It is about two days close to the two weeks ultimatum that President Muhammadu Buhari gave to the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, to end the lingering strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which has crippled academic activities in public universities across the country.

There is yet no deal on the table to resolve issues of contention to end the five months old strike. Now ASUU has announced that the strike has been extended by additional four weeks, effective from August 1, 2022.

According to the statement made by the national president of ASUU’s National Executive Council (NEC), Emmanuel Osodeke, on Monday in Abuja; the strike is being prolonged due to the government’s inconsistency in honoring their agreement.

The academic union rued the government’s nonchalant attitude toward resolving the issues prolonging the strike. Among the issues to be resolved are; government’s failure to conclude the process of renegotiating the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, deployment  of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), and payment of outstanding arrears of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA).

Read the statement below 

“The meeting was called to review developments since NEC’s resolution to extend its roll-over strike action by another 12 weeks with effect from 9th May, 2022.

“The NEC meeting took place against the backdrop of government’s obligations as spelt out in the Memorandum of Action (MoA) it signed with ASUU on 23rd December 2020. Specifically, NEC recalled that government’s failure to conclude the process of renegotiating the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, deploy the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), pay outstanding arrears of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), release agreed sum of money for the revitalization of public universities (Federal and States), address proliferation and governance issues in State Universities, settle promotion arrears, release withheld salaries of academics, and pay outstanding third-party deductions led to the initial declaration of the roll-over strike on 14th February, 2022.

“NEC viewed with seriousness the recent directive given by the President and Visitor to all Federal Universities that the Minister of Education, in consultation with other government officials, should resolve the lingering crisis and report to him within two weeks. The Union wonders why it had taken five full months and needless muscle-flexing for government to come to the realization of the need for honest engagement.

“NEC acknowledged the growing understanding of the issues and the groundswell of support for the Union’s principled demand for a globally competitive university education in Nigeria. Nigerian universities must not be reduced to constituency projects that merely exist on paper and our scholars must be incentivised to stay back and do what they know best, here in Nigeria.

“NEC appreciated the historic nationwide protest of 26th and 27th July, 2022 organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in collaboration with Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to further create awareness on the antics of the Nigerian ruling class to destroy public education. ASUU renews its commitment to the struggles of NLC in championing the cause of the working and suffering Nigerians.

“NEC observed that non-signing of the draft renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement more than one month after it was concluded by Professor Nimi Briggs-led Committee is further tasking the patience of ASUU members nationwide.

“NEC further observed that the on-going trial of the suspended Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Ahmed Idris, on allegation of monumental fraud has vindicated ASUU’s rejection of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information (IPPIS). The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is enjoined to release reports of the latest tests on the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) vis-à-vis IPPIS without further delay. ASUU shall resist any attempt to truncate the deployment of UTAS with all legitimate means available to the Union.

“NEC noted that cumulative indifference by the political class gave vent to pervasive atmosphere of insecurity which now threatens seamless provision of educational services in the country. The unceremonious closure of educational institutions in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), following the recent attack on Presidential Guards, betrays a panicky measure to addressing a malignant ailment. Nothing short of a comprehensive overhaul of the security architecture of the country will sustainably address the problem.

“Following extensive deliberations and taking cognisance of Government’s past failures to abide by its own timelines in addressing issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MOA), NEC resolved that the strike be rolled over for four weeks to give Government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues. The roll-over strike action is with effect from 12.01a.m on Monday, 1st August, 2022.”

The conflict between Ukraine and Russia will be a footnote if China and US enter into hostilities as a result of Taiwan, as Nancy Pelosi ( US House Speaker) is rumoured to be visiting Taiwan which China claims belongs to it: ‘U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi was set to visit Taiwan on Tuesday, three people briefed on the matter said, as China warned that its military would never “sit idly by” if she visited the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing’. China has warned and warned. If Ms Pelosi does visit and China takes kinetic actions, it would be a massive dislocation in our world.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is one of the main suppliers of the world’s most advanced microchips – used in everything from smartphones to cars to rockets – and factories. company is operating at full capacity to alleviate the global shortage.

“If you use military force or invade, you will make the TSMC factory inoperable,” he said.

“These are sophisticated manufacturing facilities. It depends on real-time connectivity with the outside world, with Europe, with Japan, with the US.”

Unlike Ukraine where the issue was wheat, Taiwan will bring the world to its knees. Yes, it hosts TSMC which is one of the most important companies in the world. It makes microprocessors and integrated circuits which power the modern economy.  If you cut-off TSMC from the global supply chain, economies will fade. I predict an immediate global recession!

We’re witnessing a new era as the world awaits – will Pelosi enter Taiwan and if she does, will Chinese warplanes escort her out of the Taiwanese airspace? And if that happens, will US warships fire on those warplanes? Pay attention!

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi was set to visit Taiwan on Tuesday, three people briefed on the matter said, as China warned that its military would never “sit idly by” if she visited the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing.

Pelosi, who began an Asia trip earlier on Monday in Singapore, was due to spend Tuesday night in Taiwan, the people said.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry said it had no comment on reports of Pelosi’s travel plans.

[…]

One source told Reuters that the United States had informed some allies about Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Two other sources said Pelosi was scheduled to meet a small group of activists who are outspoken on about China’s human rights record during her stay in Taiwan, possibly on Wednesday.

Steve Jobs, an Apple founder, was legendary for stimulating demand. He worked without surveys or focus groups. He was a genius, peerless in his generation. He saw an unborn future many years ago. He was an icon, who changed his world. He developed a good design paradigm of working at the #perception of customers, beyond their needs and expectations. He found glory, and Apple triumphed with iPod, iPhone, iPad and more.

The Perception Demand Construct is a product evolution strategy where you work on things which are not really evident to be in demand. Yet you go ahead to create that product, being confident that you can stimulate demand for it.

Ordinary companies work to meet the Needs of customers. Great companies work to meet the Expectations. Disruptive and generation-shaping companies transform customers by creating new bases of competition, where they turn customers into FANs, triggering perception demand and stimulating new market categories or sectors.

Products like iPhone and Indomie Noodles work at the level of Perception; both are revolutionary and evolutionary with fandoms in their respective markets. Pursue #fandom through market innovation. Until you can reach that mountaintop of Perception Demand, your leverageable factors cannot compound at scale. I share some components to explain the N.E.P of the thesis.

Source: Tekedia Mini-MBA classnote

Response to a comment: Indomie invented sharp sharp (timely) fairly nutritious meal, saving you from the typical 40-120 minutes required to prepare a typical African food. Fofo requires at least 3 hours and you need more energy to prepare the food than the energy the food will give you upon consumption! With mortar and pestle pounding the fofo, you need energy to prepare that. Indomie has cut those off. That saves mothers time.

“Our Fintech active users rose by 87.3% YoY to 11.5 million, of which 2.4 million represent active MoMo wallets. This has helped drive growth in the total volume of transactions to over 124.3 million. Our MoMo PSB commenced commercial operations on May 19, 2022, and we are pleased with the progress thus far” – MTN Nigeria in a statement.

With these numbers, MTN Nigeria has become the largest and biggest fintech company by customer base in Nigeria. The Mobile Money (MoMO) latest data makes it the fastest growing financial institution with no bank license in the history of Africa – 4.2 million customers in two months!

As I have written in Harvard where I noted that startups must see companies like Facebook and Google as utilities (here, ICT utilities) which must be built into, and not out-of, since you really have no chance to frontally confront them, MTN Nigeria is assuming a new positioning that all fintechs in the nation must re-examine their strategies, on how they fit into the age of MTN. The competition is asymmetric and truly unbounded when you see the numbers MTN has been producing.

I have called this company “osisi na ami ego” [a tree that produces money as the fruits]. So, just like we work to fit into the world of Google, hiring and paying search experts to make it easier for Google to use our contents for free, so that we can extract small opportunities online, you need to think how to fit into the world MTN  Nigeria has defined right now in Nigeria. 

Nigeria is now an MTN nation and it runs this era; even the big banks are not safe!

—part of MTN statement

”We achieved some important strategic milestones in H1 towards delivering our ambition 2025 strategy. This includes the final approval for our MoMo payment service Bank (PSB) and the commencement of commercial operations on 19 May 2022, leveraging the solid foundation of our existing MoMo business.

”We are pleased with the progress since the launch and excited about the prospects of our Fintech business and driving financial inclusion in the country. As of the end of June 2022, we recorded 4.2 million registered MoMo wallets of which 2.4 million are active, generating MoMo transaction volume of approximately 7 million within six weeks of operating.

“Our Fintech active users rose by 87.3% YoY to 11.5 million, of which 2.4 million represent active MoMo wallets. This has helped drive growth in the total volume of transactions to over 124.3 million. Our MoMo PSB commenced commercial operations on May 19, 2022, and we are pleased with the progress thus far.

”Our primary focus has been to offer and scale basic services targeting the large unbanked segment and evolve into more advanced services across our Fintech verticals, leveraging our vast distribution network”.

MTN MoMo Wallet Hits 4.2 Million In Less Than Two Months