In 1917, the largest publicly traded company in the United States was US Steel. Fifty years later, in 1967, the largest recorded was IBM. Over those fifty years, American leading companies had transmuted from building and construction infrastructures to digital infrastructure companies. Before those, food companies were dominant.  Today, the largest US publicly traded companies are knowledge companies like Apple, Google* and Microsoft. 

Simply, the US has moved from fundamental infrastructures  to creating wealth on numbers (yes, data).  I expect in 50 years for the leading companies to become dynamic data companies, firms built on AI, autonomous systems and other constructs , unbounded by pure human capabilities. 

In Nigeria today, we are at the phase of that 1917 and 1967. Food, building, construction and  digital infrastructure firms like MTN, Nestle and  Dangote Cement dominate our stock market. 

Looking deeper, the knowledge era has not arrived at scale in Nigeria. It will come, but it may take a few more decades looking at the unfolding paralysis, since the companies which will anchor that future are not even Nigerian even though they do everything in Nigeria. Yes, they are legally Delaware (USA) companies with most operations in Nigeria. That is Nigeria’s lost economic future, and will be more devastating than the impacts of dried crude oil wells. The nation must  solve that problem urgently.

All data from Nairametrics.

Nigeria’s top ten MVEs had a combined market valuation of N21.1 trillion or an equivalent of $47.5 billion assuming the official exchange rate of (N445/$1).

Among them are 5 stocks worth over one trillion which we term SWOOTs at Nairametrics.

Combined the SWOOTs are worth about N18.1 trillion or $40.7 billion or a whopping 70% of the total market cap of $58.3 billion.

The SWOOTs are Airtel, Dangote Cement, MTN Nigeria, BUA Cement, and BUA Foods.

Companies are often revered when they attain unicorn status, which means they are worth over $1 billion.

Based on our data and using the official exchange rate, all but one of the companies on our list are worth over one billion dollars.

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Comment 1: Africa tried to compete by indigenous decrees, converting foreign companies into African companies. Sadly, it has never worked. Home grown, ability of leadership to look inwards can salvage the continent.

Comment 2: Nigeria has a lot of potentials as long as you are not seeing it from the spectrum of USA. They are different countries with different species of people, cultures and demands. One million usd in Nigeria can do a lot of magic but it is just a pittance in America. With a little tweak our economy will fly. I don’t think things are as bad as people paint. Look beneath the surface and you will see so many opportunities begging to be exploited. The richest guy in my village deals in wood.

This man has virtually bought the whole forest in the community and has a lot of saw mills. He even owns more than 15 filling stations and numerous trucks. How much does it cost to start a saw mill. 10 to 15 thousand usd can start one. I know people who are into sand dredging and they go inside the interior villages to buy their waterside for peanuts and sell the sand for insane profits. When I started my sand dredging business nobody thought I could do it because it’s dirty work. Everyday I wear my short and slippers and enter the jungle, when you see me on the road you won’t believe that I have seen 1m. That biz can comfortably give you 500 thousand naira daily if you have your own trucks. Next target is buy an excavator soon and buy a burrow pit.

Comment 3: Good analysis sir. It is very impactful and targeted. Research, training & development should attract dedicated funding, and societal reasoning should be conscientized towards this understanding.

The FBI on Friday warned that TikTok poses a national security threat to the United States as the app could be exploited for espionage by the Chinese government.

The warning, which was issued by the FBI director Chris Wray, follows several other warnings issued by the US Congress, the military and the White House that TikTok poses a security risk.

Wray said the FBI was concerned that the Chinese had the ability to control the app’s recommendation algorithm, “which allows them to manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.” He also asserted that China could use the app to collect data on its users that could be used for traditional espionage operations, per AP.

“All of these things are in the hands of a government that doesn’t share our values, and that has a mission that’s very much at odds with what’s in the best interests of the United States. That should concern us,” Wray told an audience at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has recently been at the center of both political and tech rivalry between the US and China. In 2020, former US President Donald Trump had moved to ban the short-video app through executive order. Though a US court later ruled in favor of the troubled app to stay in business in the US, its battle is far from over.

Last month, Wray raised the same concern during his appearance before congress. The US concern is that the Chinese Communist Party could order TikTok to turn in the data of its American users.

Though the current president Joe Biden has rescinded many of his predecessor’s decisions targeting TikTok and other Chinese apps, the US government has not given up on its probe into the social media company’s activities.

Trump had tried to force TikTok to sell its US operation to an American company, a move aimed at ensuring that the data of users are in safe hands.

In June, a leader of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, asked both Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores  over concerns that China is using it to harvest private data of Americans. This follows a report that TikTok’s database is being accessed by employees in China.

TikTok, in a bid to calm the growing concern, had vowed to effect major changes in operation, including partnering with American companies such as Oracle to move its data centers away from China.

