“We are seeing a wave of divestment  by oil majors operating in Nigeria”, Mallam Mele Kyari, GMD of NNPC at 2021 NAICE.

As the world makes big oil the new tobacco which must be avoided by all means, Nigeria’s moment of truth is here. Cholera has returned at scale, insecurity has scaled, even IBB baptized himself a saint by looking at the level of corruption these days, doctors are still striking, teachers are not left out, etc you will ask: what will happen when even the oil money is not in the purse? 

If I have to speak with President Buhari this morning, I will tell him one thing: you are the petroleum minister, move your junior minister and make him the Minister of Energy Transition & New Economy, with a clear mandate to develop protocols on new systems to substitute whatever Nigeria will lose from petroleum. The goal is to have structures which will help Nigeria enter the new energy world confidently, and I do think despite whatever the ministries of ICT, Science, tech and innovation, etc may be doing, it is only the petroleum ministry that will send the loudest alarms.

The oil majors are not in control of this redesign: the investors are. As major funds dump them over exposure to the “new tobacco”, they want to wean themselves off hydrocarbons to remain viable in the markets.

The World Bank has joined the march to greenhood, phasing out key upstream investments. The sovereign wealth fund of Norway, the largest equity investing fund in the world, controlling nearly 1.5% of the total global equity war chest, is cutting exposures to (fossil-based) energy companies. Shell is leaving Nigeria. Today, Toyota has learnt that selling more cars is not what matters, it is the type of car (EV or gasoline) that investors care about.

People, they are tobacco-lizing big oil, and in the near future the pension funds will join the party, and some university endowments will fire fatal bullets. Big oil is the new tobacco and the world is running away from it. Nigeria must open its playbooks.

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Comment #1: Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe, honesty and accountability need to be built into Nigeria’s business culture. The NNPC GMD is only partially right in the attributed quote. He used a present continuous verb tense (we are seeing), in place of a compound continuous past perfect tense (we had been seeing).

The divestment trend among oil majors had been in progress for almost 8-10 years. Oil giants are being compelled by lawsuits, shareholders, and boardrooms to pursue new pathways in energy production, especially ones with a lower carbon future. Even national oil companies have begun diversifying. Saudi Arabia, one of the biggest oil-producing countries in the world has engaged in large commercial solar energy projects since 2011.

As you concluded, the change is imminent, and “Nigeria must open its playbook.” Unlike crude oil, gas production must ascend into the high priority realm, meaning gas flaring must come to an immediate ending.

When will the country begin to lay the foundations for the adoption of electric vehicles? Are the ministers of energy and transport even considering this?

Comment #2: “The goal is to have structures which will help Nigeria enter the new energy world confidently …….Its is only the petroleum ministry that will send the loudest alarms”. Exactly what Dubai did,and Venezuela refused to do.As of 2016, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.(Lol)
Good people,Nigeria has the best ideas-best brains. We have the best committees set up to look at the root causes and submit a term-paper. Then a second committee to serve as oversights to the first one.(Chuckling)

What we lack is sustained execution. Strong executions come from strong leaders,not drama or politics. It comes with dedication to the mission above all others. We have to start teaching our kids execution,not sentiments,ethnicity or politics. Just the results.Everything is simple thereafter.The common wealth should be our national destination.

Lagos is setting the pace. I predict in the next 20years,you will need some kind of intra visa,or economic visa status to live in Lagos, if the other states remain asleep .Just wait till Lagos gets its ultra modern state police.

In our program, I introduced our members to one critical business framework: product minimum viable quality. I postulated that quality without the construct of cost is meaningless. Yes, you pay $402 per year for tuition and board in a federal university in Nigeria, and yet you are expecting to have Harvard University quality which costs north of $67, 000. 

You spent $300 in Transcorp Hilton Abuja and yet you expect the same quality in the Oshodi “hotel” where $12 can cover your head for a night. Those make no sense – and that is the reason why China is winning the world. Even though it could make a high quality product, sometimes, it thinks it could price the customers out. So, you buy that Christmas toy for $2 which breaks down within two hours the kid is playing with it when the German version which costs $100 will last for months. But the problem is this: few have $100 to spend on a toy. Magically, the crappy China’s version wins the global market.

That takes me to European football. If France’s PSG picks Messi when we already have Neymar and Mbappe, can we still write that Ligue 1 has a competition for #1 or just looking for #2? Yes, who will finish behind PSG? Those three players could buy some 11 players in some Ligue 1 teams. You do not call that competition.

