Listen, I owe nobody mentality is not going to work anywhere because there’s everything wrong with this kind of mentality, especially in a country like Nigeria.

Is it because of the fear of entitlement?

Yeah, we’re all trying to get rid of the gross sense of entitlement of the new age but this is not the way to go. Proponents call it, “instilling a mind shift” but I honestly do not believe this is the right phrase to put into anybody’s mind.

Trust me, a person who thinks nobody owes him anything has a high tendency to also believe he doesn’t owe anybody anything as well! Something like a tit for tat. Take it or leave it, we all can’t go with such mentality anymore. Enough is enough. 

That’s why we have a system of “unaccountability” in Nigeria. 

You vote in a government that feels there’s no need to provide you stable power supply, construct good roads, give quality education, good medical facilities, jobs creation, security and so on. 

Let’s delve into the work environment. The ”I don’t owe you anything mentality” strikes again. Employers don’t see anything wrong with treating their employees poorly. Most of them perceived to be doing the employees a favour because they feel they don’t owe them fair treatment. 

That is why jungle justice is still a thing because nobody owes citizens any fair hearing. Police brutality is the order of the day. The police are not ready to hear you. 

What about soldiers?

The greatest crime in Nigeria is to talk back to a soldier man. Even when you are innocent, you dare not speak back because he doesn’t owe you a fair hearing.

The motivational speakers will tell the youths boldly to “go and hustle” because, you know, Nobody Owes You Anything!

While this may serve as a push to struggle against all odds, let’s not forget that it is fueling a culture of not demanding for what’s due for oneself. A tradition of excusing bad behavior.

As they say, it takes two to tango. But how do two tango when they owe each other nothing. As much as the adage might be meant to motivate and promote self-independent, it is also constituting to the lack of proper accountability.

Do not be covered with such words. Boldly demand for what’s duly yours today. It is your right; not a privilege!

We all must be our brother’s keeper. A better Nigeria starts with proper accountability. This can only be achieved when every citizen sees himself as a giver. 

Remember, it is what you can do for your country.

Credit: Ginika Oluchi Okeke

This was my life in 2016. I woke up and felt very tired. I was hoping I would feel good. After all, I slept for almost 10 hours. For months, I would struggle to go to work and feel ill almost weekly. I was not ill enough to not go to work but I was always in pain and some degree of discomfort. I was thinking this was going to last for a while but after weeks and months. I decided to go to the doctor. This did not go as I expected. 

I was examined and diagnosed. I was not satisfied with the diagnosis. It was too vague. High Blood Pressure and High Cholesterol. It did not mean much to mean as it did not explain the nausea and bouts of sickness I was going through. But, taking the medication did brings some relief. But, it would come and go. After some months, it really went bad and I had to go to the hospital again. I had chest pain that I took it as angina. I had to go to the teaching hospital and find out what to do. I went to the hospital and was told to take some tests. The result was that I was pre-diabetic, hypertensive and, of course, had high cholesterol. The treatment involved medication and a visit to the nutritionist. I was told that I had to change my diet and eating habits. I had to be careful on what I choose to eat and how to prepare meals. At that point, I decided I had had enough.

I listened and I knew this was not for me. I couldn’t afford the time and money to change diet and follow the new regimen. I knew I would not be able to follow the directions as they wouldn’t follow my lifestyle. And finally, I just wasn’t convinced they knew what they were talking about. I couldn’t get a second opinion. So, I took the worst advice to try. I went on the internet. I have spent too much of my life on-line watching movies, reading websites, and playing games. But as always, when I was in bind, I turned to the internet for a solution.  This was obviously a bad and maybe arrogant idea. But, then again, I have history of bad life choices. So, I might as well be consistent.

My main source was YouTube and after weeks of viewing; my main interest was on diet and health. A new concept stood out: Intermittent Fasting. Fasting was always something I didn’t like. I like to comfort eat. When I am tired, I drink coke. When I am sad, I eat cake. But, I came across Dr. Jason Fung. He is a Canadian Nephrologist and runs a practice where he treats people with type 2 diabetes. Most of his patients recover from diabetes without taking medication. His main method of treatment is intermittent fasting. He focuses a lot more on the functions of the body especially how the hormones function. The main hormone insulin. Dr. Jason Fung pointed out something about insulin sensitivity. In summary, he said sugar does not cause diabetes. This was not surprising to me. But, what he made me realize was how hormones regulated the body and health. Ghrelin controlled appetite. HGH makes a person stronger and testosterone could be stimulated through fasting. This was intriguing to me as he showed how diet was more important than exercise. His books, The Diabetes Code and The Obesity Code showed the medical history that was not highlighted in the mainstream. He even went on to demonstrate how hospital food made people sicker. This took me aback a bit. But then it got worse.

