Member: “If you meet President Buhari, what will you tell him to do to get Nigeria firing on all cylinders…”

My Response: This is what I will share with Mr. President.  Do not spend time just running governments with the usual speeches, paying salaries, signing things, and the typical mundane things which any person can do. Find a way to TRANSFORM the nation by anchoring say 3 things, and communicate the vision to Nigerians, and get them to become believers. 

Become the CEO of Nigeria and put the aides in their positions – reach out to your fellow citizens for help, to rebuild a hopeful, and prosperous nation that is open to all with capacity to make all to RISE. Just as great business leaders help employees to know where the company is going, Nigerians need to wake up in the morning with understanding of our purpose and the trajectory to the shared destination. 

Today, if you step out of this office, and visit Wuse, Opopo, Aba, Jos, Kafanchan  and Sokoto, and ask 200 people where Nigeria is going, few can explain. 

To TRANSFORM Nigeria, it calls for clarity with measurable and quantifiable indicators, anchored on catalytic enablers. Sir, where do you want to take this nation? This is the math for a $3 trillion economy before 2035. Can that motivate everyone? Could you make our rural citizens become wealthy by adding financial power to lands, homes, etc through a tech-driven, private sector-led government-backed program to formalize lands and properties in any location in Nigeria. 

Mr. President, Nigeria does not need to be RUN; there are many civil servants who can do just that. Nigeria needs to be TRANSFORMED. Three things. Just three, and your citizens will unite to build a great nation, together.

If you want us to get to the moon, we will respond. If you want us to build a $3T economy, we will. If you want us to turn peasants into middle class citizens, Nigerians are ready. But you must LEAD, and guide us to get to that mountaintop, for a city that is shining on the hilly side, with an unbounded beacon of hope, offering abundance for all.

Thank you His Excellency.

Inaugural Address by Ndubuisi Ekekwe, President, LinkedIn Nation

I follow Andela because it is a very brilliant company. The business model can be replicated across industrial sectors, well beyond software development. But that can only happen if the marginal cost paralysis is fixed. Since I wrote the piece – The Andela Problem – the company has done practically everything to deepen its positioning in the market. Andela began by training and preparing young Africans for software opportunities in the U.S, Europe and beyond. What it does today has evolved from that mission – and there are things we can learn from it as it plots its post Covid-19 playbook. Once it executes the playbook, a new business will emerge; I do think for better.

A few days ago, I extrapolated one of my articles in Harvard Business Review to posit that AI and robots would dislocate Andela’s mission at the downstream of junior developers. In other words, Andela has to find experienced and talented developers because those are the ones its core clients would need. The company knows that as noted in a recent piece by the CEO: “A company organizes itself around the problem it’s trying to solve, and the problem we solve today is different from the one we initially set out to tackle”.

In the new piece from the company’s CEO, the following are noticeable:

• You do not need to move into a city where Andela has office to be part of the mission. Simply, you can be part of Andela if you are living in Umuahia. That unlocks more talent pool for the company as many talented and experienced developers may not like to move into some cities just for jobs.
• Andela has embraced Remote Work at scale. This one is unique as that Remote Work can mean Work from Home! More talent pool unlocked.

This week, we announced at an all-hands that we are going to be a remote-first company. While we’ve always been a leader in distributed work, we’ve now proven that we can operate fully remote by delivering excellent work to our customers over the past couple of months. We will continue to ensure that our engineers have the infrastructure needed to operate at a world-class level.

• Andela placement offerings are now available to non full-time employees. Simply, you can be running your business and have free time, and if you have the talent, Andela will get you into its projects. The key is making sure that you deliver as agreed to Andela clients. Things like this happen when a market is an “employee” market. Here, the employees are the experienced developers – and Andela is exploring all possible ways to get them into its network.

While we’ve trained more than 100,000 people through programs like the Andela Learning Community, in order to actually be placed with a company, you’ve historically had to be a full-time Andela employee. This limits the opportunities we’re able to provide, and it also limits the breadth of talent available to our customers. Moving forward, we will expand the network to include top engineers from across the continent, and eventually around the world — and we won’t require engineers to be full-time employees to apply for opportunities.

This company is evolving – and it could create a new framework on how modern firms organize in our part of the world. Yes, a job where people can earn $7,000 monthly in Nigeria, and still be working as non full-time staff! Andela 2.0 has a promise. The firm has fixed many things at once by upgrading its playbook.

They call him the best sports analyst in Nigeria right now! But his business is struggling as there are no more live sports because of the pandemic. Some think European football is better when the commenter sounds European! The Nigerian noticed that market opportunity and updated his speaking style. Now, this guy who has never stepped out of Nigeria will make you think you are listening to BBC in another room. Donald is really good.

I am not necessarily a sports person but I do think Donald Kimich needs support to get to the next level. This guy is talented and Nigerian radio and TV stations should provide him a platform. I have put more Donald’s videos.

Last year when I commented on school football match in University of Calabar.

Note: My phone is bad at the moment, I'm using a friend's phone to make this posts, once I get a new one I will make new videos. Thanks for the love. pic.twitter.com/8ZtRGhwomd

— Donald Kimich (@donaldkimich) May 13, 2020

I am finally here on twitter. I need a warm welcome from you my friends. My name is Donald Kimmich your favorite commentator. Please retweet, like and comment. #28abortions #WeAre30BG #NCDC pic.twitter.com/95klioUV7A

— Donald Kimich (@donaldkimich) May 13, 2020

It seems a new sector is emerging in the world: Work from Home (WFH) at scale. And if that is the case, a new class of startups will also evolve to support companies which are making the redesign possible. The deal is this, new software and apps would need to be created because companies are going “home” at scale. Simply, Covid-19 is creating a new market opportunity which could be huge. If that picks up, expect many commercial real estate companies to struggle while residential real estate firms to smile to the banks. 

This is how a shift happens in the world: “Dan,  you will begin work next week, but we do not expect to see you here daily. You work from home”. For the company, there is no need to expand the office space, get the cubicle guys, etc. Twitter has made the first call: “Jennifer Christie, Twitter’s head of human resources, said if employees were in a position to work from home and they wanted to continue to do so “forever”, Twitter would “make it possible”’. Expect many other firms to follow that path.

Apps to manage WFH should be in the apps store soon for subscriptions, and hardware to make it more efficient would be expected. Do not look far, the post Covid-19 opportunities are emerging already. Uber and Stripe were founded during the great recession, some new great visions will emerge out of this pandemic.

Twitter announced on Tuesday that it could allow employees to continue to work from home indefinitely even after the end of the coronavirus crisis.

Jennifer Christie, Twitter’s head of human resources, said if employees were in a position to work from home and they wanted to continue to do so “forever”, Twitter would “make it possible”.

Christie’s post said Twitter was one of the first companies to implement the stay-at-home model in early March.

According to media reports, several other tech companies, such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, did the same.

The company said offices would remain closed until at least September, “with very few exceptions”.

“Opening offices will be our decision,” a company spokesperson told NBC News.

“When and if our employees come back, will be theirs,” the spokesman added