We invite companies, schools, and training institutions to Tekedia for Enterprise here https://school.tekedia.com/course/enterprise/ . Resellers and growth partners across Africa wanted. Our courseware is natively African with cases on companies you use daily. Tekedia Institute will serve you, try us.
“Well researched and presented book. I’ve learnt a lot and a good eye opener” – Seedy J.
“Well researched and presented book. I’ve learnt a lot and a good eye opener” – Seedy J. Source.
When you read my book – The Dangote System, you will understand the physics of building wealth and rising to the top. It is a liberation of the mind, from the nonsensical dogmas . Try it today…it is updated, fresher and sharper. One destination: liberate the minds of men and women, and showcase the paths to building category-king companies, irrespective of the starting point!
The principles are just as solid as Isaac Newton’s Mathematica Principia (critical for modern natural philosophy) or Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (catalytic for modern economic development) because they work!
National Database as a Panacea for Economic Development in Developing countries
Nations are known to develop a National Archival and Database Management system; the national database system can be defined as a storage system for record keeping. According to Wikipedia, a government’s database collects information for various reasons, including climate monitoring, securities, law, and compliance, geographical surveys, patent applications and grants, surveillance, national security, border control, law enforcement, public health, voter registration, and vehicle registration, social security, and statistics. While these may sound basic for every system of government that dots the globe, it is simply not the case.
In the advanced economies, not only have they met, and surpassed expectations in their National Data Management system, their business ecosystem thrives off the database. In the United States, every professional association has a database, for instance to buy and resell used cars, the requirement is to obtain a bidding license, which entails that the applicant’s identification records will be stored in the auto bidder’s database, that is centrally controlled and nationally accessible. In some developing countries real estate industry, is not regulated, any random person will work as an agent. Real estate is an asset that is priced in millions of any currency, which requires serious vetting of its players!
Why certain developing countries don’t have an existing National Database? Let’s not mistake the issuance of a country’s International Passport to the existence of a database. After all an International Passport is a paper document that stores the name and certain details of the giver at a certain point in time. While a National Database contains comprehensive data of all its nationals, and it can be queried to supply answers when needed. Why does armed robbery, kidnap, rape cases happen in these climes over and over? Often involving same offenders, who might have been once convicted by a competent court at some point, served their sentences and released, yet there are no national record documenting these events.
It simply means that these serial rapists will still find their way back to easily renting, and possibly living amongst families with teenage female kids, because there is nothing like the sex offender record existing or an ex-convict easily mixes with the populace or easily apply for jobs, without a trace of his past criminal records.
How can business contracts be easily enforced in such climes? Where there is no reliable database? In the United States a car rental customer, literally walks into a car rental shop, books, and picks a car from say St Louis, and drops it off a week later at Texas location of the car rental company, without the thought of stealing or vandalizing the vehicle. Texas is about 830 miles from St Louis, yet the car rental company, trusted the driving license, the walk-in customer tendered, because it can be confirmed easily, and the social security gives additional comfort. This is why the gig jobs thrive in these climes.
Most developing nations can boast of having a young population, as against the developed world, where ageism is more prevalent and may adversely affect the working population. According to a United Nations report, countries like Angola, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda have a median age for their population below 18 years. Yet these countries are not able to leverage the full benefits of the trending gig economy, which feeds off a sound banking network and a reliable national database framework.
The national data management system made it easy, for the advanced countries to manage the national disruption that was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, in managing limited hospital facilities, the distribution of stimulus checks and palliatives. Additionally, the government had a reliable data of its populace that was infected by the pandemic and with this a more focused national planning strategy was possible.
I conclude by mentioning that developing countries stand to gain significantly from having a robust and an efficient data management system in place.
Different degrees of murder in Law
In the criminal justice system, murder is categorized into different degrees, these degrees determine the level of punishment that will be apportioned to the alleged murderer.
Murder is classified into premeditated/planned, unplanned but intentional, unplanned and unintended but acting criminally reckless and acting in the heat of the moment.
One thing that is established is that it is not murdered unless someone died as a result of the action of another, therefore it involves the death of another person and the act of killing another person is a crime that attracts the punishment of killing the killer in retaliation by the government which can either be by hanging, electrocution, or death by firing squad or if justice is tampered with mercy the murderer is sent to jail for life.
