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A Senator Replies: “How Can Nigeria Stabilize the Naira?”

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Good People, after the piece which took our national challenge home, after I explained, using Aliko Dangote,  on how Nigerians are getting poorer, one of our Senators responded with a question, “How Can Nigeria Stabilize the Naira?” I was in the National Assembly late last year and made my points. I have sent the slides to the Distinguished Senator. Of course no one is saying that there is a magic wand to fix Nigeria’s problems.

Yet, we all agree that we cannot get to the mountaintop overnight, as the effects of today are largely related to the negligence of many years ago. And fixing Nigeria would mean freezing those negligence elements.The universities are still on strike! Typically, after long strikes, virus or no virus, most students do not return, and Nigeria does not seem to care on the economic impacts of these strikes. 

Nigeria will not rise solely from Abuja but from what Kano, Lagos, Onitsha and other cities can do with the help from Abuja. I will send a formal Brief to the Senator but I did also send this piece I wrote in Harvard Business Review on African development and the case study of China. There is abundance in Nigeria; we need to unlock it. Then, Naira will feel good.

As robotics and AI advance, most countries will keep their production processes at home, eliminating the need for cheaper labor abroad. In this redesign, Africa’s competitor is not China; robots and AI are the real competitors. Africa can no longer depend on global manufacturing to become industrialized, nor can it simply mimic China’s policies. But if Africa educates its citizens, integrates effectively on trade and currency, and improves intra-African trade, its industries can compete at least to serve its local markets. Where that happens, Africa can attain industrialization faster by scaling indigenous innovations and utilizing AI as enablers.

The Vice President’s Ease of Doing Business and Aliko Dangote’s Wealth

A CFA CharterHolder To Teach Accounting in Tekedia Mini-MBA

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He is a young man and amazingly brilliant. He graduated with First Class from University of Lagos and holds the prestigious CFA charter. A chartered accountant, he has worked in three of the Big 4. Call him one of his nation’s very best! 

Idris Ayinde teaches Managerial Accounting, Business Decision Making and Growth in Tekedia Mini-MBA. He has broken those complex accounting things and common people like us can understand. Our goal in this session is to empower our community to understand how deeper insights on accounting ratios, and other elements, could make them better decision makers and growth makers. In other words, when they use what Idris has put in his lectures, innovation happens, execution becomes easier, and growth takes place.

At Tekedia Institute, we are nurturing innovators with glocal leaders in business, technology and markets. Join us and attend Idris class and his Live session.

https://www.tekedia.com/mini-mba-3/

Facebook Labels Trump’s Post As Zuckerberg Bows to Pressure

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Facebook on Tuesday added a label to a post made by president Trump, which alleges that mail-in voting is riddled with fraud.

“Mail-in voting, unless changed by the courts, will lead to the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nation’s History! #RIGGEDELECTION,” Trump posted.

This marks the first time the social media giant is labeling Trump’s post for fact-checking. It added a label to the post prompting Facebook users to get accurate information about voting on usa.gov site.

Facebook has been at the helm of social media disinformation controversy, having allowed a horde of false information from politicians, especially the right wing, to thrive on the platform for long.

Advocacy group had last month launched a campaign to stop companies from advertising on Facebook as a way of getting the Silicon Valley giant to check cyberbullying, false information and racial abuse.

The campaign succeeded in getting many ad buyers, including Coca Cola, to pull out of Facebook for the month of July, causing the platform to lose a fortune and call for dialogue.

As the US election nears, calls to hold social media platforms responsible about information they allow have not been louder. Facebook said last month it will work to tame political disinformation on the platform by creating Voting Information Center.

“We are creating a Voting Information Center to share authoritative information on how and when you can vote, including voter registration, voting by mail and early voting.

“During a pandemic when people may be afraid of going to polls, sharing authoritative information on voting by mail will be especially important. We’ll be showing the Voting Information Center at the top of the Facebook and Instagram apps over the coming months,” Zuckerberg said.

Trump has made the list of political figures whose posts were labeled by Facebook since the announcement was made last month, including democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. But then, the development has questioned Zuckerberg’s earlier stand on fact-checking social media posts.

In May, when Twitter labeled Trump’s tweet over mail-in voting misinformation, Zuckerberg said it wasn’t right because social media platforms should be acting as “an arbiter of truth,” and he would not do that on Facebook.

His comment appeared to have fueled Trump’s anger over the incident, that he intensified his threat to shut down Twitter. He even quoted Zuckerberg in his attempt to smear Twitter.

Zuckerberg’s sudden turnaround is believed to have stemmed from the pressure from advocacy groups. More and more companies are joining the boycott Facebook movement as the company and the groups failed to reach a consensus via meetings.

“Many of the changes we’re announcing today come directly from feedback from the civil rights community and reflect months of work with our civil rights auditors,” Zuckerberg admitted in a post last month.

Part of the changes announced include labeling posts made by politicians that Facebook would let up previously.

“A handful of times a year, we leave up content that would otherwise violate our policies if the public interest value outweighs the risk of harm. Often, seeing speech from politicians is in the public interest, and in the same way that news outlets will report what a politician says, we think people should be able to see it for themselves on our platforms.

“We will soon start labeling some of the content we leave up because it is deemed newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case. We’ll allow people to share this content to condemn it, just like we do with other problematic content, because this is an important part of how we discuss what’s acceptable in our society – but we’ll add a prompt to tell people that the content they’re sharing may violate our policies,” he added.

The CEO said Facebook is investing heavily in both AI systems and human review teams so hate speech is being removed before they are reported. He said a study from the EU showed that the company now acts faster and removes a greater percent of hate speech than other major internet platforms including YouTube and Twitter.

