MEET THE STAFF SERIES

We Go Beyond the Call of Duty to Secure Convictions 

CCD: Can we have your brief profile?

SS: My name is Barrister Sufiyanu Suleman. I am the Legal Officer, Sokoto Regional Office.

I was born in Sauwa District in Argungu Local Government, Kebbi State. I attended Sarki Sani Model Primary School, Argungu from there I proceeded to Kanta Unity College, Argungu were I obtained my Senior Secondary Certificate.

I later attended Waziri Umaru Federal Polytechnic Birnin Kebbi, where I obtained a Diploma in Sharia and Civil Law. I obtained  the LLB (Common and Islamic Laws) from the prestigious Usumanu Dan Fodiyo University, Sokoto in 2012. I was a student at the Nigerian Law School, Bwari Abuja in 2013 and thereafter I was called to the Nigerian Bar on November 28, 2013. 

CCD: When did you join Kaduna Electric?

SS: I joined Kaduna Electric on 1st September, 2015, as Sales Representative before re-assignment to Sokoto Regional Office as the Legal Officer in 2016.

CCD: What does your current role entail?

SS: As you very well know, I work in the Legal Department of the company. My role is to maintain and prevent any legal issue that the company is involved in, review and draft contracts, employee policies and handle court cases. My primary assignment as a Legal Officer, includes and not limited to the following:

Monitor all legal affairs within my area of coverage, handling of court cases.

CCD: What do you consider as a major challenge in the Legal Department?

SS: The major challenge facing us as Legal Officers is police misconduct. For example, there are cases of witness tampering or police corruption, which can lead to miscarriage of justice. In an effort to control police misconduct as a lawyer, you have to go beyond your role of giving legal advice, to engage directly in pretrial investigations otherwise it will be very difficult to secure conviction in any case.

CCD: What is your greatest strength?

SS: My strength is adaptability; being able to adjust to changes. As Service Center Manager, I was able to turn around a negative work environment to a friendly one by creating a very supportive team.

CCD: What do you consider your major achievement since you assumed duty?

SS: One of my major achievements as Legal Officer, is the success recorded in the case of Cop v. Faruk Hussaini & 3 others. It was a case of vandalism where the vandals were sentenced to two years imprisonment despite the fatal error of not tendering an exhibit made by the police prosecutor. But I was able to cure the error by making the required application before the court otherwise the convicts would have been discharged by the court. 

CCD: Any appeal or suggestions to the management or staff?

SS: My appeal to the management is to provide adequate working tool for staff as it will go a long way in helping them to achieve maximum productivity. To the staff: they should remain dedicated to their duties with the view of lifting the company to the highest level among all the Discos.

MEET THE STAFF SERIES

Customer Education Should Be Continuous

CCD: Give us a brief profile of who Mohammed Abdulrasheed is.

MA:  I joined Kaduna Electric on 1^st September 2015 as a Sales Rep in Rigasa Regional Office. Thereafter, I was redeployed to Hayin Rigasa as acting Service Centre Manager.  My elevation was based on Performance Appraisal by the Management which was good. I was later posted to Kinkinau.  Now  I am a Manager at Leventis Service Centre. 

CCD: Since you became a Manager, what have you done differently?

MA: When I took over, we had a customer population of 4,000 and an average collection of two to three million naira monthly.

After three months, there was an increase in monthly collection because I had to re-strategize. 

I started with the team I was going to work with, carrying everybody along by leveraging on the strength of our human capital to concentrate on the customers.

We make the customers to understand that it is no longer government run but private sector driven. This message has formed a major part of our customer engagement. 

On the issue of energy theft, we encourage them on the need to protect our installations. 

We equally started capturing customer data in order to update our customer base, which has now increased to 6,500 with a collection of N9m. It was this feat that prompted the then BDRO Ibrahim Mohammed to redeploy me to Kinkinau. 

In Kinkinau too, the environment is a little bit better with heavy energy users. Also there had been series of customer enlightenment before I came here.

And I did the same thing by carrying everybody along while carrying corrections here necessary. I built a relationship between the Technical and Commercial teams because when they work as team, we achieve more. 

Kinkinau's collection was N6m and now we are close to N13m. I believe the success of the business lies in understanding the business and what customers want and how to get the best out of the customer. All this we can achieve through continuous customer engagement.

CCD: As the person in charge of the Service Centre what is your primary responsibility?

