Making Nigeria safe for the big game
Written by Dele Olowu Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Life on the Plateau is not just about bombs blood and incendiaries! Civic activities continue as normal and regulatory agencies still are able to find their voice. Fights or blasts, business, particularly the lottery business, is alive and well in Jos. Or is it? For, only recently the National Lottery Regulatory Commission flashed the red card in Jos and closed down a well-known multinational for allegedly infringing the rules required for running a lottery.
If the big game of chance thrives in Jos as is evident from the exertions of the NLRC and those of the offending party, many Nigerians will be relieved to learn that Plateau, once an exotic corner of Nigeria, has not been entirely lost to ancient sectarian hatreds. The multinational which ran afoul of the lottery Laws had obviously been engaged in substantial and lucrative lottery business in Jos. Only that they hardly expected that the National Lottery Regulatory Commission would be looking over its shoulders. For a long time it remained relatively safe for lottery vendors to ply their trade in unethical ways with no prospect of being punished. Consequently the lottery industry has tended historically to attract odious reputation.
Looking back, this has perhaps been fairly inevitable, given its ancestry and the benign neglect that the lottery industry has suffered. In the years just before independence and immediately after, the gaming industry was largely populated by the pools betting companies, most of which were colonial in their equity structure. Nationalization proceeded after independence but other forms of gaming even where they existed, never really came under close scrutiny from governments. Perhaps the potential lottery contains for mobilizing funds and using same to energize the development of infrastructure was not sufficiently acknowledged or recognized by governments in the Nigerian Federation.
Yet all over the world the lottery has been the handmaid of governments in the transformation of society, particularly at the level of infrastructure. In England, in Germany, in Spain, in Sri Lanka and several other places the lottery has often served as an instrument of change and development. But it can only thrive under a proper regulatory framework.
This compelling need for the establishment of a regulatory framework as well as an agency to procure sanity, perhaps led the National Assembly to enact the National Lottery Act 2005 which gave birth to the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC).
In today’s Nigeria, technology has given the lottery industry a new edge; additionally marketing possibilities have opened new windows for mainstream investors to adopt the lottery template. This by itself has expanded the Market phenomenally and has imposed new imperatives on government and its agencies to impose proper levels of transparency. It is therefore commendable that the Nigerian Lottery Regulatory Commission is baring it’s teeth to offending lottery vendors. It must go in to expose offenders by whatever subterfuge they operate and no matter how respectable they may appear to be. Many companies claim they are rewarding their customers. If that is so why are they not all wining? Making beneficiaries only through draws were winning is by lot or luck has put them squarely in the realm of lottery.
One of the signal difficulties of the lottery business in Nigeria is the innocence with which it is presented. Those who engage in the lottery business, parcel it out as if it was charity. The prizes are announced as if they were public gifts or even outright charity. But this poise requires being demystified. A lottery by whatever name is a business. The promise of a prize or prizes does not make it any less so. And in any case this business has its protocols which the National Lottery Regulatory Commission is by law empowered to uphold. Beyond this, there is also an obligation to set aside 20% of lottery proceeds for good public causes. This is also an important proviso which the NLRC knows how best to enforce.
Lotteries all over the world have been used for great public good. In Nigeria the history of the Lottery has had fairly uneven history. However with the establishment of the National Lottery Regulatory Commission and the red alert poise it has adopted, the industry may well have reached a plateau. The closure in Jos and other locations across the country should serve as a stern warning to other illegal operators. It is no longer business as usual.
Olowu wrote from Abuja.
