The Parliament Diary

Hallekem Ltd, a company that has made significant strides in Nigeria’s industrial landscape, stands as a testament to visionary leadership and cultural integration. At the forefront of this esteemed establishment is Engr. Chief Haim Halle, a figure who has not only succeeded in the corporate world but has also adeptly navigated the intricate social and cultural terrain of Nigeria. Chief Halle, an Israeli national, has deeply immersed himself in Nigerian culture, earning six chieftaincy titles from various communities, including the Otumba, the Atayese of Iyin Kingdom, and the recent Aare Bobaseye of Oke Ayedun-Ekiti — a remarkable achievement that reflects his commitment to his adopted home. In this interview, Engr Chief Haim Halle bares his mind on sundry issues.

Excerpts:

Question: Let’s begin with your chieftaincy. Today you have again been honoured as the Aare Bobaseye of Oke Ayedun. How do you feel?

Answer: I feel proud to be a part of the Nigerian people and communities in general. I am especially proud of the Oke Ayedun traditional council, the Oke Ayedun people and community, and the peoples of Ekiti State. Oke Ayedun is my home community, and Ekiti is my home state.

Nigeria is a blessed country. Hopefully, with good leadership, we can achieve a lot. I believe that the focus of the present government is different from the immediate past government. So far, I can say that I have a strong hope that things will turn out better in Nigeria in the nearest future.

I have hope in Nigeria. No country is without one form of problem or the other. Nigeria is better than so many countries that are in more serious crises. Most countries, including the western world, are suffering from natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding, and so on, not to mention man-made wars—real wars greater than what we experience from Boko Haram and other local problems within Nigeria.

We are blessed with a lot of natural resources, like minerals. We have crude. We still have much gas. We need to encourage investors to help us develop the country.

Question: How long have you been living and doing business in Nigeria?

Answer: I have been in Nigeria since January 2013 and doing business. My company has expanded. We do multiple businesses. My wife and kids are here with me in Nigeria. I am not a tourist. This is also my country, and I am doing my best to help the people and the country develop.

Question: You have a good report regarding your efforts in corporate social responsibility.

Answer: Thank you.

Question: Which communities have you impacted?

Answer: Our humble efforts are not for a show. We do not publicize the things we do for people or communities. It is against our business principles.

When you are contributing, you are not doing so to show off by publicizing it. In general, people know, and we as a company know, that giving is pleasing. God is using us as his messengers by our providing for the needy and destitute. We are giving back because God is the one that is refilling our storage to be able to continue what we are doing.

Question: What is your motivation for helping this community?

Answer: It is not about one community in particular. We help virtually every community where we find ourselves. But my heart is with the people of Ekiti. And of course, we, like I mentioned earlier, help virtually every community where we find ourselves. We want to see the people develop themselves and become more productive. And what do I mean? The Ekiti people like academic knowledge, and they are regarded as such. They have a considerable percent of professors. Looking at them on the scale of personal human development, yes, a lot of them are okay as teachers, as lecturers, etceteras; yes, schooling and education are good, but that is not all there should be; you also need to focus on productivity.

One of the worst causes of backwardness in Nigeria in general is that the people are inclined to jealousy. And I will explain. If you take a dependent relative to a corner and ask them to tell you in confidence whether they want their wealthy and supportive relative to remain successful or become bankrupt or lose their status, a dependent Nigerian would tell you they prefer to see their wealthy or more successful relative down. Nigerians’ proclivity to pull down one another is high. This is unbelievable and unfortunate.

I once saw a cartoon in a Nigerian newspaper: In the cartoon there was a huge tree with two opposite branches. The cartoon showed a whiteman trying to climb, and below was another whiteman supporting him to climb. On the opposite branch was a black man also trying to climb, but below was another blackman tugging at the climber and trying to pull him away. As a matter of fact, I don’t see colors; I am blind when it comes to race and color, but the illustration in the cartoon spoke volumes. It was more than a thousand words! Clearly, it showed that those who encourage the pull-him-down syndrome are the problem.

Let me give you another example. I lived in a remote village in Nigeria where there was no water or electricity. I lived apart in a house without a perimeter fence. I was the only “Oyibo” in that community, and I lived there safe and secured for four years! The village was a mere five minutes’ drive from the airport. I did not feel or see any threat. Rather, the people in the community felt my presence there was strange; initially, some of the villagers saw me as a whiteman who was there to buy off all their lands.