“As we recently shared with members of Congress, we are working toward a new system in which access to US user data by anyone outside of USDS will be limited by, and subject to, robust data access protocols with monitoring and oversight mechanisms by Oracle,” TikTok said in June.

Despite this, Washington has continued its scrutiny – issuing warnings to the personnel of government agencies, including the military to quit TikTok.

Wray said that TikTok is currently in talks with the U.S. government agencies over a possible agreement that would resolve American security concerns.

“As Director Wray has previously said, the FBI’s input is being considered as part of our ongoing negotiations with the U.S. Government,” TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said in an emailed statement. “While we can’t comment on the specifics of those confidential discussions, we are confident that we are on a path to fully satisfy all reasonable U.S. national security concerns and have already made significant strides toward implementing those solutions.”

TikTok has repeatedly assured that it is not sharing, and won’t share the data of users. In September, Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas denied that Chinese government officials have access to the data of its American users. But China has strict cybersecurity laws that place every company operating in the country under obligation to turn in data upon request by the communist party.

Peter Obi and Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed have released their 2023 Presidential Manifesto for Nigeria:  “Our Pact with Nigerians: Creating a New Nigeria” [pdf]. It is  a nice document, just like others released by the PDP and the APC candidates, respectively Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu. It is a 72-page document with seven core priorities (see below).

Now, the campaign 2.0 has started. From Obi, Atiku and Tinubu, we have received the vision documents. The next phase is to ask questions on executions of these documents. And that is why we need Debates.

I understand that some of the candidates do not want to debate because debates are not enshrined in the constitution of Nigeria. There is no problem: I am available to come with a blackboard for them to teach. I will give each of these men a chalk and ask them to draw a flowchart on how to fix some issues in the nation. Execution and implementation are important since Nigeria has always been presented with nice manifestos which are usually abandoned after elections, from the local government to the federal levels.

In engineering PhD programs, there is what is called the GBO Exam where you walk into a room with 7 professors waiting to drill you. They can ask you questions on any topic. In most top PhD engineering programs, more than 50% drop at this phase. Why? There is nothing to prepare and that means you must “have it” to scale through. Nigeria, can we get these men to pass through real tests.

Sample Questions

Question 1: Mr. Atiku, draw a flowchart on how to fix a problem where a kid in Abia State needs to score 130 to be admitted into a government school another kid from Yobe needs just 2! Your execution cannot exceed ten years.

Question 2: Mr Obi, opportunities are harder these days in Nigeria partly due to insecurity and inadequate electricity. Share on a flowchart what needs to happen to realize your priority #1 “To secure Nigeria, end banditry and insurgency”  and #5 “Build expansive and world-class infrastructure for efficient power supply”. Your flowchart should include how youth unemployment will be fixed. Also indicate how you plan to overcome previous failures on these domains.

Question 3: Mr. Tinubu, rural Nigeria has been cut-off from urban Nigeria with the collapse of NIPOST and decent road networks. Draw a flowchart how we can boost the economy of rural Nigeria and connect it to the urban by revitalizing the postal system and supply chain. Sir: your flowchart should include how to fix NIPOST to work again in 3 years.

Obi 7 priorities:

1. To secure Nigeria, end banditry and insurgency, and unite our dear nation, to manage our diversity such that no one is left behind.
2. Shift emphasis from consumption to production by running a production-centered economy that is driven by an agrarian revolution and export-oriented industrialization.
3. Restructure the polity through effective legal and institutional reforms to entrench the rule of law, aggressively fight corruption, reduce cost of governance, and establish an honest and efficient
   civil service.
4. Leapfrog Nigeria into the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), through the application of scientific and technological innovations to create a digital economy.
5. Build expansive and world-class infrastructure for efficient power supply, rail, road and air transportation, and pipeline network, through integrated public-private partnerships, and entrepreneurial public sector governance.
6. Enhance the human capital of Nigerian youths for productivity and global competitiveness through investment in world-class scholarship and research, quality healthcare, and entrepreneurship education.
7. Conduct an afro-centric diplomacy that protects the rights of Nigerian citizens abroad and advances the economic interests of Nigerians and Nigerian businesses in a changing world.

People, let us have these flowchart debates on NTA, AriseTV, etc LIVE. It will be fun. I do not care what is written in manifestos; I want to interrogate the aspirants as that is the living manifesto. How many blackboards do we order in case the one I have is not enough to contain all their answers?

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Comment: Prof, Even the US has not reached this level of debate  for it’s presidential candidates. May the free volition of the majority prevail!

My Response: That is actually my goal. US politics is matured. A Republican candidate has an agenda he will follow. The same for democrats. But in Nigeria, we have no party, we have just humans. Obi was Atiku’s running mate just 4 years ago. Tinubu battled Atiku in 2015 with Buhari. In other words, there is no party in Nigeria, what we have is a club. With that, you need to focus on the human element and ignore the party since all the parties in Nigeria are the same (no core ideological differences).