Nigeria is hurting its young people by banning and weaning its financial system of cryptocurrency. This is an opportunity injustice to a generation.

While I am not a crypto person, I hold this belief that nuanced, deliberate and future-forward policies would have helped the central bank and regulators mitigate any risk to the nation’s economy.

As America and Western Europe ascend in this domain, within a decade, Nigerian youth will become mere consumers and spectators in a sector they would have creatively and productively participated in.

I call Nigeria to change this own-goal policy.

As bitcoin goes mainstream, winning more and more institutional interests, many who had shunned the cryptocurrency in the past are beginning to rethink their decision.

Fintech company, Stripe, which divorced bitcoin three years ago, is considering accepting cryptocurrency as a method of payment in the future, co-founder John Collison said Tuesday.

The company ended support for bitcoin payments in 2018, citing volatility and a lack of efficiency in making everyday transactions. But there has been a lot of positive changes since then even though the volatility concerns remain.

The number of institutions that have adopted cryptocurrency has increased significantly, and so are countries and new ideas such as the non-fungible token (NFT), Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) that have been incorporated into blockchain ledger.

Given the remarkable progress, Collins said: “We don’t yet but I think it’s not implausible that we would,” when asked whether Stripe would offer crypto support again.

“Crypto obviously means a lot of different things to a lot of different people,” Collison said at a CNBC-moderated panel at the Fintech Abu Dhabi festival on Tuesday.

Collison said there were some aspects to crypto — such as its use as a speculative investment — that are “not that relevant to what we do at Stripe.”

But, he added: “There have been a lot of developments of late with an eye to making cryptocurrencies better and, in particular, scalable and acceptable cost as a payment method.”

Cryptocurrency’s DeFi’s system has largely buoyed its mainstream acceptance, especially as it offers cheaper transaction fees compared with traditional financial institutions.

Evolving Web3, a web version of DeFi, is also fanning the frenzy, as many companies are positioning for the future decentralized internet. Stripe recently formed a team dedicated to exploring crypto and Web3, a sign that the company is rekindling its interest in bitcoin.

Per CNBC, Guillaume Poncin, Stripe’s head of engineering, is leading the effort. In addition, the company appointed Matt Huang, co-founder of crypto-focused venture capital firm Paradigm, to its board of directors earlier this month.

Collison said there are a number of innovations emerging in digital assets that have potential, including solana — a competitor to ethereum, the world’s second-biggest digital currency — to “Layer 2” systems like bitcoin’s Lightning Network, which aim to speed up transactions and process them at a lower cost.

Stripe is a big name in the financial industry, processing transactions for partners like Uber, Google and Amazon.  With $95 billion value and high profile investors such as Baillie Gifford, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, Stripe has become the largest privately-held fintech company in the U.S., a record for a company founded in 2009.

The company has gone on acquisition spree in recent years, acquiring fintech startups around the world. Late last year, Stripe acquired Nigerian fintech startup, Paystack, for a record $200 million. Now it is diversifying to areas such as insurance and loans.

With the huge influence it holds in the financial industry, Stripe onboarding bitcoin once again will become a big boost to the cryptocurrency that has erased a lot of gains recently, following a market pullback.

Rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCA) are informal financial institutions serving the financial needs of many Africans for centuries. It has many names across African communities. AjoMoney, a startup, has built an operating system to digitize that process at micro and macro levels.

In the ROSCA system, a group of trusted individuals agree to contribute a fixed amount into a fund at regular intervals. This process continues until all members receive the sum of the money that has been deposited into the fund in turn. In Nigeria, through traditional means, rotating group savings is one of the community support mechanisms helping fragile households cope with certain crises through the network of informal and formal relationships.

AjoMoney has built technologies which push this into a new domain of aggregation, deepening trust and improving efficiency. We are happy to support  Co-founders Ibrahim Adepoju  and  Chineye Ochem ACA, CFE, MBA on their promise to bring Ajo, Esusu, Utu, Oha, Oku (pick your name) into the new era.

The grand vision is that people can pay school fees, buy things, etc using AjoMoney under the tenet ofBuy Now Pay Later (BNPL) which is basically the old invention in African communities with lack of credit ordinance. Of course, AjoMoney will overlay data, improving this tradition which continues to help families and communities.

