According to The Cable, former President Goodluck Jonathan, after attending an event organized by the Commonwealth Community Choir in Abuja, responded to journalists when asked if he was joining the presidential race in 2023 thus, “It is too early to talk about that.” Yes, as I wrote the other day, something has a good chance of coming to pass: Jonathan running as an APC candidate. He is not ruling out contesting! Jonathan has one thing no other southern politician has: he can run a maximum of one term. Expect political sagacity here from ambitious governors.
As the 2023 general election draws nearer, former President Goodluck Jonathan has declined to rule out the possibility of him seeking election in 2023.
There have been speculations that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was considering fielding Mr Jonathan in the next general election to serve a single term, having served one term as president on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
But Nigeria, do not be looking to former presidents like Obasanjo, Jonathan and Buhari, for anything different. We need to think for a new future. I mean, we the people can change this nation.
There needs to be another person. It would be really offensive if they repackage Jonathan on us. Nothing against anyone; I just want a new energy and vision. Why not try village boy Ndubuisi Ekekwe? If I say it, wetin go happen? Lol.
Under my presidency, within 6 months, all farmers will see accelerated credit net worth of at least N3 million because I will put velocity on land title and make it easier to move around it, unlocking wealth which remains latent in rural areas, across Nigeria. If we do that, rural Nigeria will evolve. Then, we will begin the playbooks.
How will we do it? We will use tech startups and open the mapping of assets and registration of land as business opportunities. If we do that, we will see massive new credit wealth in Nigeria. One ward at a time, and a new nation will emerge.
Property rights will drive this and lawtech will handle that. We do not need special contractors: we will channel the energies of our young people to build a new Nigeria!
All Together
The land velocity playbook alone will double Nigeria’s GDP in 3 years and create 5 million jobs! Imagine a man who owns 500 goats entering the formal balance sheets, magically turning that “poor” man into someone who can walk into a bank with networth in books of N20 million.
Nigeria, give me just a year. I lived in the village & I miss Ovim: Nigeria rocks!
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While growing up, second-hand clothes (aka okirika and its short form, O.K.) were actually used by people that couldn’t afford new clothes. Then, people said that second-hand clothes can never be equated to new ones no matter how beautiful and new they are. Parents also bought them for their children to wear around the house and run minor errands. But they never served as outing clothes.
As I entered the university, things began to change. Then, there was a power tussle between wearing O.K. clothes and their new counterparts (aka ready-made) to lectures. Some people believe it’s better to buy many O.K. clothes with little money so you will have much changing clothes during the semester and still have change for other things. Some students insist that it is better to have a few clothes that are ready-made than filling your wardrobe with “rags” (that is, O.K. clothes). Well, those that could afford it went for ready-made while the others continued with their second-hand clothes.
Today, things have changed entirely. Gradually, the eyes of the rich and that of the not-so-rich are turning towards O.K. They are no longer seen as “rags” nor considered as fit for only the poor. Today, O.K. is even getting more expensive than ready-made, at least the “Nigerian ready-made” – or should I be blunt and say “Aba ready-made”? Truth is, you can find Nigerian ready-made gowns that are sold as cheap as two or three thousand naira and O.K. gowns that sell for seven thousand and above. If we come to shoes, especially for boys, O.K. sells at four thousand to six thousand naira while Aba ready-made sells … well, you can even find one thousand five hundred naira shoes for that same boy. But then, many Nigerian women would prefer that O.K. gown that sells at 7k to the Aba one that sells cheaper. This is also the same thing with shoes, where parents proudly show off their children’s shoes they bought from O.K. and disregard the Aba ready-made ones. This makes one wonder why things are going in the wrong direction.
There is something that needs to be pointed out here that might help to make sense of the whole situation. The O.K. clothes and accessories that sell expensively are usually those made with London and US specifications and also worn there. They are not second-hand Nigerian ready-made clothing. Hence, the people that go for O.K. in this context are actually those that have found some differences between Made in Nigeria and Made in London/USA.
Clothes in market
In order to find out why people would rather opt for expensive fairly used clothes when they have options for cheaper new ones, I conducted a minor survey through WhatsApp. From the responses I received, the reasons for this shift in preference are:
Quality
A lot of people pointed out that Nigerian clothes and shoe makers produce their goods with low quality materials. One of my respondents narrated how the sole of her new shoes removed the very first time she wore them. There were also comments about how colours of clothes faded after few washes, how clothes shrank or sagged, how tight clothes ripped from seams or how their zips broke, and many other funny but embarrassing stories like that. The only thing I can see here is that people will rather buy good quality clothes and accessories that have been worn by someone else than opt for new ones that have low quality. If they have to pay extra to get what they want, they see no problem with that.
Finishing
There were comments that insisted that Nigerian ready-made clothes have poor finishing. Someone even said their clothes lack class. When I asked further, I found out she meant it doesn’t drape well on people. Someone said Nigerian tailors are not patient enough to run threads straight and smoothly through clothes or to even seal those threads at the hems. Sorry, I don’t have the technical terms to describe what they said but I believe they meant that, even though these tailors intended making beautiful designs, they fail because their finishing is always skewed.