I like how they do it in America: there is a team salary cap and once you hit that, nothing else can open. You can decide to use 70% of that cap and pay one person but you cannot exceed that cap. In Europe, it is lousy. You can rake a bank and assemble the best in one team, making it a game of money and no more football!

Arsenal legendary coach, Arsene Wenger, mastered that business, returning tons of profits for the club, by constantly developing and selling good players, even when winning silverware was dimming. The fans wept that Arsenal was not winning trophies when the team owners were smiling to the bank. The question is this: if it is competition on the field, there needs to be a balance in the accounting  books. 

A Messi-Neymar-Mbappe trifootballogy will be a super-threat and the global united nations football security  should pay attention – and act! Sure, get better goalkeepers to lead the commissions!

Mastering China’s Minimum Viable Quality (MVQ) Strategy

In 2018, when Chika Nwobi started Decagon, his goal was to help software engineers to acquire adequate training and secure suitable jobs. Spurred by increasing tech startups and youth unemployment in Nigeria, Decagon has pushed through the hurdles to become a household name in Nigeria’s tech space, and it’s looking to extend its services beyond Nigeria with newly raised funds.

On Friday, Decagon announced a $1.5 million seed round and a student loan financing facility of $25 million from Sterling Bank, a Nigerian bank with interest in tech investments.

Decagon raised money from Kepple Africa and Timon Capital for its equity financing. Also involved are some angel investors such as Paul Kokoricha, managing partner of the private equity business of ACA, and Tokyo-based United Inc.

The company’s CEO, Nwobi, who has been in tech entrepreneurship since the early 2000s, with a couple of other companies like the seed-stage L5Lab to his name, is charting a new path with Decagon in hope to help software engineers to develop themselves.

According to him, Decagon’s aim is to address the underrepresentation of black people in tech globally, starting with Nigeria. It was a course Andela started before its pivot, though with a different approach.

Nigeria, as the most populous Black nation in the world, is riddled with market and industrial frictions that require software engineering to fix. The huge gap also creates opportunities of employment for Nigeria’s teeming unemployed youths. With over 50% youth unemployment and Nigeria’s meagre participation in the booming tech economy, Decagon hopes to change the status quo with a supply mechanism that will also stop the export of Nigeria’s limited talent abroad.

The fintech boom in Nigerian has widened the need for talents in software engineering. With more startups rising in the financial sector, its sustainability will depend on having capable software developers and connecting them with suitable companies. Decagon hopes that by training and connecting engineers to work remotely with both local and international companies, Nigeria’s young tech ecosystem will be sustained and the youth unemployment gap will thereby be filled.

“Microsoft, Facebook and Google have all invested in building engineering offices in Nigeria, but most other companies can’t afford to do that. So we help them access top talent to work as remote engineers,” Nwobi said.

Decagon’s software program is a six-month course that recruits engineering candidates based on merit. Being a paid program, the engineers are required to pay about N2 million ($4,000) in tuition fee. The company applies an income-sharing model after the engineers graduate, get a job and start earning.

The program uses the loan financing system to take care of students who cannot afford to pay the fee. Students who enrolled under the loan financing system are expected to repay the cost of N3,000,000 ($6,000) in three years.

According to Decagon, it is the first company in Nigeria to employ merit-based loan financing for students. The financing is also supported by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Its method allows Decagon to offer a Pay-After Learning plan for trainees, with facilities such as laptops, accommodation, internet, meal allowance and pocket money.

However, since the program is merit-based, students’ recruitment takes a rigorous process and only a few are selected among many applicants. Decagon says only 440 candidates were selected out of 80,000 that applied for the program. That’s 0.55% acceptance rate. However, Nwobi said other indices indicate the company is on the right track: Decagon has a 100% placement record for its trainees, a 100% loan repayment rate, and a 410% salary increment made by its software engineers after getting placement.

Obinna Ukachukwu, the divisional head of Sterling Bank said regarding the deal: “We got involved to support alternative education by providing loans for Nigerian students complemented with financial literacy training. Based on the excellent performance of the current portfolio, it made sense to scale our support to Decagon,”

Nwobi explained that Decagon combines edtech, fintech and the future of work in its operation, and the seed fund will be used to push all three projects simultaneously. Female participation in the program currently stands at 25%, the company says it looks to increase it to 50% in the next three years as a way to deepen gender inclusion.

He added that Decagon’s “tech talent catalyst” is growing at 500% per annum, and the fund will spur further acceleration.

“We see this capital as fuel to accelerate our mission to transform exceptional people, often from under-represented backgrounds, into world-class engineers by connecting them with financing, in-demand skills and their dream jobs,” he said.