The EU Unveils $2 Trillion Economic Stimulus Package

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The EU ended its meeting on economic recovery with a historic stimulus deal on Monday. In the long meeting between the 27 members of the Union in Brussels, which lasted for over 90 hours, they resolved to raise €750 billion ($857 billion) that will be used to rebuild the economy shattered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The talk has lasted that long due to existing issues needing to be resolved by the members, which borders on how to divide the amount between grants and loans, how to oversee its investment and how to link it with the EU’s democratic values.

Disagreement between members had stalled a recovery plan for the European Union back in April, when €540 billion was proposed as part of bailout for EU countries worst hit by the health crisis.

This time, they agreed to distribute €390 billion ($445 billion) as grants to the hardest hit member countries while the rest will be given as loans. As part of the agreement, €1.1 trillion ($1.2 trillion) will be provided for the 2021-2027 EU budget, a historic sum described as “classic” by the EU leadership.

“It is an ambitious and comprehensive package combining the classical budget with an extraordinary recovery effort destined to tackle the effects of an unprecedented crisis in the best interest of the EU,” the statement from EU leaders said.

Aside from the economic impact of the agreement, the deal signals a stronger European Union where members could overlook their differences and pursue a common goal.

The European Council president, Charles Michel told the press on Tuesday that the deal signifies a “strong” and “united” Europe.

“We did it! Europe is strong. Europe is united. This is a strong deal, and most importantly, this is the right deal for Europe right now,” he said, adding that it was the first time members of the European Union were “jointly enforcing our economies against the crisis.”

Considering the past records of the EU meetings, where discussions were clouded in emotions of disagreement, the members have leaped with the strength of compromise to scale the anti-progress hurdles which were usually based on getting the “frugal four,” Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Netherlands and Finland to agree with others.

In the past, the group had put the grant for hardly hit members at €375 billion, whereas some members such as Spain and Italy didn’t want to go below €400 billion while the “frugal four” didn’t want to go above the proposed €375 billion. The “frugal four” were cajoled to compromise through a promise of rebates on their EU contributions. Spain, Italy and others who were previously keen on €400 billion agreed to the newly suggested €390 billion as a compromise.

The frugal four had opposed the suggested €500 billion grant because the repayment plan means every member country will have to contribute, and they were not ready to pay for a loan they were not the beneficiaries.

However, the new deal means that the European Union will have to look for new ways to fund the package. The Commission said it’s proposing fresh ways to raise funds which includes introducing ‘digital levy’ for tech companies, and new tax on financial transactions. It added that it’s considering updating an emissions trading program, which limits the number of greenhouse gases companies are permitted to emit without paying a fine. It said the restrictions imposed on some companies could be extended to maritime and aviation industries.

But the deal also means the European Union will become a big debtor in the financial market for the first time, with a repayment plan stretched to 2058. However, it doesn’t seem to be a problem as all members expressed satisfaction with the deal, though there are still other matters that need to be addressed, including winning the trust of the European parliament.

European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen tweeted at the end of the meeting that the Union has taken a historic step “we all can be proud of.”

“Today we’ve taken a historic step, we all can be proud of. But other important steps remain. First and most important: to gain the support of the European parliament. Nobody should take our European Union for granted,” he said.

While there is still a thwarted relationship between the EU member nations, the objective has been achieved based on a collective willingness to compromise.

“We showed collective responsibility and solidarity and we show also our belief in our common future,” Michel said.

The Vice President’s Ease of Doing Business and Aliko Dangote’s Wealth

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Good People, l think we can discuss with civility and data. My piece on how Aliko Dangote’s global wealth has fallen due to Naira deterioration should not be used for mockery. Everyone agrees that we will all be doing daily thanksgiving if we are as “poor” as 10% of Dangote, despite him “losing” $17 billion global networth in six years!

But understand this: if Dangote is having it that way, imagine the spare parts seller. Imagine the garri seller. Largely, Nigeria is not working for most, except politicians and their families. 

I spoke to a Rotary club today and I brought that point: Nigerians’ personal wealth systems are dropping at an exponential level. This cut across sectors and business categories. Yes, every startup which raised money in foreign currency, in 2019, should be under water now, partly due to currency deterioration. It is a double whammy to overcome: grow to compensate for currency devaluation, and then create value for normal growth which investors gave you money.

Today, our Vice President, Prof Osinbajo, gave a speech on improving the ease of doing business in Nigeria through reforms. A friend in New York sent me the link with this comment: “…your country does not know that the only reform Nigeria needs for foreign investment now is a stable currency. Your problem has gone beyond bureaucracy”. He wanted to invest in a Lagos startup but he decided against due to his “fear” of where Naira would end in coming years.

The Buhariadministration’s business reforms, through the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), is an opportunity to significantly boost local and foreign investments in the country, according to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Mr Osinbajo spoke Tuesday at a virtual meeting of the PEBEC to review the state of the reforms across a number of government agencies, noting that the Federal Government will continue to take the opportunity and ensure that more results are recorded.

As a result of the work of PEBEC, the World Bank has praised the economic direction of the Buhari administration and ranked the country higher in its annual Ease of Doing Business Rankings.

According to the vice president, “This is a country with so much promise, this is a country that has so much resources and our administration has every opportunity to do something profound about investments in Nigeria.

“We must focus on how to get our business environment working.”

We are all Dangotes at our levels. That chart should push everyone to see what is happening. Understand me: no one is saying that these challenges are easy. But that does not mean we cannot write about them.

Aliko Dangote Could Drop Out of Global Billionaire Index By 2025