Murder is recognized as a capital offense and it attracts capital punishment.
Murder therefore can be defined to be an act of unlawful killing of another human being without justification, with malice aforethought. It is the unjustified killing of one person by another and is usually distinguished from manslaughter by the presence of or element of malice aforethought or mensrea.
What distinguishes murder from manslaughter is the presence of the mensrea, the premeditated plan to kill, or the malice afterthought: The murderer already had it in mind to kill, thoroughly planned it until he executed it.
The categories of murder are:
First-degree murder; this means that the murderer, had it in mind to kill another fellow, thoroughly planned it, and executed it. First Degree murder is otherwise known as premeditated murder.
Second-degree murder occurs when the murderer never planned to kill the victim but he intentionally wants to inflict grievous bodily harm on the victim which then resulted in the death of the victim. Therefore, the murderer never intended or premeditated to kill, but the act was intentional. For instance, an abusive spouse who only had it in mind to beat up the partner with no intention of killing the spouse but the spouse died as a result of the beating and injury gotten from the beating.
Third-degree murder occurs when the murderer acted in the heat of the moment which results in the death of the victim. Killing the victim was never premeditated or planned by the murderer, the murderer has no prior afterthought of killing the victim but he acted at the heat of the moment maybe in retaliation against the attack of the victim or defense of his person or even as a reflex action but it results in the death of the victim.
Finally, Involuntary manslaughter is another degree of murder that occurs when the alleged murderer never intended to kill the victim or never had the afterthought of it but he acted criminally reckless that it can reasonably be presumed that those actions could lead to the death of another. For instance, an over-speeding drunk driver who ends up running over a passerby. The driver had no prior intention of running over the passersby to death but by the reason of the driver driving drunk and overspeeding, it could reasonably be presumed that it will cause the death of another. Or a police officer shooting live ammunition into the air and a bullet ends up hitting a person and killing that person. The police officer may claim that he had no prior intention of killing the victim but he acted criminally reckless that it can reasonably be presumed that his action may lead to the death of a person.
The legal punishment for these different categories of offenses is not the same and it varies.
Why your Startup/Business needs a lawyer
When running a business or investing in a startup in a place like Nigeria where both the legal and political system is complex and filled with a lot of bureaucratic policies, you need to be extra careful and make sure you do everything by book in other not to encounter hitches that will ground your startup or budding business to a halt.
As a foreign investor funding a startup in Nigeria you definitely need a company lawyer that will lead you by hand and work you and the new business through the huddles of the never-ending Nigeria legal policies, statutes, and laws regulating the business and corporate world including the local government bye-laws of the area government where your startup is situate and also the state and federal laws regulating the industry you are in.
Even as an indigenous investor or startup owner in Nigeria, you surely need a lawyer especially if the startup is in fintech that is disrupting business lines and models that are heavily regulated by the regulatory authorities.
From the conception of the idea of the startup to the pre-contract and pre-incorporation to negotiation to incorporation and post incorporation to the contract stage to funding; you need a lawyer to vet and double check all these to make sure you don’t get burnt immediately or later in the future.
Some take home points on how a lawyer can help your startup and budding business, hence why your startup needs one.
From the conception of the idea of the business you are investing in, funding, or starting up, you need a lawyer to get the necessary registrations, certificates, and licenses that protect those ideas. Ideas are things of high value in the business world and it is classified as intellectual property hence why it is protected and guarded with jealousy. The lawyer would get necessary certificates that Protect your business’s technical know-how and ideas through trademarks, patent registrations, and copyright registrations. Intellectual Property Protection is key at the onset. Trademark, copyright, and Patent Registration should be done at the beginning of any business particularly if the startup is in the creative industry or in the industry where ideas are traded.
Therefore, if business ideas, trade secrets, and other intellectual properties are at the core of the business or the startup then you need a lawyer that will get the relevant registration that protects such properties of the intellect.
The lawyer will also help you protect the startup’s trade secrets by preparing appropriate confidentiality agreements and nondisclosure clauses between you the founder and the staff or employees of the company.
Some e-commerce store and fintech startup owners that float their businesses through websites do not even know that they can trademark their domain names as their startup intellectual property and they also do not know that websites can be registered as copyright, and every graphics, image, letters, color and every component of that site copyrighted as the intellectual property belonging to the company so as to legally protect it from copycats and intellectual property theft.
