Responding to this post by Nurudeen Adeyemi, you always tag me (thanks), but here you did not state my position to help your audience. The average oil revenue during Jonathan was $76 billion per year , Buhari’s was $47 billion per year, using your data (I assume they did not include 2017 data). But if you look at borrowing, Buhari has made up his oil shortfalls via borrowing. My comment on that feed was this: money is money, borrowed or via oil revenue as when you spend Naira, it does not have a marker with “they got me from oil” or “I am borrowed”.

What Buhari did not get in oil, he had borrowed from pension, IMF, etc and at the end, he HAS more money (per year) than any of the administrations you mentioned. More so, the oil revenue that came during OBJ, Yar’Adua (the best among them), GEJ etc went into paying military era debts and because of that their budgets were LOWER.

Last Jonathan’s budget was N4.962 trillion in 2014 but Buhari’s last budget was 10.59 trillion naira in 2020. Even using absolute official rates in both 2014 and 2020, Buhari has more USD; Jonathan was around $24 billion using N200/$ in 2014 and Buhari $28 billion using N380/$ in 2020.

So, what you are sharing is irrelevant because even though oil revenue has dropped, President Buhari has used loans to jack up spending, more than any president in both Naira and USD. However, as I noted in the piece you cited, the thinking into the spending has not been strategic, and that is why it seems he does not have money even though he is spending more!

Comment on LinkedIn Feed

Comment: Even though President Buhari has used loans to jack up spending, more than any president in both Naira and USD, as you’ve said, he has projects to show for those spending but the previous administrations have no project to show for their spending that’s the issue.

Response: That is another debate which I do not want to follow up. I simply responded to debunk the “scarcity” you created on your feed. I am happy we are in affirmative now. You tagged me; so, I simply wanted to explain my side of the point. Mr. Buhari has a reason to be borrowing – he is fighting a war.  Yes, that he is spending more is understandable. I only responded to debunk that he had no money because oil revenue went down.

In a perfect internet market, the marginal cost of a digital product is zero. But no market is perfect, so, what we have in reality is that the marginal cost tends towards near-zero. What that means is that the transaction and distribution costs stay low even as output increases. Whenever you attain that positioning, your unit economics improves since you are essentially having accelerating returns which keep compounding.

Before you launch that digital product, understand this plot. If you do not, you will struggle to scale that product. The mastery of marginal cost is the mastery of digital business growth. Your scalable advantage is built on the “physics” bounded by distribution cost and transaction cost.

Unit Economics. Marginal Cost. Understand both, and the path to the mountaintop becomes clearer. How do you keep growing without increasing marginal cost?

https://youtu.be/P75hzh3e190

An Indian court dismissed pleas on Friday by Amazon.com Inc and Walmart’s Flipkart to quash an antitrust investigation into the business practices of the U.S. firms, dealing them a blow in their key growth market. Reuters has the report.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) announced its investigation in January 2020 after a trader group’s complaint accused the firms of promoting some “preferred sellers” and hurting business for smaller sellers.

A court had put the investigation on hold last year after Amazon and Flipkart challenged it saying the CCI had no evidence the e-commerce giants were harming competition.

On Friday, Justice P.S. Dinesh Kumar of the high court in the southern state of Karnataka said he was dismissing the petitions by Amazon and Flipkart, and refused them any further relief.

“It would be unwise to prejudge the issues … at this stage and scuttle the investigation,” Kumar wrote in his 51-page order.

Amazon said it would review the order “carefully and then decide on the next steps”. Flipkart did not immediately respond.

Abir Roy, a lawyer for the Indian trader group Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh, told Reuters the judge’s decision effectively paves the way to restart the investigation, which has been on hold since February 2020.

However, the companies are likely to appeal against the verdict.

When the competition watchdog ordered its investigation, it listed four alleged anti-competitive practices. These were exclusive launches of mobile phones by the e-commerce firms, promoting preferred sellers on their websites, deep discounting practices and prioritising some seller listings over others.

The CCI investigation will be the latest setback for the firms, which have also battled tougher foreign investment rules, and faced accusations for years from brick-and-mortar retailers about circumventing Indian law by creating complex business structures.

In February, a Reuters investigation based on internal Amazon documents showed the U.S. firm for years had helped a small number of sellers prosper on its platform in India, giving them discounted fees and helping one cut special deals with big tech firms.

As the competition watchdog sought to restart the probe, it told the Karnataka court in March the Reuters report corroborated evidence it had received against Amazon.

In response, the company, which has said it “does not give preferential treatment to any seller”, told the court it disagreed with the Reuters report, which should not be considered evidence.

India’s Amazon antitrust probe highlights the growing global spotlight on American big tech. Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft are all having their full share, as the country seems to be heeding the wake up call to hold them to account.

The US is following the steps of European watchdogs, who recently have had many of the tech companies in their bad books. Democrat US Senators are currently working on an antitrust bill that would force the biggest tech companies to change parts of their business models and curtail large acquisitions.

The drafts, if it becomes law, could require business model overhauls for Apple and Amazon by limiting their ability to operate marketplaces for products and apps while selling their own goods and apps on those same stores.

They would also make it harder for those companies plus Facebook and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) to complete large mergers, and would force them to make it easier for users to leave their platforms with their data intact.

Good People, join me on June 22 as I keynote ‘Digital Africa Conference & Exhibition’ which will be held from the 22nd to 24th of June, 2021. I will open the event with a Keynote on the 22nd at 9:35AM WAT.

Digital Africa Conference and Exhibition is Africa’s premier consumer technology show which holds annually. It provides the perfect platform to showcase your brand and enhance your reputation. It presents to its participants a major opportunity for unrivalled networking and privileged access to strategic partners, investors and potential buyers.

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