Since Adam Smith wrote his classic, in 1776, the Wealth of Nations, to upend the mercantilist system and set forward the basic foundations for modern classical economics, we have seen corporations come and go. The core pillars of productivity and division of labour have been the tenets in the organization of firms which thrived. The free market system provided the cement mortars in states.

Andrew Carnegie lived. John D. Rockefeller lived. Bill Gates is living. Jeff Bezos is living. Nigeria needs builders to fix our paralyses as Naira fades as a currency.

Very painful indeed: the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has made it official – Naira has lost more grounds to the US dollars. According to the Vanguard, Godwin Emefiele, the apex bank governor, “who spoke at a summit on the economy by Bank CEOs on Friday, said the drop in crude oil earnings and the associated reduction in foreign portfolio inflows significantly affected the supply of foreign exchange into Nigeria”.

His words: “In order to adjust for the decrease in supply of foreign exchange, the naira depreciated at the official window from N305/$ to N360/$ and now hovers around N410/$.”

These men are icons of their generations, pursuing the noble cause of entrepreneurial capitalism – aligning assets and knowledge to provide services where fictions exist between those that want and those selling. Corporations exist to simplify that interplay of demand and supply, and these legends and others thrived in providing solutions that eliminate most of the frictions. They pursued different levels of innovations for scale using productivity, specialization and uncommon vision.

The path to the rise of Naira will not come from the headquarters of the Central of Nigeria, but from factories, offices, etc, across Nigeria. It goes beyond using financial quick-fixes to pursue ephemeral mercantilist system,  instead of  looking for ways to efficiently form, combine and recombine factors of production, to create innovations, aspiring to be the BEST, regionally and globally, without relying on pure mercantilism!

Nigeria exports more than the world, per capita – but unfortunately, its exports are its future. It has exported most doctors, engineers, etc to America, Canada, and the United Kingdom, per capita. The path to the mountaintop must reverse that. Watch this video.

Inaugural Address by Ndubuisi Ekekwe, President, LinkedIn Nation

I have explained the simple difference between a nation like the United States and another like Nigeria. America is an innovative society, Nigerian is an inventive society. There are so many ideas in the latter but hardly enough products and services to match those ideas. 

Until nations transmute from being inventive to innovative, they will remain poor. No nation has become rich without that translation. Yes, always remember that most of the pioneers of the most fundamental aspects of physics, mathematics and chemistry died poor. They were bright people – but they ended up poor. Why? They lived in societies of ideas with no products because there was no transduction from invention to innovation.

For that I mean, they had ideas on shelves but no mechanism to create products from them. Then, something happened, and a transduction took effect and poor societies evolved to become rich. Unfortunately, not all societies followed that trajectory. And all societies must go through the transduction process to emerge.

Until pioneering entrepreneurs emerge with the energy of entrepreneurial capitalism unleashed in markets, creating products and services, to fix Nigeria’s frictions, Nigeria will not advance. Yes, Nigeria will not advance until its market systems evolve. The path to the mountaintop goes through markets, not state capitals, because all the promises of politicians must be translated within the ordinance of market principles.

Nations rise when builders emerge. True political leadership will come when politicians become aware that without markets, all their actions are hopeless. And how will that leadership come? Building processes that engineer competition and efficiency, unlocking comparative advantages across states.

Imagine a nation, #believe.

As we close registration for the 4th edition of Tekedia Mini-MBA on March 3rd,  we are excited to welcome Convexity, and the amazing team led by Adedeji Owonibi, to Tekedia Institute. Convexity is a modern company; it works in the domain of blockchain. They help firms study and build next generation suited blockchain solutions, making it possible for companies to launch more powerful solutions, with embedded security and compliance infrastructure.

The most exciting thing about Convexity? It has just set up a Blockchain Hub in Nigeria for innovators. Welcome to Tekedia Institute. Welcome to the best school. We will co-learn and co-learn, and advance the wealth of nations.

Photo: from Convexity Hub