A startup lawyer can as well help you Incorporate and register the business/ company. According to Nigerian laws, a business or a startup which have not been duly incorporated with the corporate affairs commission will not yet be recognized as a statutory body or legal entity or be given the status of a legal entity. You as the founder will need a lawyer to help with the incorporation of the business and registering the business with the corporate affairs commission to make it a legal entity totally different from its owners.
The lawyer will know the right way to incorporate your startup. He can advise you by the nature or structure of your startup on how the business will rightly be incorporated either as a sole proprietorship, partnership (business name), or a Limited Liability Company (LLC/LTD).
I constantly run into business owners who by the nature and structure of their businesses the business ought to be incorporated as companies but was instead incorporated as business names and they end up spending extra money and wasting time to change the status of the business with the corporate affairs commission.
A competent startup lawyer can also help in registering the startup in foreign countries if the business is expanding to other jurisdictions and territories for operations.
Also, The startup lawyer will ensure that your business operations and activities are in compliance with laws, statutes, policies, and governmental procedures and regulations. There are enormous statutes and policies regulating Nigeria’s corporate world and ignorance of any of it will not excuse you as a startup founder or business owner if you breach any of those laws and that is why you need a lawyer.
A startup lawyer will assist with identifying the specific regulation for your business and advice on compliance.
Some company owners operating in Nigeria do not know that they are expected to get a certificate called Special Control Unit against Money Laundering (SCUML). This is one of the strict requirements enforced by financial institutions and the EFCC against business owners and in some instances your bank account will be frozen if you have not obtained the certificate. This is why you need a lawyer to advise you on how to comply with these requirements in order not to find yourself on a hot seat.
You need a lawyer as well to vet all correspondence and official documents coming in and going out of the confers of the company. The lawyer should review the proposed business plans, and contract bids, and review clauses and terms of the contract to make sure that the interest of the company is duly protected.
Also, your Lawyer will be able to draft the essential documents required to support your business’s digital presence or online marketing strategies if your business is carried out majorly in the digital world. For instance, you need a lawyer to draft up website terms and conditions, personal data collection and usage, etc.
Moreover, You as a founder need a lawyer to draft and specify the Shareholding of the founder(s) and draft the partnership agreement of the partners if the startup is a partnership.
Startup lawyers come up with the share structure of the founders and spell out the conditions for qualification. It is a known secret that founders/ investors have different agenda and different interests while funding or investing in a startup and each founder/ investor wants his individual interest to be fully protected. The Startup lawyer as a master in the craft can come up with agreements that will capture and protect the interests and sentiments of each investor and founder so as to avoid clashes that would warrant investors to pull out that could make the business park up.
Also, When many people form a company or establish a business, it’s best to understand and clearly specify the expectations of the founders and the assignment of each partner to avoid disagreements in the future. So a lawyer will draft the Founders agreement, shareholders agreement, specify the liabilities of partners, mode of partnership, types of partnership, what is expected of each partner, dividends sharing formula and agreement, percentage interest of every founder or partner, etc.
Most importantly, an incorporated startup/ business is deemed in law a separate legal entity hence, the startup is to be protected from the investors and even from the founder(s).
Also, as the founder of a startup, a lawyer will help in Protecting your personal assets from business liabilities. The lawyer will advise you on how best to protect your personal assets and the legal consequences of some contracts. You will want your business to be appropriately structured to protect your own personal, non-business assets.
A lawyer will also Advise you on approved advertisements and commercials formats in order not to run into trouble with the advertising regulating authorities. Some adverts are tagged offensive and prohibited to be projected to the public and any company which projects such adverts always get sanctioned and punished by the authorities and it does not matter if you are not aware that such adverts are prohibited. This is why you need a lawyer to guide you through so you don’t incur sanctions and punishments.
The lawyer will as well advise the company on the proper hire and fire policy which will be in compliance with labour act/laws and employment laws of Nigeria, draft company policies, draft rules and regulations, and handbook for staff and workers of the company.
If you are yet to hire or consult a lawyer for your startup or up-and-running business, you need to do that now to save your business from legal issues that will come up. To cap it up, Startup Lawyers do not only bring their legal expertise to the table but also their business experience having garnered enough experience from working with other startups.
Your startup(s), budding business, company do need some legal support and backup for them to scale up and expand.