Jealousy is rife. Sometimes you find out that a neighbor who, because she trades in pepper, should not see the next-door neighbor who is into a different business as her competitor, resorts to digging the corners of the house of the neighbor and planting fetish items that they believe would cause harm to their neighbor. Why not invest the money and effort in something more beneficial? The bottom line for such a backward attitude is jealousy. You are overstretching yourself instead of developing yourself! For those who believe in revenge, I think the best form of revenge is when you work hard and become successful. And helping one another is most important because it yields collective growth.

Question: You have been doing business in Nigeria since 2013. Do you recall where you and your companies have worked and how you have impacted positively the host communities?

Answer: We executed projects in Kogi, Port Harcourt, Lagos, Niger State, Bornu, Abuja, and Ekiti, to mention just a few. We have a project ongoing in Ondo, and right now we are working also in Kebbi.

Let me tell you something: we are in the circle of our godfathers, who know us very well. One of them from Biu in Bornu State and the Etsu Nupe from Niger State attended the coronation ceremony of the first chieftaincy title that was given to my wife and myself in Oke Ayedun.

I want to tell you that everything depends on leaders. The leader of Biu will not allow nonsense in his domain. Boko Haram is nothing but politics. Politicians are behind them.

Wherever there is the kind of crisis we see in parts of the northwest, behind it is illegal mining. They create crises on purpose—to scare people away.

Question: The crises don’t affect your business endeavours, do they?

Answer: The crises don’t affect my business pursuits. We work for the Federal Ministry of Works and the World Bank. Our first job with the FMOW in Port Harcourt took us to a point where we were to erect a flyover. It was a zone helmed in crisis, but we managed it very well. When a client gives us a job, we solve the headaches. We do not create more headaches. We have our own ways of solving the problems in a crisis zone. We know how to settle tensions. We calm explosive situations in a manner that suits each of the parties. In general, we are working with everyone.

By the World Bank rules and regulations, a contractor must close by 5 p.m. This is to avoid criminals and miscreants. But for us, we work round the clock. When we worked for the World Bank in Raffin Gora, for instance, we as usual carried along the host community. Sixty percent of our workforce was from the host community. We trained them on the job. The high level of transparency we commit in our engagement with host communities earns us their trust and provides us with the desired security. As such, the World Bank has high regard for us. In Nigeria, they consider us a good example other contractors ought to emulate.

Question: what is your advice to the political class and youths?

Answer: First of all, we can see a little bit of change. In time past the elderly people used to put youth aside. They never count them. They say, Ah, this is youth. It is like a boy. They are too young to understand. You can see more and more involvement of the youth, with more understanding that this is the time for the youth to flourish. You can see it even in the leadership. Even when you are looking at it, the leader on the seat now, Bawa, is not elderly. It is not like those you see who are seventy years old. Young people have something to contribute; they have enough vigor and vitality. They have what to contribute; they have to look further. I know that His Excellency Mr. President Tinubu is a little bit old, but there is no basis for comparison between him and Buhari—a general whose only training is how to shoot—could not lead the country. You cannot compare a person with a military background with someone like Baba Tinubu. He is open-minded. Tinubu is doing things that sometimes look painful to the ordinary masses because they don’t understand what he is doing. And I will explain. Recently, a lot of people talked about fuel subsidy removal, and the effect now is painful. As a result, the cost of all products on the market increased, which is hard for us. But with my involvement with staff of the World Bank, they talk about wanting to invest in Nigeria more, but they want to see that the leaders understand what business is. You cannot just take loans, and you cannot show how you are going to start to repay. When taking a loan, you need to show that you are able to repay and borrow or receive another loan. It is important for them to understand.

