PPP: The BUA Example

Usman Zubairu Rabiu.

The need to positively affect the lives of Nigerians and complement the efforts of the government in the provision of basic infrastructural services led to the establishment of the Bua foundation, and later the Abdulsamad Rabiu Initiatives (ASR Africa), the philanthropic arms of the Bua group.

The foundation leverages the power of Public-Private Partnerships in complementing the efforts of various levels of government and its impact on the socio-economic development of society.

Public-Private Partnership here is seen as any collaboration between the private sector and various levels of governments, Non-Governmental Organizations NGOs, Community Based Organisations CBOs, Faith-Based Organizations FBOs, to provide goods and services to the public, which traditionally has been the sole responsibility of government. This has become necessary because government alone cannot do everything due to the rising demand for public services and the dwindling resources available. The private sector must therefore come in to supplement government resources and complement its effort in the provision of basic infrastructural services.

Public-Private partnerships can be categorized into For Profit and Not-for-Profit Public-Private Partnerships. This article discusses how the Bua group utilizes Not-For-Profit PPP in fulfilling its Corporate Social responsibilities.

The BUA foundation as a champion of Public-Private Partnership has redefined the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Nigeria, with its new structure of community-based initiatives and a unique method to improve the lives of the Nigerian people sustainably and systematically. The BUA foundation and the ASR initiatives’ philanthropic interests are in the areas of Education, Health, socioeconomic empowerment, and investment.

The sustainable philanthropic intervention approach of the Bua group is to intervene in the communities, in which it operates as well as the people of its companies, directly or indirectly. The primary purpose of this intervention is to strategically in a sustainable way, complement the efforts of the government in reducing poverty, fostering development and, improving the lives of the ordinary citizens of the community and countries in which it operates.

Since the establishment of the Bua group, and mostly through the Bua Foundation, the group has been actively involved in corporate philanthropy in various sectors – from health, education, community development, water and sanitation, sports, and even more lately, its works on COVID-19 humanitarian interventions.

Over the years, the Bua group’s efforts in partnering with various levels of government in fostering socio-economic development of the society manifest in developmental partnerships in the areas of education, health, water resources, social and economic interventions, sports and others. This has indeed complemented government efforts and, supplemented its resources in meeting its statutory obligations of providing social and economic infrastructural amenities to the people.

Education is one sector that the Bua group has made a tremendous impact by its unique and systematic philanthropic approach. The group through its foundation has built and renovated schools, donated to educational research, and also instituted scholarship schemes for students. For instance, a subsidiary of the BUA Group, the BUA Cement Company, donated a school, hospital, and other infrastructures worth N230 million to two relocated communities, Gidan Bailu and Gidan Datti in Wamakko Local Government Area of Sokoto. The donated facilities comprised a school with two blocks of classrooms, an administrative block, a township mosque, a clinic, two boreholes, a 30 KVA electricity transformer, township electrification installations, and a cemetery.

The BUA Foundation has also funded the construction of the multi-million Naira Centre for Islamic Studies at the Bayero University in Kano, Nigeria, and had also started the reconstruction of Jakara Primary school in Kano municipal local government, Kano state among other schools earmarked for this gesture.

It has also inaugurated a scholarship board for the Okpella Community, Edo State, Nigeria will administer a minimum of 24 tertiary scholarships from the company every year starting in September 2019 to develop capacity and a highly skilled youth population in that area. It has also donated N200million to Sokoto State University towards the construction of an ICT Faculty Building for the University. This donation will support the University’s quest to become one of Nigeria’s best universities producing talent in the ICT space. The group through the ASR initiatives has also awarded a $3 million education infrastructure support grant to the Ghanaian government through its Ministry of Education to eradicate ‘schools under trees’ whilst developing primary education infrastructure across the country. As part of its contribution at the tertiary educational level, Bua announced a N1billion donation to six higher institutions in Nigeria – the University of Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; University of Nigeria, Nsukka; the University of Maiduguri; the University of Ilorin; and the University of Benin. All the universities have got their NI billion each. These and many other gestures are some of the few ways the Bua group leverages public-private partnerships to contribute to educational development in the country. The outbreak of the dreaded Covid19 pandemic truly demonstrated the power of public-private partnerships in bringing private and public sectors together to fight the pandemic head-on.

Bua understood these better and provided enormous resources to complement government efforts in fighting the epidemic. As of January 2021, the BUA Foundation had so far contributed over N7billion in cash, foodstuffs, and medical supplies, amongst other things to the federal and state governments and various humanitarian agencies. Earlier, the foundation had donated 31 fully-kitted ambulances to Lagos, Kano, Rivers, Sokoto, Jigawa, Katsina, Edo, and Kwara states, and cash donations ranging from N100million and above to eight states and N300million to the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19. This is apart from the donation of N1 billion in cash through the BUA Foundation to CACOVID (the private sector coalition spearheaded by the Central Bank of Nigeria and tasked with pulling resources across industries to provide technical and operational support while building advocacy through aggressive awareness drives with the sole aim of combating coronavirus in Nigeria).More states were also availed with various donations of ambulances and other medical supplies. The BUA foundation had also placed an order for one million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine worth over 3m dollars through the AfreximBank vaccine program partnership with CACOVID and also donated a 3-storey gigantic structure, located along Court Road, and furnished it with state-of-the-art beds and all other facilities needed for a standard isolation center. In addition to these donations, the foundation ordered medical supplies and equipment to the two most populated states in Nigeria – Kano and Lagos states and each received about 100,000 protective facemasks, 1000 high-grade medical protection and isolation gear, 2000 protective goggles, 1000 gloves, and 1000 testing kits amongst other things.

