On Saturday, I will deliver the Opening Remarks at the  Founders Institute Lagos 2020 Graduation (Velocity Mini) for Cohort II. I want to congratulate all the young men and women who have gone through FI programs, and would now be going into the Nigerian markets to fix market frictions.

The Founder Institute is an early-stage startup accelerator and global launch network that helps entrepreneurs create meaningful and enduring technology companies.

My theme is Winning in Uncertain Times

Date: Saturday, 4th of July 2020 by 12.00pm (GMT +1)

Gentlemen and Ladies, go and build a BETTER Nigeria. See you on Saturday, virtually.

Nigeria continues to innovate on how to collect fees and taxes from citizens and corporations. I wish we are that aggressive on improving business systems, environments and expanding the economy. The technologies to help on revenue collections have advanced well ahead than those needed by firms to innovate and improve productivity.

The processes involved in land deeds, Certificate of Occupancy, etc have not seen dramatic improvements in years. But daily, we are advancing how to “COLLECT process”. Yes, Stamp Duty has its own website!

Just imagine if land owners in villages can do land sales on lands.gov.ng, improving velocity on land exchange, and in the process accelerate the mobility of that factor of production. If Nigeria does that, many will leave the poverty bracket, since most Nigerians share/own communal or family lands, with those lands having $0 in family balance sheets because they have no velocity.

With simple innovation, we can move that $0 to $5,000 and magically improve credit worthiness of people, enabling them to access finance to improve their lives.

Can the government innovate on that even as we do on stamp duty, fees & taxes?