiliate program which offers 10% lifetime recurring commissions. So by referring people you can make a good stable extra income from slacksocial itself.

I have joined more than 600 groups on facebook and it just takes me 30 mins to schedule post on all of them. I do it just 1-2 times a week and get a good number of referrals.

Step 4:

I guess step 4 is now just a formality. You all must have figured out how to make facebook groups a traffic generating tool. All you have to do now is promote your links on your facebook groups using slacksocial.

Create attractive posts
add your promotional link
select facebook groups on which you wish to promote,
schedule your post for delivery

Let’s talk numbers:

On an average a facebook group has 4000 members

Assume 1% of people view your post

Assuming you promote on 600 groups your total audience reach would become

4000*600*0.01 = 24000

Imagine the number of signups you can get if you can reach 24000 people. This is what I exactly did and got 336 referrals in just 7 days.

A program with a good CTR can give you even better figures.

In conclusion I would say that I tried this method and it worked for me. You can also try this and find it for yourself. Hope this works for you too

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Click Bank Makes Money For You.

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Amaechi Review Two Government Come 2015 Election.

There Will Be 2 Governments in 2015 -Amaechi Insists

Rivers state Governor, Rotimi Amaechi on Saturday insisted that there will be 2 governments in Nigeria in 2015 if the elections are rigged.


NewsWire NG, reports that Amaechi made the statement on Saturday when speaking on invasion of the National Assembly by the police on Thursday.

The Rivers governor said, "We don’t have democracy in Nigeria yet. What we have is diarchy. We don’t have a democracy. Diarchy is dictatorship. The Federal Government has appropriated the police as its personal property. The FG has taken over the police. See the way the police took over the National Assembly. By law, the police have no power to invade the National Assembly and they have no power to stop the Speaker from going in or out of the National Assembly complex. But they don’t obey law".

"What is the essence of going to court when the Federal Government don’t obey the law. That’s why the APC say we won’t go to the court any longer. If you rig us out, we would rig ourselves in; which means if you think you can rig us out in 2015, we will form our own government. We have met on that and we have agreed on that. We will install our own government and there would be two governments.

"The only way to avoid a parallel government is to have a free and fair election. You can’t continue to use the police as if it is a private agency or company of the government."

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