The final week! We’re scheduled to present to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Hon. Muhammad Musa Bello, on Thursday afternoon – we have a lot to do, and we’re running out of time. We ramp up our effort level several notches. Monday morning, we make progress in refining our recommendations and our storyline. Since we are presenting to a federal minister, we take pains to rein in the natural tendency to describe a lot of the detail behind our thinking and keep things as brief as possible. We make huge strides to getting to a crisply-summarized slide deck of about a dozen pages. Late in the morning, Sam’s colleague Ramy, from IBM Middle East and Africa drops by for a quick visit. We head out to dinner at the Dunes Restaurant – good Lebanese fare and great wine.
Remi’s back in town on Tuesday and she’s got some big updates.
The meeting with the minister has been moved ahead to Wednesday – so there goes
a day of preparation! In addition to the meeting with the Minister, there’s a
session on Thursday with the heads of all the Departments and their leadership
team. All day, we work at a frenzied pace – and the summary presentation gets more
and more polished and emerges late in the day ready for prime time. We are
confident about our recommendations to improve FCTA revenue performance – it was
built up from a rigorous on-the-ground understanding of the issues and
validated quite extensively. The recommendations cover FCTA organizational
culture, technology infrastructure, process improvement, policy reform and
other strategic initiatives. We bolster our recommendations with success stories
of other city and regional governments that have implemented programs similar to
what we were recommending. Everyone’s exhausted, so we order in some Indian food
from Wakkis.
Wednesday – D-day is nigh! We start work early. We have a
talk with Remi and a call with Celia to clarify the team’s role and to ensure
that we act within the strict bounds of conduct required of IBM’s corporate
philanthropy efforts. We rehearse our message delivery. By noon, the team is showing
hints of our nerves and a small flare-up results – fortunately, it is settled quickly.
Finally, it is time to head out to meet the Minister. We are close to his
office when a call comes, informing us that he has been called away on urgent
business – and that our meeting has been rescheduled for tomorrow. We had been
cautioned that this was a possibility, given the Minister’s position and
responsibilities – so we head back with a mix of relief (at getting the
additional time to prep better) and disappointment. We spend a fair bit of time
rehearsing our sections and readying responses to questions we anticipated the
audience might ask us.
Ready for showtime
Thursday, and we have another early start. We do final-final
edits, ready back-up material and head out to the presentation venue. There’s
some last-minute drama – several of the department heads have been called to
meet with the Minister, so we need to delay the start of our session by an
hour. While the audience was trooping in, we had pictures of our work and play
time in Abuja up on a screen. Finally, it is time to start – and we take our
seats. I lead off the presentation, expressing the team’s gratitude for the
reception we received at each of the departments we visited, and the level of
professionalism and preparedness that the FCTA employees displayed. I present
our findings and recommendations, and Marvin takes over to present the roadmap and
recommended next steps. Sam MC’s the Q&A session, and Divine and Maria
respond to the audience questions. We finish in an hour, and are satisfied with
the way the session went. Lunch is provided for the participants, and the caterers
had thoughtfully provided take-away boxes for those observing Ramadan fasting.
On to the Minister’s office. We set up at his conference
room and at 2 PM promptly, he walks in. All of the department heads are in
attendance as well. From IBM, Remi, Dipo the Country Manager, Judy from Government
Relations and Ramy from the Dubai office accompany us. We introduce ourselves
to the minister, and Maria kick-offs the presentation. She smoothly hands off
to each one of us in turn to present the details of each of the five key
recommendations. Marvin closes with the roadmap and next steps. The Minister appears
engaged throughout the meeting, and we see him taking notes. At the end, he
asks several questions about the recommendations and wants to know more about
the specifics of getting some of the recommendations off the ground. We finish
the session in our allotted hour. The minister expresses his thanks to our team
and the work – we are touched by his kind words. After photos with the team, he
bids us farewell.
The ladies in their Nigerian outfits with the Head of the Road Traffic
Department
Relief! This went well – our hard work paid off. Back at the
hotel for a quick call with the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge leadership team to give them
a summary of the day’s action. We let the SCC leaders know that Remy was an
invaluable asset to the team –her dedication, connections and energy helped us
immensely. We get a few brief moments of respite before we head out for a dinner
arranged by the Permanent Secretary of FCTA for the team at the Obudu Grill at the Abuja
Sheraton. All of the heads of the departments that we worked with were there,
and we have a grand time. Coincidentally, the pianist who had entertained us at
Nkoyo on our first weekend happened to be playing here!
Friday – we spend some time tying up loose ends and figure
out who is going to write which section of our final report, which is due in
two weeks. We troop out of Room 107, our office for the past three weeks, one
final time and head to the primary school we had visited the first week. This
time, we bring them soccer balls – and spend an enjoyable half hour playing
with the kids.
Next stop – the African Hair Convention at the Abuja Sheraton. Several
attendees were staying at our hotel, and they’d asked us to check it out. We
check out the products for sale. They have a hair braiding station and I ask
the owner, Philip, whether he could braid my hair. He thinks I am pulling his
leg – but I assure him I’m dead serious. He claims he can do magic with any
hair type – but he’s full up now, and asks me to come back at 3 PM. We head to
the poolside restaurant at the Sheraton for lunch, where Sam, Marvin and I
shoot some pool while waiting for the food to arrive. I head back to see Philip
at 3 PM – and he’s surprised that I am back – he wasn’t expecting it. He’s profusely
sweating now – and pulls me aside to say that he really doesn’t know how to
handle my hair. Alas - my plan to shock the wife and kids by showing up home in
dreadlocks is dashed.
That's famed Nollywood actress Kate Henshaw - the Angelina Jolie of Nigeria. At the African Hair Summit
Our final event in Abuja is a farewell reception arranged by
Judy at an art gallery. Judy’s invited all the FCTA department heads, and
several young professionals to the “mixer”. The art gallery is really nice, and
I spend a fair bit of time walking around. There’s live music, and wine and
canapes. Lots of pictures are taken. I chit-chat with the guests. There’s a
cultural music and dance performance. Remi
asks each of us from the IBM SCC team to say a few parting words about our time
in Abuja, and the great time we had is reflected in the sincerity of our words
of thanks. The DJ gets some of us dancing. A birthday cake is then brought in
for Marvin – and we all sing him Happy Birthday. He sets out for the airport –
he’s the first one of our team to head back home.
Music at the reception (YouTube link)
Cultural dance at the reception (YouTube link)
Amidst all of this, I hear talk of a pub trivia event taking
place in the adjoining restaurant later that night. Nothing’s going to stand
between me and some pub trivia, so I make my way in and insert myself into a
team. The questions start and they’re a pretty interesting mix - there’s a
visual pun round, a karaoke round, an audio round and a movie dialogs round. We
were sitting in second place when Remi and I decide that its time to head back.
With my pub trivia team
Saturday we do our final breakfast at the BluCabana. It is
Maria’s birthday – and we get a card and a small cake for her.
Happy Birthday, Maria
I say my
goodbyes to Sam and Divine who head out to the airport at 11 AM and to Remi who
leaves at noon. I finish up a few blog posts and head out for a workout at the
gym. All that’s left to do is to pack up, head to the airport and trade my home
of the past three weeks for my home.
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