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2025

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Cars45 Brakes Hard in Nigeria!

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It seems like a business pandemic and the virus may take time to get a solution vaccine. Yes, Cars45 CEO, and about 11 employees, left around the same time in the company, and the firm went out with a Public Notice with mugshots of the workers. Why did they resign about the same time? You may recall how Naspers invested $400 million in the European parent of Cars45. This is hard braking for Cars45; we hope the pad is not burnt. TC Daily explains.

Mind you, these were not some low level staff. Mohammed Iyamu is a co-founder of the business, and Olajide Adamolekun was the chief financial officer. Mayokun Fadeyibi, who was the VP Commercial, is an experienced executive with a PhD in Business.

What we know for now is that at least 8 out the 11 in the graphic (including Iyamu, Adamolekun and Fadeyibi) have joined former Cars45 CEO and co-founder Etop Ikpe in a new car financing venture called NewCo. We also know that Sujay Tyle, another Cars45 co-founder, left Frontier Car Group (Cars45’s parent company) last week.

It means three out of the car company’s four founders have signed off. The company insists there isn’t cause for alarm but we can’t help wondering what’s gone wrong with the wheels over there. (TC Daily)

Chekkit Partners with Fantom to Provide Anti-counterfeit Technology for Afghan’s Pharmaceutical Industry

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Chekkit, a Nigerian health startup designed to assist in the fight against counterfeit products, especially pharmaceutical drugs, has secured a partnership deal with Fantom Foundation in Afghanistan.

Founded in 2018 by Dare Odumade and Jide Asare, Chekkit uses anti-counterfeiting technology for supply chain tracking and consumer real-time feedback analytics. The company uses Unique ID labels – secured on the Ethereum blockchain network – and USSD or QR scanning to verify product authenticity and automate data entry.

Chekkit operates a B2B business model, helping companies in the food and drug business to track their supply chain integrity and protect their products from counterfeiting. So far, the company is operational in Ghana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, where it offers other governments its services.

As its services help more companies to monitor their goods and products, and governments to fight counterfeit through the unique tamper-proof ID, Chekkit is exploring other markets beyond Africa, especially in countries with similar history of fraud and counterfeit products.

Chekkit’s Afghan partner Fantom, is a DAG-based smart contract platform with fast confirmation times. Their solution is built on Opera mainnet that provides fast and secure consensus capable of scaling to the high transactional throughput required to power a country’s entire healthcare system.

Africa and Asia are the continents with the highest rate of counterfeit products, and their respective governments have struggled to curtail it. Afghanistan, as one of the countries inflicted by the menace, is counting on the strategic public-private collaborations to curb counterfeit products, and the Chekkit-Fantom partnership has offered it.

“Over the years, we have seen several partnerships between progressive governments and innovative technology companies to tackle counterfeiting head-on, no holding back. A testament to the fact that a lot can be achieved with strategic public-private collaborations,” the partners said in a press statement.

With its record of hundreds of fake pharmaceutical businesses, Afghanistan is a country of interest for Chekkit services.

As of 2015, Afghanistan, with a population of 31 million, had a total of 450 foreign pharmaceutical suppliers registered with the health ministry. Compared to its neighbors, India which has a higher population of over 1.3 billion and only 100 foreign pharmaceuticals registered with the ministry of health, Afghanistan has an apparent problem of illicit pharmaceutical operators.

Consequently, the country’s Ministry of Public Health has signed a MoU with Fantom and Chekkit to help tackle the menace of counterfeit drugs using analytics and blockchain technology. The project, which begins in a 3-month pilot phase, will utilize Chekkit’s product authentication technology to track and verify all drugs sold in Afghanistan.

The Chekkit-Fantom partnership was initiated in November 2019, during the AfricArena Summit held in South Africa, where Chekkit was among the top three participants.

“Fantom was already in conversation with the Afghan Ministry of Health and brought Chekkit into discussion because our solution was advanced enough to tackle the Afghan counterfeit problem and the fact that Chekkit’s solution was built to work perfectly in developing countries was a huge plus as well. The partnership sees Chekkit’s solution deployed on Fantom’s DAG blockchain network,” the partners said.

The project will be executed through various means of checks and authentication in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, drug manufacturers and consumers.

Chekkit said each product will be labeled with a unique QR code generated through it software which contains information on each product like its authenticity, manufacturing date, expiry date, FDA number, manufacturer, distributor etc.

Afghan public can verify the authenticity of drugs by scratching Chekkit’s label to reveal the company’s QR code, which they can scan using the Chekkit’s app to confirm the authenticity of the product. The company said it has deployed a loyalty/reward system to encourage verification.

As part of its collaboration with the Afghan health ministry, Chekkit has provided special hand-held devices that they can use to verify the authenticity of products at the point of entries into the country.

Odumade says he is hoping that the double focus strategy of the project will make it “extremely difficult for counterfeiter to thrive” and at the end of the pilot phase, there will be deployment of Chekkit’s technology across board.

“Through this partnership, we will provide the pharma companies involved with valuable consumer insights and a reward program to encourage purchase and verification by buyers, as well as give the government/ministry a transparent view of the pharmaceutical market.

“On completion of a successful pilot, we envisage our technology being deployed across the board for all meds coming into Afghanistan.

“Finally, we will also deploy a supply chain tracking solution that offers 360-degree protection against counterfeiting. We plan that the supply chain tracking will be implemented in collaboration with manufacturers, distributors, and retailers,” he said.

Innoson Motors Takes Uber, Bolt via IVM Connect in Nigeria

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It is a very big call: Innoson Vehicle Motors (IVM) will launch a vehicle-hailing service in Eastern Nigeria in Q4 2020. According to Techpoint, they will begin with 200 vehicles and then ramp up to 500, covering most parts of Eastern Nigeria. Drivers will be trained by the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC).

Prospective drivers to operate the fleet must be tech-savvy, and with  capacity to pay back the vehicle within two years via a hire purchase agreement. For the integrity of the hire purchase system, all transactions would be electronic. Yes, IVM is going all electronic on payment here. This is the way to go: IVM can use this playbook  to even sell more cars. If that works, it could open it up with a leasing service in Nigeria.

This is a double play strategy. He can lose money on this but in that process, he will create a brand where IVM vehicles become common on the streets. Just like that, everyone goes for IVM. Brilliant call by the legend as he can capture value via sales through brand awareness triggered by IVM Connect.

The risks are on the aggressive two year hire purchase plan which I think may not be possible. Also, the vehicle-hailing business has not shown capacity to be profitable at scale anywhere. But the little losses may bring popularity through awareness this will bring. 

When great entrepreneurs emerge, nations rise. Well done Innoson Motors.

 

The Financial Expert Who Was Swindled By a Rogue

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Ah, you warned me and I didn’t listen. I thought I would cash out before they abscond!

That was the lamentation of Confidence, my good friend after losing a huge sum of money recently in a ponzi scheme called FoxBet. You may find it hard to believe that a financial expert with years of experience could be easily defrauded by a group of rogues having less of his experience but smarter. As it’s said in Africa, a dog that’s destined to stray will not heed the hunter’s whistle. However, I must admit that no matter how smart and careful we are, we sometimes fall victims.

It all started four days back when I received an urgent call from Confidence asking me to lend him some money. The amount was considerable that I had to query the purpose and when I should get back my money. He narrated how one of his colleagues invested the sum of N100k and cashed out N140k within two days. Incredulous! I exclaimed. What’s the name of the organization and what are they into? I asked.

They’re into football betting. This is a sure bet! They know people who know some players. They agree with them to commit fouls and get yellow carded during matches. The odds are certain, he explained excitedly. I counseled him that this sounds too good to be true. I cannot gamble my money away. He was desperate that he even offered me 50% of the gain if it comes out fine, if not, he will only return my capital. It was then I reminded him of Murphy’s Law which says, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” I also went further to quote the 4th and 5th Laws of Gold according to the Richest Man in Babylon.

The Fourth Law of Gold
Guard thy treasure from loss: Every owner of gold is tempted by opportunities where it would seem that he could make large sums by his investment in most plausible projects. Often friends and relations are eagerly entering such investment and urge him to follow.

The Fifth Law of Gold
Gold flees the man who will trust it to impossible earnings or who follow the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers, or trust it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.

Using these financial principles, I deduced the Wealth Creation Curve, WCC. With the aid of the following graphs we will see how the odds were against my friend.

 

Definition of Terms
R = Returns, profit, commission, interest, etc.
T = Time
a = Risk factor
& (flattened) = Infinity

WCC = Wealth Creation Curve
BB = Backward Bending
Downstream = Low networth
Upstream = High networth

Normal Case
Consider Figure 1, as an investor you must start from the downstream at point a to earn r1 after doing time t1. To earn r2 upstream at point b, you must do time t2.

Abnormal Case
From Figure2, you create a Backward Bending Wealth Creation Curve when you try to earn r2 at t1, that is, point c. As you force the WCC backwards, you increase your risk to the point where a = R. This is the point you risk losing all your investment.

“The game is so arranged that it will always favor the keeper. It’s his business at which he plans take a liberal profit for himself from the coins bet by the players. Few players realize how certain are the game keepers profit and how uncertain are their own chances.

Conclusion
Despite the obvious red flag of FoxBet not using the formal financial channel of transaction preferring to deal in cash, Confidence was only true to the meaning of his name, albeit for the wrong reason. I will drop my pen with the last quote from the book.

“Wealth that comes quickly goeth the same way. Wealth that stayeth to give enjoyment and satisfaction to its owner comes gradually, because it’s a child born of knowledge and persistent purpose.”

Be vigilant!

New Certificate Design

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Sample certificate to be issued to co-learners

I started Tekedia Mini-MBA in the Abuja airport lounge as we flew back from Nigeria after Christmas with family. By the time we landed in the U.S, there were many surprises. Thanks. As we move into the next phase, we are hiring in Owerri (Nigeria) and the US to improve our products. Also, we are building an app (web and mobile) which will be like a Facebook page and Whatsapp to deepen collaboration and innovation processes in our ecosystem.

One of the areas we will invest is to find how to use local cases to help our members.  The investment brief/concept note we created for Lab 1 (of edition 2) has helped many to unlock opportunities. Members have rated the report Excellent. Our job is to use such documents to co-learn and co-educate. 

But the first move is to update our certificate; we are retiring the old one for this. Please we will replace your old certificate if you ask, and new members, this is what you would get. Paul Adeneka designed this.

We are onboarding a university for the students to participate in two series we have created for schools – The Innovation of Firms, and The Wealth in Nations. For more on Tekedia Programs, go here.

As always, I want to thank our members for this call to serve in this capacity.

 

Tekedia Academic Programs