Also, in furtherance of its contributions to the health sector, even before the outbreak of the Covid19 pandemic, the Bua group has made very impactful contributions. The BUA Foundation had built a multi-million Naira 7,000-square-meter pediatric ward at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital and commenced the ongoing development of N7.5billion 200-bed Ultra-Modern specialist hospital in Kano State which covers a built-up area of 15,000sqm and will have the most modern imaging and diagnostic equipment that will go a long way in alleviating the suffering of Nigerians who need medical attention and reduce dependence on foreign medical tourism.

Also, in the areas of health delivery, the ASR initiative and the Kwara state government jointly announced the construction of the largest oncology and diagnostic centre in West Africa to be built with an N2.5 billion ASR Africa Tertiary Health Systems Infrastructure initial grant recently awarded to the state from the ASR’s annual $100 million Africa Fund for Social Development and Renewal. The ASR Africa Oncology and Diagnosis Centre is a standalone facility dedicated to Oncology diagnosis, research, and treatment, to bridge the gap in cancer research, diagnosis, and treatment in West Africa. In the same vein, the ASR Africa is supporting the construction of the Akwa Ibom State University Teaching Hospital with N5 billion, for which N2.5 billion was disbursed immediately to commence construction.

The Abdul Samad Rabiu Africa Initiative (ASR Africa) also in July, announced the donation of multi-million Naira state-of-art equipment and a fully equipped emergency ambulance to the pediatric unit of the Gwarimpa General Hospital, Abuja. ASR Africa also adopts the neonatal unit of the hospital under the initiative and a sum of N500,000 will be provided towards a fund being set up to assist indigent patients in accessing quality healthcare at the hospital.

Another area the foundation has impacted positively is humanitarian and social interventions. For instance, in 2015, Bua donated more than $1 million to the Boko Haram Victims Support Fund. Also, during the pandemic and to support families to cushion the effects of the lockdowns, the foundation made donations of foodstuff to various initiatives, including the Foodclique/Noella Foundation Emergency FoodBox Initiative that has provided up to 300,000 meals during this period.

During the holy month of Ramadan, through the BUA Foundation, thousands of people have decent iftar breakfast distributed at major mosques across the states packed in disposable containers and also paid millions of naira to set free hundreds of inmates with minor offenses.

During the lockdown, emergency Ramadan meals have been distributed to various locations in Lagos including Ikorodu, Oshodi, Ebutte Metta, Yaba, Akute, Shangisha, Suruletre, Onipanu, Festac among others. This and the feeding programme in Kano have seen over 1m people receiving food palliatives as part of efforts to cushion the effect of the Corona virus lockdown.

Also, hospital bills were paid for patients at various hospitals across the country; giving out monetary support which runs into several million as the patients and their bedsitters received N10000 each. Lafiagi Sugar Company, LASUCO, a subsidiary of the Bua group has also been in the forefront of supporting various communities including Efagi, Sharangi, Shonga, Baganko, Bindofu among others in Kwara state with foodstuffs and other social amenities.

Also, in its efforts at social and economic interventions, the group has made various impactful sustainable donations. In its desire to improve local access to electricity, BUA Cement for instance donated six transformer units with a total capacity of 400kW to Okpella Community in Edo State. Donations of six solar-powered water projects were commissioned and handed over to six communities
(Okhuonmunyio, Iddo, Amuyemi, Oghute, Imiegele, and Imiekuri) to provide clean potable water and scholarship schemes were also instituted in Okpella Edo State, Nigeria through BUA Cement Company.

The Bua group has also been in the forefront of promoting and supporting sports development. It is on record that the Bua group was the first major company to sign a multi-million-naira shirt sponsorship partnership with Kano Pillars Football Club in Kano. This was to further support the club and promote the Nigerian local league which was in dire need of resources to develop. The group has also been the gold sponsor of various International Polo tournaments in Kano and Lagos states.

Indeed, the Bua foundation’s effort has been an ongoing process building Schools, health facilities, and water supply projects across the states. This has made the foundation one of the biggest if not the biggest philanthropic concerns in Nigeria. It is reliably confirmed that the group is planning to introduce the adopt-a-school initiative whereby the group will adopt selected public schools, renovate them and fully be responsible for their human and infrastructural requirements. That will be a positive step in the country where schools across the country will be fully adopted and financed by the Bua foundation. Plans are also in the offing to adopt some hospitals across the country of which the neonatal unit of the Gwagwalada hospital became the first to be adopted under this adopt-a-hospital initiative.

Aside from the Bua foundation, the BUA Group chairman, Abdulsamad Rabiu, launched the Abdul Samad Rabiu Africa Initiatives, ASR Africa, which is aimed at unlocking sustainable development opportunities in Africa, by Africans, for Africans that would cater for various interventions in education, health, and social development. The initiative started with a $100 million annual funding for Africa’s social development and renewal – $50 million would be dedicated to Nigeria yearly while $50 million would go to the rest of Africa.

The creation of the Abdul Samad Rabiu Initiative, ASR, and its annual $100 million Africa Fund for Social Development, is indeed a game-changer in global philanthropy and has changed the dynamics of corporate philanthropy in Nigeria.

The initiative will specifically extend more work to the education, health, and social development sectors, starting with infrastructure and capacity development in these areas and supporting the efforts of various governments in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa. The broad focus is equipping facilities, researchers, healthcare practitioners, and community-level service providers, to provide sustainable solutions for generations to come. This indeed is the crux of what public-private partnership entails and its drive of complementing government efforts and supplementing its resources for the socio-economic development of the society.

Usman Zubairu Rabiu is the Chief Executive Officer is Petrodal Resources Limited