Mass Production and Replication
The people that complained here said that Nigerian ready-made clothes are always mass produced to the extent that wearing trending clothes makes it look like there is an aso-ebi. This may not be a problem for people that love trends but to those that want uniqueness, it’s actually a big issue. Another thing here is that most of those mass produced clothes are replicas of designs from good fashion houses. What is more? They don’t only make them cheap but also use low quality materials in making them. As one of my friends said, you might buy a gown for 15k today only to see an akara hawker wearing the exact design tomorrow. For that, she would rather stick to her second-hand clothes than patronise our local fashion designers.
There’s no gainsaying that we have good tailors and cobblers in this country. Even the Aba producers people condemn can make clothes and shoes that will compete with the ones made by foreign producers. For instance, people come from different parts of the country to buy clothes and shoes from Aba because of their good handiwork. I even heard they export their wares to other African countries. But then, a lot of work still needs to be done. Nigerian fashion houses need to capture all the fashion industry. They should find out what they are not doing well and improve on them. They may be capturing the male market, but they are definitely losing their female customers.
A few hours here, Icommended the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for a really brilliant policy shift: “liberating” international money transfer organizations, thereby making it possible for Nigerian diasporas to supply more dollars into the Nigerian economy, and by doing that, reduce the pressure on the Naira. I expect the black and official forex rates of Naira to attain a manageable parity by the end of Q1 2021 after the current backlogs of dollars requests have been sorted out.
Our total remittance as a nation is always at parity with the total executed national budget. In other words, even though we may have a budget of $30 billion, the execution is never 100%, and by the time you look at the percentage of execution, the number is always around the amount remitted into the economy from Nigerians living abroad. That remittance froze because the deal was not there: if you had sent $1,000 via Western Union last week, they would pay your family N384,000!
Hopefully, in two weeks, after they have adjusted to the new policy, Western Union will ask your bank to pay you $1,000 in cash or put the money in your dorm account. With that, more forex enters into Nigeria and more Nigerians in diasporas will have incentives to wire more.
More so, I commented on Tangerine Life, a digital insurance company, which invested in a startup, CredPal, for choosing the startup over just investing in their regular choice (real estate) after treasury bills went out of form in Nigeria. And in that piece, Iwrote: “We will be waiting for the pension funds to join the party. If that happens, a new generation of well-backed startups in Nigeria will emerge”.
Unfortunately, that will not happen; someone shared a link which I missed when it ran. Yes, the Nigerian government borrowed N6.16 trillion from then N8.499 trillion pension funds: “The pension commission said 72.5 per cent of the fund had been borrowed by the Federal Government and invested in the FGN securities totalling N6.16tn during the period under review.” [This was done in 2019]
The total pension assets under the Contributory Pension Scheme rose to N8.49tn as of the end of November 2018 financial period, latest figures obtained from the National Pension Commission on Tuesday revealed.
The pension commission said 72.5 per cent of the fund had been borrowed by the Federal Government and invested in the FGN securities totalling N6.16tn during the period under review.
The Pension Fund Administrators also invested 6.87 per cent or N584.321bn of the fund in domestic ordinary shares, while 0.71 or N60.529bn of the fund was invested in foreign ordinary shares.
According to the Pension Reform Act, the PFAs manage the funds which are in the custody of the Pension Fund Custodians.
That is unfortunate; the government’s borrowing of pension funds and investing in government’s securities will remain suboptimal. It is just offensive for Nigeria to keep cheating its citizens. There is a need for us to recalibrate as a nation. Putting 10% of these pension funds in our emerging sectors powered by these young companies will transform Nigeria faster than using the funds in the way we are using them today.
I call on the government to see pension funds as strategic assets for building and funding the future of Nigeria. Like in Canada and other economies, these funds invest in emerging sectors, helping innovators and entrepreneurs have access to capital to accelerate economic transformation. It is time Nigeria joins that party. While we continue to see big buildings in our banks, the fact is this: most of them do not worth much when benchmarked with the values these emergent startups are creating.
Yes, Paystack was worth more than Wema Bank, FCMB Holdings and Unity Bank combined on the day it was acquired. But Paystack would not have been possible without outside capital from America. Nigeria’s pension funds could seed and scale other entities like Paystack which may not have access to American funds. We have an obligation as a nation to recalibrate on how we plan to run the future redesign. Yes, Nigeria must recalibrate; Mr. President, this is your time.
CredPal is a credit card solution geared towards providing credit access for businesses and individuals in Nigeria. With their solution, you can buy things on credit and pay later. It is not a loan which means you do not have to pay interest when the card is not in use. A Y Combinator alum, the company just raised $1.5 million.
“We’re building the American Express of Africa, and our goal is to make credit cards mainstream across Africa as is obtainable in the United States and other advanced economies. With this funding, the growing market demand for consumer credit, and our recent product launch to solve these needs, we know that we’re on the right track,”
“With this funding, we’re working on ways to provide more information and education about credit cards, the value of owning one and the benefits that come with it. We are obsessed with the desire to see that working professionals no longer have a thing to worry about as it concerns dealing with their financial needs, a world in which every working person is rewarded with a CredPal card that has their back. A world in which they can embrace life today and live more,” Olaogun said.
It is that raise that caught my interest: it raised part of the money from a digital insurance company called Tangerine Life. Yes, is that not awesome that insurance companies in Nigeria now back startups instead of the typical warehousing of premiums in real estate investments? Of course, treasury bills are no more options with the near zero-rate returns!
We will be waiting for the pension funds to join the party. If that happens, a new generation of well-backed startups in Nigeria will emerge.
CredPal was started by Fehintolu Olaogun and Olorunfemi Jegede.
