Segun Agbaje is not a chief executive anyone would want to like in a hurry. You may first begin to quarrel with whether to classify him as a serious or non-serious professional but may then run into serious problems with either of the decisions when you have a chance of listening to him. The debonair managing director and chief executive of one of Nigeria's most respected banks tells you the facts in your face without any ill intention. He is straight to the point and wants to take that posture to the banking floors. Many people may have seen his usually very brash posture as arrogance but the result he has in his hands after just a year's stint at Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) may have created a rather new and positive picture .

David Mark

Since 1999, Nigerian's National Assembly (NASS) has made remarkable efforts in sponsoring and passing bills that have encouraged the development trends of the country in many ways. Among the about fifteen bills that have been passed by NASS in the last thirteen years of our new democracy, over 75 per cent have the capacity of adding value to economic growth and development if fully implemented.

Nigeria is essentially an agrarian economy despite the growing importance of oil which was discovered in the country in 1951. Consequently, agriculture has continued to contribute significantly to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), total exports and providing employment for about 70 per cent of its labour force.

It is about 120 days and 120 nights since the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (Amcon) paid the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) to acquire the shares of three bridge banks-Mainstreet, Enterprise and Keystone. It was a very confusing pronouncement whose content kept analysts guessing for a good number of days. What made everything more confusing was the speed at which two principal issues were handled within a spate of five hours.

These are truly trying times for investors in the Nigerian equity market. The market is illiquid and has been on an interminable downtrend. By last Monday, The Nigerian Stock Exchange had lost 13.05 per cent on a year-to-date basis, and it looks like it is nowhere near the bottom yet. Not a few investors have been ruined.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala will resume this week as Nigeria’s Minister of Finance! Come September, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala will be guest to the World Bank once again. It would be a home coming for someone who just vacated office one month ago. It will be another way of explaining the value of quality in human development. This kind of move is strictly reserved for people whose work could speak volumes, even when there are no benevolent spirits around them. 

Two years is a whole lot of time: enough to grow ideas and plans to magnificent importance. In leadership and management, such period had been used to make expressions bordering on efficiency and capacity. It is a period enough to build and consolidate on any strategic development programme. Any working plan that does not mature and begin to yield fruits within that period is either ill-conceived, poorly implemented or managed by very wrong hands.

Obviously, politicians are full of promises. In fact, they are made of promises. This is why it can not be very easy to say whether they can be held responsible for anything they told us while on the soapbox or the promises they make in close-door sessions as they hunt to realise their  mandates.