Nigeria and cattle are on a collision. I cannot understand why we cannot manage this paralysis. Cattle could put this nation on a regrettable path. This is becoming “a savage custom, barbaric, outdated, rejected, denounced, accursed, excommunicated, archaic, degrading, humiliating, unspeakable, redundant, retrogressive, remarkable, unpalatable.”

You could have noticed that I quoted Wole Soyinka’s Lakunle, in The Lion and the Jewel, as the teacher spoke to Sidi. Yours truly acted as Lakunle in the secondary school’s drama society where memorizing drama, Shakespeare, etc was part of life. And most of those lines have refused to go! Sure, they helped those days Ifeoma was doing shakara. Lol

People, cattle must NOT destroy Nigeria. It is high time Mr. President shows leadership on this. We need to be living to eat meat in Nigeria. This is simply no more a distraction, it is a problem now. Yes, when the police lie to protect cattle, you will agree that Nigeria is on a bad path.

Wole Soyinka is a sage and one of the most respected academics in the world. In some societies, he would be a national symbol. But here,… very unfortunate. Mr. President, you need to lead on this cattle thing.

Mr Soyinka, in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES, narrated how the cattle invaded his home, how they were removed and how the police took time to arrive the scene after they were invited.
The police in Ogun had claimed in a statement Tuesday that only one cow stayed into Mr Soyinka’s compound.

“The entire place was inspected by the DPO and it was established that it was just a case of stray cow as nothing was damaged or tampered with,” the police said.

Mr Soyinka has now said that the narrative of the police is false.

“I thoroughly resent the police version which suggests that the cows never invaded my home: home is not just a building; it includes its grounds. And it was not a stray cow, or two or three. It was a herd – we have photos, so why the lie? It is so unnecessary, unprofessional and suspiciously compromised,” Mr Soyinka wrote.

Tekedia Institute is excited to welcome Oma’s Whole Foods  to Tekedia Mini-MBA. Led by the Managing Director, Chinweokwu Shen, Oma’s Whole Foods products are free from artificial colours, flavours, sweeteners and preservatives. I look forward to an engaging class, especially during the Sustainability module of our program. We will co-share, co-learn, and advance.

We began a new edition this week; registration continues here.

Nigeria’s pioneering subscription video on demand, iROKOtv, is planning to list on London’s Alternative Investment Market within a year. Founded by Jason Njoku and Bastian Gotter in 2011, IROKOtv houses the largest catalog of Nollywood film digital content.

It should not come as a surprise to anyone: selling video streaming products in Africa is a hard business. It is a double whammy for most potential customers: pay subscription fees and then cover the broadband costs. So, it was not entirely unexpected when iROTOtv announced that it was refocusing out of Africa: “Over the next week, IROKO will be defocusing our Africa growth efforts and we will revert to focusing on higher ARPU customers in North America and Western Europe. Even after pushing incredibly hard in Africa for the last 5 years, our international business represents 80% of our revenue today…” This is really a smart move as now the company can focus where it can earn U.S. dollars; I made that case a few days ago when I explained how Nollywood producers are focusing on international markets.

Yet, while $100 million may not look big in this age of inflated valuation, according to Jason, everything is coming just fine. We wish iROKO great luck as it searches for the right soil to grow in London.

“We don’t need more. To be honest, $10 million to $15 million will be for corporate development; the rest will be secondaries for shareholders. As a private company, IROKO’s valuation was never priced above $70 million so anything in our target range wouldn’t be a down round at all,” he said. “Especially if you consider in that time we exited ROK for close to the total amount of capital we raised for IROKO; we have returned $11 million to early investors and shareholders already. We still have material capital left from the ROK-Canal+ acquisition coming in every six months until 2023.”

The biggest movement in African commerce is the fintech movement. In Uganda, I called the fintech sector, the “Africa’s new growth operating system”. Last week, a fintech signed an agreement to provide zero-interest education financing to Tekedia Institute’s learners. We will bulk discount but they take risks for prepaying us! The full press release is coming.

This is the point – nations rise when pioneering entrepreneurs emerge. The future of education funding will not come through government, in Africa, but through innovators, entrepreneurs and makers. I want to commend those who are building, over just complaining. 

This is my message: anything is possible in Africa. But we should not be looking for governments to bring those possibilities. 

Our Supply Chain Management course in Tekedia Mini-MBA has been revamped. US Army veteran and supply chain expert, @Adebayo Adeleke, has expanded the course, adding the Future of Work in the sector.  He examines the industry redesigns and evolving opportunities across all domains – technology, operation and manpower. With Amazon Luiz, Gig Logistics executive and others, we are confident that our members will deepen their capabilities through this course.

Registration continues for the edition which began this week here.