When I lived in Ovim Abia State, The Young and Dangote were popular nicknames. The Young (after Young Shall Grow Motors) was named after a football club. Many young men were inspired by those businessmen. The connection was clear: as Bill Gates is to America, Dangote was to many  in Nigeria, on entrepreneurial capitalism. Unfortunately for Dangote, many do not appreciate his excellence and I have called it the Dangote’s Burden.

The Burden is a scenario where no matter how hard you work, most will not give you credit because of perception. As I noted, in some years, Dangote raised more money than Nigeria’s total foreign direct investment. No governor of a state, including Lagos State, has raised more investment funds than him over the last 8 years. Yet, it is all innuendoes and insults for him. What can he do? He cannot do much because there is nothing else he needs to prove himself.

It is that burden that prevents some people from getting into public service. You might have made money in business. But the day you hold an office for one month, all that you have accomplished would now be linked to “corruption” because you have served in a government. To avoid that perception, most credible people just stay away.

Let me tell you that I write it the way I see it. Dangote’s team did reach out after I wrote The Dangote System many months ago. They were not happy with some aspects of the ebook. They wanted me to visit Nigeria, and interview the businessman. I declined, reminding them that I do not need to interview anyone to write about the subject because my analyses are always based on public data.

I never break news, I focus on analyzing broken news and my hard conclusion is clear: Nigerians are becoming unnecessarily mean by not celebrating excellence when it is visible.

Nigeria is one of the few places where a decent effort will get you support.  Many complain of lack of support because they have not demonstrated credibility to be believable. Accordingly, the government will not believe! There is a difference between I want to build this factory and need government support AND I have $50m to build this factory.

 This is not like the discos which cooked books, claiming to have resources for distributing electricity only to get the licenses, and deliver darkness. Dangote walks the talk, and that is why the government can help because he delivers as promised.

Good People, please spare yourself the precious time of sending emails or inmails to explain what I do understand or not understand about Aliko Dangote.  My core thesis remains that for any issue you may have with support the government gives to him, understand that he is not the only one getting help. If others getting help are utilizing the assistance from the government, the nation would be better today.

That said, this is not to say that Nigeria is a fair society. It is not.  We do not promote meritocracy. But if you are to use merit, Dangote wins in his domain, just as others have won in banking where he failed. For that nation to rise, we must appreciate excellence and the spirit of risk taking.

As the Chairman of Tekedia Capital, we invest $$millions yearly into the Nigerian economy. In short, in the last 7 days, we invested in Zeeh, BoundlessPay, Vetsark, Byte, RoPay, Meekfi, Woka, etc. It is a big risk and when the harvest comes, some will call us privileged people. Nonsense.

If Dangote decides to go into toll gates and uses the collected funds to keep the roads working, people will forget that more than 5000 people have been tried and they failed in managing the toll gate funds. During Covid, the government shared billions of Naira with manufacturers at sub-6% interest rate: “President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday said the Federal Government has disbursed a total of N100 billion to indigenous pharmaceutical companies”. 

Peter Obi in Anambra state gave money to private schools. My point is this: the government supports those solving problems in its areas of interest.  If you have $5 billion to build a seaport in Ibom, the Southsout states will possibly offer many concessions. 

The judgment of the Federal High Court sitting in Kano, which nullified the candidature of Abia State governor-elect, Alex Otti and other members of the Labour Party, has been suspended by the Court of Appeal in Kano.

The decision, which was made on Saturday by a three-man panel led by Justice Ita Mbaba, also granted Alex Otti’s application to appeal as an interested party.

The Labour Party had filed an appeal challenging the judgment of Justice Yunusa of the Federal High Court. Justice Mbaba and other two Justices, Uche Onyemenam and Usman Musale, temporarily suspended the High Court Judgment after listening to the appellant counsels, Abiodun Owonikoko, Ken Ahia and Bashir Muhammad – all Senior Advocates of Nigeria.

In the ruling, the order for a stay and suspension of the High Court judgment was granted, pending the hearing and determination of the appeal for which leave had been granted

The appellant was also ordered “to give an undertaking for damages in the sum of two million naira in favor of each of the respondents in the event of failure by the appellant to file or diligently prosecute the appeal in terms of the proposed notice of appeal containing ten grounds in Exhibit AO4”.

The respondents, Ibrahim Haruna Ibrahi, Labour Party, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), were not represented in court, despite being served.

Background of the case

In its May 18 judgment on the suit marked FHC/KN/CS/107/2023, which was filed by one Mr Ibrahim Haruna Ibrahim against the Labour Party and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), challenging the process of the primary elections in the states; the High Court in Kano described the party’s primary election as “null and void.”

Justice Yunusa had held “that the Labour Party had carried on with its activities in the selection for the general election in a manner that is at variance with mandatory provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 which renders its participation in the General Elections of 2023 in Kano & Abia states as null and void.”

The suit had alleged that the Labour Party failed to submit the names of its members in the 35 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in both hard and soft copies to INEC, 30 days before the primaries as stipulated by the Electoral Act.

In its judgment, the trial court held that the 1st defendant’s failure to submit its register to the electoral body violates the Electoral Act.

“The fundamentally flawed primary election of the first defendant, (Labour Party) as a result of failure to comply with the mandatory provisions of sections 77(2) and (3) cannot produce a qualified candidate,” the court rules.

The court had also held “that the void primary elections of Labour Party cannot produce eligible candidates to be sponsored by the party in the general election and the participation of the candidates in Kano and Abia states is of no value and a waste of time.

“That the votes cast for all the candidates of the Labour Party in Kano and Abia states in the General Elections of 2023 are wasted votes”.

The Appeal Court judgment means that the inauguration ceremony of Otti, and other members of the Labour Party affected by the High Court ruling, will hold as scheduled on May 29.