Chinese are investing here more and more. The Chinese are what you must be careful about. I will explain. The Chinese are very smart. If you look very carefully, the main engine of the economy of any country is construction, because in construction you have high, medium, and low skill. When you see a site, it is not just a site; you need to repair vehicles, so you need garages. You need painters, roofers, solar, tillers, etc.—so many items with which you are supporting the economy. But you need to be careful to destroy this economy. What are the Chinese actually doing? They are coming and entering a niche. They are very smart, and I will explain. They are bringing in their own money for the so-called loan with very good conditions of two or three percent per annum, which is not significant. But they are not just coming in with money; they are, for example, bringing in one billion dollars but at the same time taking over the jobs. It means they are already canceling all the local companies’ activities. And you cannot compete with them; most of the time you see them using prisoners. I have worked across the world. My experience in construction is over 43 years. I have worked in Jamaica in the Caribbean. You can see their site engineers sleep on 2 by 4 double decked beds; they bring in their own cooks and everything, and old tools used in the Second World War. But all the money as it is coming is going straight to the nation. This is actually killing the local industry. But it appears the authorities are not aware of or careless about Chinese infiltration and craftiness. And why is it so convenient? When Baba Buhari finished his tenure, recall that he went globetrotting like a cabinet minister of tourism, announcing that Nigerian youths are lazy and that Nigerians are corrupt. This sermon was unnecessary. If you want to grow, then make tools and stop talking about your bad product because that will not attract investors to your country. What President Buhari did can be likened to a man who produces cakes but goes eating the cakes produced by someone else because he does not believe in his own product.

By announcing things like this, you are actually destroying the image of your country and people. Yes, you came on board legitimately or not, and you are seeking legitimacy. How are you supposed to go about it? It is not to declare that, on assumption of office, you found the Treasury empty and that your predecessor and his cabinet members are thieves. That impression you are creating minuses. It does not add any value. Again, by declaring that your predecessor did so and so wrongs is only demarketing your country; good enough you have turned the searchlight on yourself. But for how long will you continue shifting the blame and announcing the negatives of your predecessor in media interviews? Don’t forget that another election is by the corner after four years.  You will also come under tough scrutiny. Citizens will ask you the same questions: you accused the past administration of wrong doings, you have been on the seat, what did you achieve in the last four years? My point here is that merely pointing the accusing finger is not an achievement. And this is where the Chinese take undue advantage of a country.

The Chinese are self-centred. They provide the countries where they operate with easy loans but harsh conditions.  They create employment opportunities only for their own Chinese citizens. They take over all the jobs and thereby kill the local industries. It is unfortunate. When another round of election comes, politicians are quick to point and say they have done this and that power station and road.  Yes the Chinese are quick to assist a new government, but they are self-centred. Politicians must be cautious in their dealings with them because they are killing all the local industries.

Question:

Answer: This is where the Chinese are coming in; they have created jobs for themselves across the country, bringing in easy money. They claim they will handle various tasks, and they are indeed doing the work. However, their presence is negatively impacting local industries, power stations, and roads. While they assist in some areas, they need to be cautious not to undermine existing businesses.

When they enter global markets, they often disrupt numerous industries in the U.S. Initially, I insisted on first-class measurements and quality, but I later realized that I couldn’t justify paying ten times more for the same product. As a result, many local industries have been affected, forcing people to abandon their businesses and seek other means of livelihood.

Imagine a scenario where the entire Western world wakes up one day to find that the Chinese have increased product prices by forty percent overnight. Those remaining in the industry would have to scramble to raise their prices as well. We cannot put all our eggs in one basket; we must proceed with caution to avoid jeopardizing our local economy.

Now, if you’re addressing the people of Ekiti, you know that often jealousy plays a part, along with issues related to their products. We’re coming to this point now, and we need to talk to people about how they excel at writing petitions but fail to bring those concerns to the table. Petitions won’t put food on your table; it’s rooted in jealousy. I’m not saying there aren’t valid concerns—there are. However, we could learn a lot from the Igbos, who are very productive. They often fight for leadership roles because they are focused on their own interests and are reluctant to share.

What we need is to foster industry and provide opportunities for people to develop their skills and train the youth. If we can do that, they will be too busy to write petitions. Generally, people in Nigeria have a tendency to seek free money and food. They need to learn from the Western world. Look at Dubai; they faced challenges in 2012 but have since made remarkable progress. You can leave your car or phone unattended without fear because of the security and safety measures in place.

We must develop ourselves and think about how we can contribute to the country rather than just focusing on securing jobs for ourselves. While I’m not saying we shouldn’t aim for employment, we need to be reasonable about it. There are many jobs available, and it’s important not to overlook that.

Question: You have been in Nigeria since 2013 and have a family. What is your favorite meal? You have a Nigerian wife, what is your favorite soup?

Answer: I actually prefer fried yam with egg sauce—just not too much pepper.

Question: What about Nigerian food in general?

Answer: I believe yam and rice are staples. I tend to stick with my own type of food because it’s a bit challenging for me to adjust.

QUESTION: How many children do you have with your wife?

ANSWER: We have three children—twins and one more—and we are doing very well together.

About Author

admin2

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *