Be it an individual or a corporate body, no doubt, at some points in your existence, borrowing becomes a consequential and inevitable approach.

For the umpteenth time, I have categorically made it clear that borrowing becomes necessary if the funds to be assessed would be utilized judiciously; if the funds would be channeled only to the needful.

We must acknowledge that if a certain borrowed fund is utilized judiciously, it would enable the borrower to become financially independent in the nearest future, thereby making him/it to steer clear of borrowing in subsequent time.

The last time I checked, unequivocally, the best way a borrowed fund could be utilized is by investing it, or using it for capital expenditure. This implies that recurrent expenditure shouldn’t in any way warrant borrowing.

One of the basic examples of recurrent expenditure in any society or nation remains payment of salaries or pensions. You can’t borrow in order to pay others or to enable you service some debts; such a step is ridiculous and illogical. Read my lips!

If you borrow in order to settle a certain debt, how do you intend to refund? Obviously, indulging yourself in suchlike practice significantly means you will constantly continue to borrow, come rain come shine.

Aside from the economic implication of borrowing, the social implications are enormous. If you are reckoned to be a borrower, your colleagues or counterparts, as the case may be, would invariably stigmatize you; you might be treated like one who has leprosy. Of course, we are not unaware of the consequences that await someone who suffers from stigma.

Meanwhile, this critique was necessitated by the recent gesture displayed by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) in respect of its apparent soft spot for the various state governments within the shores of the country.

Just a few years back, the President Muhammadu Buhari-led FGN graciously lent more funds to the states, in addition to the ones received in the previous years by the prospective beneficiaries.

According to the said benefactor, the kind move was targeted to salvage the state governments that have been colossally ravaged by the crisis occasioned by the economic turmoil the country was faced with.

It would be recalled that previously, the state governments received a total of #713.7 billion bailout funds from the FGN to enable them pay the backlog of salaries owed their respective workers. It’s noteworthy that the said fund was deducted from the nation’s Excess Crude Account (ECA) otherwise known as National Wealth Fund.

Unfortunately, merely a few months after, the various state governments were still grappling with the same challenges, perhaps owing to the poor monthly federal allocation they were receiving, which was informed by Nigeria’s dwindling oil revenue.

To this end, the FGN decided to release another #90 billion fund, which was believed would immensely assist the states in their bid to be less-dependent on the monthly handout from the federation account.

It’s worthy of note that the fund in question was given in form of a loan, hence fully repayable, although it had a secured tie against future dividends, revenues, or what have you the FG might have owed the states.

At that juncture, any rational being that meant well for Nigeria didn’t hesitate to inquire if these states would continue to receive bailout funds in order to pay their workers and pensioners, because such a step was not unlike robbing Peter to pay Paul.

However, the fascinating side of the FG’s gesture is that, apart from the fact that the loan was given over a period of one year, the states were meant to agree on a good number of conditions before they could assess it.

It might interest you to note that among the total of #90 billion of the second phase of the bailout, #50 billion was shared across the 36 states, coupled with FCT, for the first three months, and then #40 billion for the remaining nine months, which is an average of about #1.4 billion per state for the former and #1.1 billion for the latter. The then Finance Minister, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun disclosed that the idea was to tie states over for a year, so they could rebalance.

Most other uncompromising and laudable conditions meant to be reached by the state governments were, but not limited to, they are to individually: publish their audited annual financial statements within nine months of financial year end, comply with the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), and annually publish state budget alongside its implementation performance report online.

Others were: set realistic and achievable targets to improve independently generated revenue and ratio of capital to recurrent expenditure, implement a centralized Treasury Single Account (TSA), as well as establish a biometric capture of all the state’s civil servants to eliminate payroll fraud.

Additionally, the states were to comply with the existing Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) and reporting obligations of the country, to include: no commercial bank loans to be undertaken by them (the states) and routine submission of updated debt profile report to the Debt Management Office (DMO).

Hence, the FGN barred all the commercial banks in the country from giving loans to any state government regardless of the circumstance; the decision was taken in accordance to the Fiscal Sustainability Plan (FSP) of the former.

Undoubtedly, if the above guidelines were to be strictly upheld by the government via the effort of the Ministry of Finance, Nigeria would have been a better place. Suffice it to say that the additional bailout funds would have caused more good than harm in the long run contrary to the ongoing case or situation whereby it is observed the funds ended up constituting greater quagmire in the various states.

Ab initio, the plight with the Nigerian government has been the ability to proclaim a sound policy but failing to implement it as requested. Hence, this very measure was also expected to suffer same fate if the lingered political will the country had been known for wasn’t changed by the present administration.

If the above conditions were fiercely safeguarded, it must have deterred most of the states from assessing the bailout funds, thereby persuading them to concentrate on the needful.

In addition to the conditions, the various governors deserved to unequivocally be thoroughly investigated since it’s apparent the previous bailout funds received by them weren’t judiciously utilized. It’s not anymore news that workers and pensioners in most of these states are still owed till date for several months, if not years.

This is where the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) needs to come in toward ascertaining if the funds were truly used for what they were meant for. We can’t continue to live in the past amid an administration reckoned to be anti-graft.

The most appropriate step the states are individually required to take at this point is embarking on a massive Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) drive. In most of the states, the policies guiding the traffic sector that is meant to serve as a major revenue source are so porous for anyone’s liking.

Similarly, many of them are tourism-oriented, but the governments have refused to look inwards toward revamping the sector; rather, they chose to rely solely on the federal allocation, which is currently wearing a pitiable physiognomy.

So, rather than depending on bailout funds from the FG or keep seeking for loans from the banks, they are enjoined to generate the funds by themselves. They possess all it takes to do so, thus must learn to walk the talk.

We must always take into cognizance that it pays to be a creditor instead of the reverse. The truth is that, if the various governors concentrate only on the needful, they would in no distant time see the ongoing economic meltdown as a blessing in disguise.

Egypt and U.S.-based MoneyHash has raised $3 million in pre-seed funds to integrate payment systems. The company, which describes itself as the Middle East and Africa’s “first super-API for payment orchestration and revenue operations,” just emerged from beta to clinch the deal.

MoneyHash was founded in 2020 by Nader Abdelrazik, Mustafa Eid and Anisha Sekar to take on the gap created by unintegrated payment systems in industries, especially e-commerce.

The startup had previously in June, raised an undisclosed six-figure backed by investors such as Kepple Africa Ventures, LoftyInc Capital and lead COTU Ventures. The Middle Eastern early-stage fund also led this extension, with participation from previous backers in the initial pre-seed round and others like VentureSouq, VentureFriends, The Continent Venture Partners and First Check Africa. Angel investors include NerdWallet’s Tim Chen, Jake Gibson and Belvo’s Oriol Tintore.

MoneyHash said in a statement that it will use the funds to turbocharge its growth in the Middle East and Africa. The company’s plan includes expanding its team, currently 15 across the U.S., Egypt, the UAE, Nigeria and some parts of Europe, and hiring mid-level and senior software engineers.

The goal is to leverage its relationship with companies in providing a simpler payment method that will compress the multiple payment channels into one. Per TechCrunch, MoneyHash sits on top of payment providers and offers its infrastructure as an extension of companies’ product backend. This extension becomes their connection to the entire payment ecosystem in the markets they operate.

“The idea of the super-API is that you consolidate the different payment accounts and build all of these features on top of it. MoneyHash becomes this one-stop-shop product, or payments stack that you put in your product and manage all of these different integrations and checkout experience in each of the African and Middle Eastern countries and have all your information on one dashboard,” CEO Abdelrazik said on a call with TechCrunch.

While MoneyHash was founded in late 2020, the startup started operation in early 2021, in Egypt, when it began allowing 17 companies to use its sandbox environment to connect with its API and access payments gateways such as Fawry, Paymob and PayTabs.

Abdelrazik told TechCrunch that MoneyHash will plug into different payment gateways and processors active in the Middle East and North Africa post-beta. Some include Checkout, Stripe, Ayden, Amazon Pay, Tap and ValU. He said integration with payment providers in sub-Saharan Africa (mainly serving Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa) like Yoco, Paystack and Flutterwave will follow suit.

MoneyHash clients cut across different industries: e-commerce, travel and tourism, and remittances, among others. They can integrate payment providers with a few clicks, embed a unified checkout system, and access micro-services such as transaction routing, subscription management and invoicing on the platform.

Already the startup has five paying customers from the 17 companies testing its sandbox for free. MoneyHash generates revenue by charging companies between $150 and $1,000 per month, depending on the number of payment providers they connect to. The platform also takes transaction fees that start at 10 cents and go down as payments volume increases.

Abdelrazik said MoneyHash plans to become the AWS of payments in the Middle East and Africa. “What AWS did to the cloud, where it made it easy for companies to build as many services on top of the infrastructure, we think the payment industry, especially in emerging markets, is very fragmented and needs an AWS for money, which MoneyHash is doing when you connect with it and build as much as you need without needing to change anything,” he said.

The call of a good and lovely friend of mine residing in Germany filtered in just in the early hours of 7th October, 2020 immediately after my usual morning devotion.

In his usual style of asking about Nigeria, after exchanging pleasantries, the dude said “Comrade Fred, why is Nigeria still lagging behind in the area of technology despite the alarming need for it?” I didn’t know what actually informed his question.

In my normal way of making my response succinct and apt, I told him “The country will remain where she is until she truly understands the prime essence of research and innovation.”

I nevertheless further notified him that some of the individual capacities in the country were currently making waves as regards technology, but apparently discouraged by the lingering lack of enabling environment.

Lest I digress; two years back, a serious melodrama ensued on the floor of the Nigeria’s National Assembly (NASS) – the Upper Chamber to be precise – when the Director General (DG) of the Nigeria’s Raw Material Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Prof. Hussain Ibrahim appeared before the Senate Committee on Science and Technology.

When asked by the Committee Chairman, Sen. Uche Ekwunife to inform Nigerians how the agency had thus far fared since her thirty-three years of existence, the DG graciously stated that the Council had developed a technology for mass production of ‘Kilishi’.

According to the professor, the aforementioned development regarding manufacturing of Kilishi remained a major breakthrough since the creation of the research-oriented council.

It’s noteworthy that Kilishi is a locally-spiced roasted meat made of beef. It’s very popular mainly in the Northern part of Nigeria. The product is similar to ‘Suya’, though tastes better and more palatable according to the consumers.

Prior to the above response, the DG was actually asked by the Senate panel to tell the teeming Nigerian citizens the specific raw material the agency had successfully produced in the country in partnership with other research institutes.

Prof. Ibrahim opined that in spite of the Council’s “lack of laboratory, we have reached milestone”. One might be wondering if it was development of tech-driven measures for optimization of Kilishi production that took the agency to ‘milestone’.

In a further quest of the committee, the DG was asked “Can you tell us the local raw materials you have developed in the area of health, brewery, construction, science and technology, or agriculture?”

The boss responded “We have developed two varieties of sorghum. We collaborated with agricultural research institutes, pharmaceutical industries because we produce ethanol from it and that is the basic raw material for the production of sanitizers.”

The DG equally highlighted “From the sorghum, we developed other products like glucose syrup, livestock feeds, materials for breweries and starch.”

The last sentence triggered more reactions towards clarifications, hence the committee further enquired if the Council had developed the Glucose Syrup to the stage where Nigeria would no longer import it.

Prof. Ibrahim strongly said, “We have not reached that stage. It goes through processes. We have tested it but the stage we are now is the pilot stage.” At this juncture, if your thoughts are as good as mine, you would then wonder if the pilot stage lasts more than three decades before the research process gets to the next level.

As if that wasn’t enough, the boss stated, “In our 30 years of research activities, we are still the largest research institute. But to be candid with you, we are making progress.”

But was the boss trying to assert that the Council was the largest in Nigeria, Africa or where precisely? Sometimes, one cannot help but remain astonished and puzzled over the manner of speech we invariably receive from some of these so-called professors or Nigerians in positions of authority.

Funnily enough, Prof. Ibrahim then landed with alacrity by enthusing “For now, we have developed technology to optimize kilishi production. Research activities take time. To be candid, we have reached milestone.”

Can you imagine? After about 3 decades of existence, someone was still asking for more time. What kind of time was he really referring to? One question, too many. Any discerning citizen of this country that watched the video clip of that very outing, I bet you, would hate himself for being a Nigerian.

It’s worth noting that the professor’s submission led to a prolonged laughter from the audience but rather drew the anger of the lawmakers (panelists). A member of the panel, Sen. Clifford Ordia then furiously uttered, “Is this the success story you are going to tell us after 33 years?”

In the 21st Century, we were being told by a professor that a technology had been deduced for Kilishi production. Away from that, we were still boggled with the information concerning sorghum, a commodity that can now be comfortably produced by even our secondary schools’ students.

Personally, I wasn’t really dumbfounded over the professor’s outrageous comments, because he was coming from an institution – Nigerian university – where research works have over the years been relegated to the background.

Aside from classroom teaching, research was the major reason that informed the establishment of universities across the globe. But it’s quite appalling that in this part of the world, particularly Nigeria, they are rather seen as places meant for only lecture rooms or auditoriums, thereby leaving our laboratories to suffer.

That annoying melodrama that occurred in the NASS, precisely on 8th June 2020, between the DG of the RMRDC and the Senate Committee truly had revealed that we are the reason Nigeria is where she is today in regard to technology and allied matters. That’s the kind of outing my pal in Germany needs to witness.

Had it been the appointment for the headship of the Council (RMRDC) was not granted to a professor, we would have perhaps been bitter over the gesture of the President. Please, don’t get it twisted; I’m not trying to ridicule our eminent professors who are widely regarded and addressed as the most learned persons in the world. After all, I’m aspiring to become one someday.

But that doesn’t override the fact that some of these ‘professors’ are just a shadow of themselves. The sound ones among them can boldly attest to this unequivocal assertion. Read my lips!

Lest I forget; away from competence and diligence to duty, we can’t possibly forget in haste that Nigeria as a country is still lagging behind as regards funding of research works and commercialization of patents, let alone creation of an enabling environment.

Over six years ago, Nigerians were promised by a serving minister that the country would soon be producing mere pencils, yet till date, we are still living in anticipation. How did we get here?