I have read nearly all articles written by the New York Times between 1966 and 1970 on Nigeria’s civil war.  Of course, it was not everything that the Times got right, based on stories by actual participants in Nigeria’s lowest point. The Times wrote about ingenuity, uncommon tenacity and brilliance of the Southeast people of Nigeria. But watching some videos on what happened immediately after the war tells me that today’s Nigeria is redeemable. Yes, from all angles, Nigeria does not have a big problem, if we can pick lessons post civil-war. 

Do you know that most community development unions in Southeast Nigeria started after the civil war? Do you know that it was communal? Yes, people came together to build schools, maternity centers, clinics, shops, factories, etc. That is what they teach in business school: attain economies of scale and do great things in markets. Here, community development unions were vehicles for people to pool funds and do big projects.

It does seem that across Nigeria, from north to south, east and west, and beyond, we have tons of knowledge which we do not value. The template deployed across Southeast Nigeria was not developed by IMF, World Bank or African Development Bank, but by the communities. And the thing worked since we have enough time to evaluate.

First, they have economically rebuilt the region. On education, Imo State at 96.43% literacy rate leads the nation. Abia and Anambra hover over 90%; Enugu is above 85% but Ebonyi is below 80%. Across most metrics, the outcome would be better than anything the World Bank and IMF could have designed.

So, the question is this:  why is Nigeria not looking for solutions internally instead of hiring  experts who compound issues due to the lack of the nuances of Nigeria? Time to invest in community-centered development?

Good People, the Mhagic team has informed us that it would be doing the public presentation of the $60,000 grand prize cheque for winning the Velocity Mhagic season 1 to Tekedia Institute later this month. The event will happen in Lagos. The scholarships will also follow for students; all information will be in Tekedia Hub – hub.tekedia.com.

Again, Tekedia thanks all our members for supporting the school for this prize. All our winning is donated to fund scholarships for students to attend Tekedia Mini-MBA, Tekedia Advanced Diploma programs, Tekedia Certificates, Tekedia CollegeBoost, etc.

How do you get Northeast Nigeria back on the path of growth? How do you overcome the paralysis which is affecting that region?  Despite Nigeria budgeting and spending about N10.02tn over six years on security ($25 billion using the average exchange rate over the period), according to BudgIT data, we have continued to scale insecurity.

So, what can the nation do as a nation? I personally think the insecurity has no military solution: to win this internal war, a heavy dose of economic war has to be fought. Sure, there are religious components but even those could be adjusted economically.

I have been studying how Southeast Nigeria came out of the ruins of war to the position it is now. There was a plan and every village formed a development union to stimulate models to advance education, healthcare services, etc.  Nigeria needs to examine what happened in Southeast Nigeria during that journey.

That “onye aghala nwanne ya” [do not leave your brethren behind] goes beyond business. What happened was that communities pooled resources to build schools and people came together to build shops, buy equipment, etc, and by following that playbook, they advanced faster.

It is based on this that I continue to say that it is wasteful to give 100,000 women each $100 and expect that money to advance their economic status over time. However, if you use that money, you can provide better community-systems which could improve their lives indirectly. For instance, you can use that money to provide solar-powered 24/7 electricity to help market women extend their perishable goods. For each of those women, that electricity will help them over time than each getting $100.

Nigeria had a framework which worked; I am hoping we revisit it now that we are looking for pathways for growth in the nation.

Nearly a year after Facebook’s WhatsApp Pay was suspended by the central bank in Brazil, the social media platform has relaunched the WhatsApp payment services, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday.

In June last year, Facebook started its chat-to-pay system in Brazil, as part of Zuckerberg’s effort to get into the payment market. But it was abruptly cut off one week after launch by the central bank.

The regulator said it was taking the decision to “preserve an adequate competitive environment” in the mobile payments space and to ensure “functioning of a payment system that’s interchangeable, fast, secure, transparent, open and cheap.”

Banks in the nation had asked Mastercard and Visa, which are among the payments partners for WhatsApp in Brazil, to suspend money transfer on the WhatsApp app, because it was seen as a potential threat to the traditional financial system.

Facebook shifted attention to India where it has been working with the government to set up the WhatsApp Pay.

Brazil is the second country where the messaging service launched money transfers. In India, WhatsApp’s biggest market with 400 million users, it got approval to start financial services in November.

The payment feature was designed in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) using the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), an India-first, real-time payment system that enables transactions with over 160 supported banks, according to a statement from WhatsApp.

The instant message app explained that it is necessary to have a bank account and debit card in India to use the WhatsApp Pay feature. Although more details about the launch are yet to be given, it seems Facebook is using the Indian playbook in Brazil.

By using debit or prepaid cards numbers, WhatsApp’s 120 million users in Brazil are able to send each other up to 5,000 reais per month through the messaging service free of charge. Initially, the system will not allow each transaction to surpass 1,000 reais or more than 20 transfers per day.

The roll out of the new feature will be phased, Chief Operating Officer Matthew Idema said in an interview. Starting today, a limited and undisclosed number of users will get a payment tool in their app. With that, they will be allowed to invite new users.

Reuters reported that in addition to reviewing the proposed payments network, the central bank also requested the technology giant be labeled as financial services company in Brazil, prompting Facebook to create a new unit called Facebook Pagamentos do Brasil, which is now regulated by the central bank.

But the central bank has not yet greenlit payments with merchants, which is expected to be a paid service, adding a new line of revenue for WhatsApp. Last year, card payments in Brazil totaled 2 trillion reais ($368.12 billion), up 8.2% from 2019.

Idema said talks with the central bank are still ongoing and Facebook expects the launch of merchant payments to occur this year, declining to comment on whether it will be a paid service.

“For WhatsApp launching payments is interesting because it increases the app usage,” the COO said.

WhatsApp started its payment service in partnership with card networks Visa Inc and Mastercard and payments processor Cielo SA. It will operate with cards issued by Banco do Brasil SA, Banco Inter, Banco Bradesco SA, Itau Unibanco Holding SA, fintech Nubank, MercadoLibre’s MercadoPago and Sicredi.

A combination of India and Brazil WhatsApp users will mean a huge market for Facebook, whose attempt in the past to develop Libra, a single global digital currency, was quashed by the U.S. government.

We are business educators. We try to turn business into physics, finding the constants and the components of natural philosophy therein.  Go through the great debate by Thales, Heraclitus and Pythagoras, and the redesign just before the end of the 18th century when everything was studied under natural philosophy, and think deeper, you could identify a unifier of all knowledge. Yes, LOGIC is the foundation, and logic is philosophy. But what is logic? Pythagoras postulated “numbers”.

The numbers of nations are the business of nations. The numbers in markets are the opportunities in markets. You call them data – that raw material of mathematics, the beautiful science of numbers.

Like a little boy helping my grandmother sell her yams in Oriendu Market Ovim, Abia state, I understood the physics in her business: all yams must be sold before 2pm as merchants from big cities always close around 2pm, to have time for their journey back home.

If you miss that timeframe, you could be forced to  take your produce home unsold. But you dare not, because that was your school fees!

Every business has its physics. At Tekedia Mini-MBA, we explain the mechanics in markets. Join me and other faculty members by registering for the 5th edition of Tekedia Mini-MBA (June 7 – Sept 1, 2021). Register here.

Tekedia Mini-MBA is an innovation management 12-week program, optimized for business execution and growth, with digital operational overlay. It runs 100% online. The theme is Innovation, Growth & Digital Execution – Techniques for Building Category-King Companies. All contents are self-paced and recorded which means participants do not have to be at any scheduled time to learn.