A few hours here, I commended 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, I wrote: “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.

Google is an aggregator which means its core raw materials are not baked and provided by it. In other words, others produce the raw materials which Google feeds on. Every search engine optimization (SEO) engineer is an unpaid Google staff since SEO engineers do one thing: make it easier for Google to find their sites so that Google could make money on them!

Of course, there is a reciprocal benefit: Google helps your tiny space on the web to be discovered. That is critical as in the world of abundant supply, there is a need for order, and that order means someone that can make sense of the whole “noise”, and direct people on where to begin on any discovery process.

Indeed, in a world without Google, Facebook and other aggregators, we will need to visit each and every website to know the one with the most relevant content on something we need to know about. That would be exceedingly unproductive and expensive. So, we agree on one thing: Google offers enormous value on driving efficiency in a knowledge world. It wants to serve more customers and it is very obsessive on that nexus. The “no ad” on the homepage is a good example of a company demonstrating a high level of customer centricity.

That takes me to a course on digital transformation by Tekedia Institute faculty, Jude Ayoka. In his class video, he explained that the obsession with customer experience was the reason Google did not put that ad box on the whole page. Yet, would that box really hurt? Of course, Google is smart: provided there is a search, Google has the next page to show the goods. So, in essence, there is no need for that ad box on the homepage!

So, in essence, there is no need for that ad box on the homepage since there would be boxes on the next page! Do you pay attention at the phase where you capture value, maximizing both customer experience and revenue?

I began today at 6am for a Board meeting. I would have been in person, but for Covid-19, I had to connect virtually. Great 4 hours of business with legendaryChief Goodie Ibru, Chairman Kyari Bukar Abba, Bar. Olufemi Omotoso, Mr. Gbenga Bamiji FCA and CEO Comfort Aruosa-Osemwegi on DealRoom Nigeria. DealRoom works with innovators, providing a critical factor of production, capital.

DealRoom is a Fasmicro Group portfolio company.