Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet, with a $185 billion large purse. A recent stock surge in Tesla’s share price pushed Musk past Jeff Bezos, who held the mantle since 2017 and currently controls $184 billion. Musk’s wealth surge is unprecedented – and even the ancestral wealthy Musa of Mali would be jealous.

Elon drank the African waters before he moved to Yankees and that is a validation on something: it can come from any place. His rise is uncommon and shows the beauty of America. People, this is now an Elon Musk age – and this one could be very durable when you combine Tesla with moonshot-visioned SpaceX. I mean this guy could rule the empires of wealth for a very long time.

Many got it all wrong: ‘Long-term bear RBC Capital Markets upgraded its recommendation on Tesla Inc., admitting it had misjudged the electric-vehicle maker.. There is no graceful way to put this other than to say we got TSLA’s stock completely wrong,” analyst Joseph Spak wrote in a report lifting Tesla to sector perform. The broker had maintained a sell-equivalent underperform rating since January 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. During that time, the shares have surged by about 1,200%.’

Mr. Musk is the generation’s best innovator – and it is hopeless betting against him.

Tesla has the best technology, best brand and remains well ahead of competitors on electric vehicles. Yes, the category-king has been anointed and Tesla will win the electric vehicle (EV) business. And provided it keeps that dominance, markets believe others will just break down. What GM and Ford are doing could be described as “marginal”, and daily, Tesla is extending the goal posts, making it harder for them to catch-up.

In the marketing construct of Needs, Expectations and Perceptions, Tesla is taking the world into Perception while other brands are meeting needs and expectations in the EV sector. When you are in the perception space, you set a new basis of competition, bringing new competitive ordinances that disrupt markets for your advantage.

Where are the Nigerian men with traditional titles “Eze Ego” [King of money], “Oba Ego” [the barn which holds money], “Osimiri Ego” [the ocean of money] etc? There is a launching program in the village, and Elon Musk is coming – let there be a match! Do not call in sick due to Covid-19; we are aware you have tested negative. We want to know who is the real king of money!

I have just spent a couple of minutes looking at the frictions they are fixing. Kiakiagas.com is your supplier of cooking gas in Nigeria. They offer free delivery of cooking gas to most homes in the major cities within 45minutes. The differentiation is that you can use an app to place the order and they will deliver. I see huge new frameworks they can apply to deepen the business.

At Tekedia Institute, we welcome Kiakiagas to Tekedia Mini-MBA. CEO Emmanuel Uwandu, Jane, and team, we are confident that our program will support your mission of growing this business.

We have many related courses, one delivered by an operating manager from Schlumberger and another by a U.S.-based executive in the pipeline industry. So, besides the business courses, you will get great insights on the business cases of gas and oil business.

Again, welcome to the largest business school in Africa!

Tekedia Institute offers 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, recorded and archived which means participants do not have to be at any scheduled time to consume contents.

It is a sector- and firm-agnostic management program comprising videos, flash cases, challenge assignments, labs, written materials, webinars, etc by a global faculty coordinated by Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe. Register here.

Tekedia Academic Programs

I do not know how to begin this note. Yes, when the Nigeria Labour Congress was pushing for the evidently deserved raise on workers’ wages, I made a comment that winning the strike and legal battles for workers may not mean that their bank accounts would see the money. Yes, in a nation where population growth is growing faster than economic opportunities, shocks will happen. When you add that Nigeria uses 60% of its revenue to service debts, you get a clear picture that striking for wage raises may not mean much in the long-run. Yes, if there is no money, minimum wage would be frozen.

Kano state has drawn the first blood: “The Kano State Government has reverted to N18,000 (about US$46) minimum wage, …The Special Adviser on Media to Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, Salihu Tanko-Yakasai, confirmed the development in a telephone interview with The PUNCH on Wednesday in Kano.”

“Yes, the state government has stopped the payment of N30,000 minimum wage to its workers with immediate effect,” he said.

Tanko-Yakasai said the reason behind the action was due to the recession occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to him, the state was unable to continue paying N30,000 because what the state was currently getting as a government had reduced.

“The state government has reverted to the initial minimum wage due to the recession.

“What we are getting now as a government has reduced, and we can’t afford to pay the N30,000 minimum wage,” he said.

You read it, and as the official noted, Abuja was not sending us enough money, and that means we cannot pay the old N30,000 ($79) monthly wage. But if you are truly honest with yourself, you would have expected this. When Kano state agreed to pay this minimum wage, there was no clarity on how it would do it without Abuja expanding its size! 

Of course Kano state workers are lucky; Abia state does not even care, even to pay the minimum wage. The state abandoned its college of education when workers went on strike for unpaid wages. Today, that school is permanently closed.

As always, expect some strikes in the next coming weeks. But those will not change the fundamental construct of the root cause which remains that Nigeria needs a drastic redesign on its economic architecture, to become more productive, so that the state workers could generate enough, to pay themselves whatever they want, instead of waiting for handouts from Abuja. 

Abuja may not be helpful these days as it is looking for money to fund its own bureaucracy. Since 1999, Nigeria has scaled wastes, and it seems the party will continue, as they have removed the brake pads in Nigeria’s moving train to nowhere.

Nigeria’s 60% Debt Service to Revenue Ratio And Push To Borrow from Unclaimed Dividends, Dormant Bank Balances

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Duke Orsino delivered one of the most memorable lines in the book when he said “If music be the food of love, play on”. Shakespeare did not stop there: in a scene in Hamlet, when Lord Polonius asked Hamlet “What do you read, my lord?”; Hamlet responded “Words, words, words”. People, if innovation drives the wealth in firms, DESIGN is the “music” and “words”. So, in Tekedia Mini-MBA, we have been expanding our design courses. I love design because as a microprocessor designer, I understand one thing: good circuits optimize transistors. And great products come with vision, within tradeoffs on resources.

We have added a course on Design Thinking which runs for close to 3 hours from a former Innovation Lead from software powerhouse, SAP. We have also added Packaging Design from a business leader from Nigerian Breweries.

I am so excited that everything has come together. A scrum master and agile coach, Bola Adesope. ITIL, PMP, PRINCE2, CBAP, CSSBB, CSM, PSM, CSPO, ICP-ACC has prepared an amazing course on Agile Methodology. It is a beauty and you cannot afford to miss it.

See the complete Tekedia Mini-MBA curriculum here.

I invite you to accelerate your leadership ascent by joining Tekedia Mini-MBA which begins Feb 8 to end May 3. Registration continues and we just extended the early bird registrations. We have more than 90 Faculty across all domains of commerce and industry. Learn from the best, innovate and drive business growth. Be a Champion, co-learn with us. Begin here and register.