MA: My primary responsibility is to drive the business. As a Service Centre Manager, you oversee the activities of the Service Centre consisting of three units namely: Technical, Commercial and Account.

 As a Manager, I have to ensure that every unit performs its duties accordingly. For the Technical people I must ensure that they respond to complaints quickly to reduce downtime; for Sales Reps, I have to ensure that they concentrate on cash drive on daily basis.  We   review our daily achievements vis-a-vis our daily target.

CCD:Any challenges so far?

MA: There are always challenges in any business but I believe in challenging your challenges; those you think you can manage at your own level, you manage, those you cannot manage, you escalate to the Regional Office.

CCD: As a Service Centre Manager most of your duties involve managing people. How do you cope with it?

MA:  Well, being a former bank staff and a Marketing Officer I can say I have enough experience in customer relationship. You need to understand what the customers' grievances   are, what they want before you can deduce how to go about it.

 You need to sharpen your skill to have good customer relationship skills to enable you manage a customer.

CCD: Meeting target is one of the challenges facing the company. How are you able to boost your collections?  

MA: Sometimes you look at target and say, oh, this is too big to achieve. But the key thing is to have a strategy. If you are doing One Thousand today you should challenge yourself to do Ten Thousand 

Other major challenges that we face are: energy theft, technical losses, commercial loss, meter bypass, which is why we need proper monitoring, customer engagement and getting people dedicated to their duties. There is no doubt that loyalty and team work will help make the target realizable.

CCD: Any appeal or suggestion to Staff and Management?

MA: My appeal to staff is to remain dedicated, diligent and focused. Hard work propels one to greatness.  

The management needs to replace faulty meters with new ones  to reduce our collection losses from Prepaid customers. 

MEET THE STAFF SERIES

Our Field Staff Are Trained To Ensure Accurate Data Collection 

CCD: Who is Aminu Musa?

AM:  I was born and brought up in Dandi Local Government of Kebbi State. I attended Yabo Model Primary School Yauri and later went to Federal Government College, Birnin Yauri where I obtained my Secondary School Certificate.

 I graduated from Bayero University Kano (BUK), where I studied Political Science. Currently I work with Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company as an Analytics and Coordination Officer, Kebbi Regional office.

CCD: When did you join Kaduna Electric and what were you employed to do?

AM: I joined the company on the 8^th of September 2015, as Sales Representative and was later assigned to Data Coordination Unit after a year.

After the new management restructuring in 2018, I was made an Analytics and Coordination Officer (ACO), which has to do with collecting, coordinating and analyzing data.

CCD: As ACO Kebbi Regional Office, what are the challenges associated with your job?

AM: Everyone knows that lack of accurate and reliable data is the major problem that the company is facing and I think that is the main reason why the office of ACO was created.

Of course, there are challenges. Perhaps the most noticeable is the fact that most of the people giving us data are not computer literates.  So we find it very difficult to obtain accurate data from them.
Secondly, this is digitalized world; we are producing a huge amount of data every minute. The amount of data produced makes it challenging to collect, manage, utilize, and analyze by a single individual. And when data sets are becoming bigger and more diverse, there is a big challenge to incorporate them into an analytical platform. If this is overlooked it will create gaps and lead to wrong messages and insights.

CCD: What measures have you taken in tackling these challenges?

AM: Well, I ensure that those involved in data collection are properly trained; at least every manager or Team Lead has learned the basics of Excel. And efforts have been put in place to make sure everyone collects accurate data that can be relied on.

CCD: This is the beginning of 2019, what are your plans?

AM: For 2019, I have come up with a strategy that will involve every Sales Representative as we are going to use payment tracker to increase our collection by at least 50% every month. If we can implement it successfully, I am sure that before the end of this year Kebbi Regional office would be collecting not less than 80% of its target. It is a gradual process but God willing, we are going to achieve our desired goal.

CCD: Do you have any words of advice for the management?

AM: My advice to the management of Kaduna Electric is, collection target should not be assigned to Sales Representative only; technical staff must also have monetary performance target attached to their respective feeders. 

If this is taken into consideration, I believe that our productivity will increase. It can also create checks and balances between our Commercial and Technical staff.  This is because when team members believe that they are solely responsible for either the successes or failures of the group, they are more likely to focus on their own individual contributions.  But when it is a collective responsibility, it will lead to better collaboration.