In a world where young people are not open to high interest loans, AjoMoney has a promise. This is a century-old Buy Now Pay Later version since when all the fund contributions have rotated, no one actually pays any interest even though each gets the funds to execute a project.

Download the app here and here.

AjoMoney digitized the rotating group savings to promote zero-interest financing in Nigeria

For long, Nigerian polytechnic graduates with Higher National Diploma (HND) have faced discrimination in the labor market, as most employees have a preference for university graduates with Bachelors of Arts/Science, BA/BSc. The situation has kept many tertiary institution graduates, though qualified, out of work. Now Nigerian lawmakers have moved to end the dichotomy.

In an aim to permanently put an end to the discrimination, the House of Representatives, on Tuesday, passed a bill titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to Abolish and Prohibit Dichotomy and Discrimination between First Degree and Higher National Diploma in the Same Profession/Field for the Purpose of Employment; and for Related Matters.’

The bill proposes to criminalize any sort of discrimination by any person or organization, both in the public and private sectors, against HND certificate holders.

The bill passed third reading after the House had on Thursday, considered and adopted the report by the Committee on Tertiary Education and TETFund on the Prohibition of Discrimination between First Degrees and Higher National Diplomas Bill, 2021.

The details of the bill reads partly as follows:

“Notwithstanding any provision in any legislation, circular, regulation or policy guideline, First Degree and Higher National Diploma shall be deemed construed and treated as equivalent qualification for the purpose of employment and career progression at workplace in the public and private sectors of the Nigerian economy.

“Any provision in laws, enactments, instruments, circulars, scheme of service, directives, or policies by whatever name called, which is inconsistent with the provisions of this bill, shall to the extent of the inconsistency be null and void, and of no effect.

“Holders of the First Degree and the Higher National Diploma (HND) shall be given equal treatment and opportunity in career placements, career progression, admission to further studies and privileges whatsoever in consideration of status as graduates of Nigeria tertiary institutions of higher learning.

“All forms of discriminations and or dichotomy between First Degree and Higher National Diplomas for the purpose of employment, transfer of service, conversion of cadre, career progression, promotion, and other related issues in the public and private sectors of the Nigerian economy is hereby abolished.

“No person, authority, entity (body or corporate) in whatsoever name call shall discriminate and or undertake any action in any form whatsoever which is misconstrued as and or intended to give any preferential treatment in favour of and/or against holders of the First Degree or the Higher National Diploma.

“Any person or entity in the public or private sectors of the Nigerian economy who contravenes the provisions of this bill, commits an offence under this bill, and shall be liable upon conviction to a term of two years’ imprisonment or a fine of N1,000,000 or both.

“Any person or entity in the public or private sectors of the Nigerian economy who design, prescribe and or specify any guidelines, terms or conditions of employment, career progression, and or any other instrument by whatever name called in violation of the provisions of this bill shall be guilty of an offence under this bill and liable upon conviction to a term of 1-year imprisonment or a fine of N500,000 (five hundred thousand naira) or both.”

To ensure that the legislation is complied with, the bill prescribes punishment of a fine of N500,000, imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or both for any person who induces or encourages any other person for the violation of any of the provisions of the bill.

“Where in any proceedings against any person for an offence under this bill, it is established that any action constituting an offence under this bill has been committed by an officer, it shall be presumed that the action was done with the motive or intent of committing an offence under this bill as the case may be, until the contrary is proved,” the legislation partly reads.

While the legislation has brought relief to a large section of Nigerian graduates, the implementation beckons concern. Many believe that employers are still going to stick to their old ways. Only this time, they’d be careful about it.

The Senate would have to concur to the bill before it will be transmitted to the President for assent.

As Africa transmutes into data-driven societies with people, firms and  nations in interdependent relationships, unlocking the value in data will create competitive advantages.

Knowledge is the altar but data is the tool for the sacrifice. Winning the markets will require business high priests who make sense of data. The kingdom is the market share.

The data in companies is the wealth in companies. Build capabilities and refine your data.