I also read Nassim Taleb. He was famous because of his concept of “The Black Swan”. But, he also picks on medical dogmas that he thinks are misguided and sometimes malicious. He presented information that indicates that medical organisations take money from corporations such as Coca-Cola to spread bad information. He is also a big critic of Monsanto but that’s a topic for another day. Namely, the idea that sugar is more healthy than fat. This was easy for me to believe as many have said that. But, Nassim provides lots of supporting evidence that in my opinion, goes beyond reasonable doubt. Nassim also supports fasting which he asserts make one “Anti-fragile”. This is a concept in his book “Anti-Fragile’ that pushes some damage would be necessary to make one stronger. 

There was also some other people that I watched on YouTube or followed on twitter. I found their videos very well researched and they seemed very credible. Fledge Fitness, Dr. Eric Berg, What I’ve Learned, High Intensity Health, and Found My Health are really great channels. They provide a lot of information and interview guests that a lot of information that has strong scientific backing but for some reason are not in the mainstream. The main twitter accounts that had good information was Mike Cernovich and Scott Adams. These people help give the information context and perspective.

So, with the advice of Dr. Jason Fung, Nassim Taleb, Matthew Walker (having a least 8 hours of sleep), Dr. Robert Morse (eat only raw fruit and vegetables) Dr. Ken Barry (Keto and foods that suit you), Dr. Eric Berg, I started fasting. I started with breaking the fast at 6 pm and tried to do it every day. I was taking salt water during the day but I realized that was a bad idea and stopped. I found that fasting had the additional benefits that Dr. Fung mentioned. Fasting costs less because obviously you are not eating and does not need any preparation or equipment. I also was more focused as I was not thinking about breakfast or lunch. At night, I didn’t even need to eat that much. Sometimes, I fasted for 2 days and I felt good. But, sometimes, I could take a break and eat what I like. I found this gave me a lot of flexibility and extra time. I was able to prepare and use food as a motivation not a compulsion. 

A lot about fasting seems likes forbearance, hunger, some amount of pain, self-regulation and self-control. But, I think there is one thing that ties it all together and makes it easier and more manageable: Self Recovery. Most of time, it is the body that repairs itself. As opposed to medication or surgery, the body would repair and heal itself. I think it is vital to make this easier for the body to do. Fasting allows the body to full absorb and use the food that was eaten. It usually takes about 16-24 hours to do this. Given the gap in eating, the food is broken down and stored energy as fat is used through lipolysis. Lipolysis is used to mobilize stored energy during fasting or exercise. Another way is through sleep. Sleeping forms an important part of self-recovery. Deep sleep is where the tissue repair is done by the body. This is why sleeping 8 hours is key. Also, sleep helps to suppress appetite which makes fasting easier. This made it possible and easier for me to keep doing Intermittent Fasting regularly. After a year, I had to go to the hospital for a different reason. I had a boil and I had to see a doctor. 

Since, it was the same hospital and I had to take the same tests, I had to see the same doctor. He looked at my results. My BP was normal, my cholesterol was normal, and all my lipids were now good. I was no more pre-diabetic. He asked whether I was still doing my fasting routine. I said yes. He said I should stop it. That’s why I don’t listen to my doctor.

Competition in business is a thing that can’t be prevented, regardless of how tough it may be to get into a market. Irrespective of whatever wall were raised to discourage new entrants, existing firms, persons in a market or industry may enjoy the benefits therein for so long that another or others have not found sufficient motivation to alter existing order. Motivation here is taken to mean the inducement of prospective gains and capital and strategy. As soon as such incentives are discovered, a new order comes into existence.

One of the first shocks when a competitor comes into a market is that, the existing players realise it’s longer business as usual. Depending on the influence the new entrant can command, previous plans and strategies of existing players will need fine tuning, at best, for it to still be relevant or could become seriously unhelpful, at worst, raising the need to return to the drawing board and map out a new working plan to tackle the development.

A Case Study

It was near Christmas. Her business was booming and she was looking forward to a sweet huge season’s sales and the fat gains that come with it. She wasn’t expecting what she saw that day but to her surprise, she got to market that fateful morning only to discover that she’s no longer the only one selling onions in her line anymore. Her immediate next neighbour, who before then was basically into other food spices business, has added sales of onions too. The motive may not be far fetched. The neighbour too, probably wants a share of the season’s fat harvest.

With the new reality, doing business became such a nightmare for NG (abbreviation of real name) as can be seen in this her exact quoted words. “My annoyance was not that he added sales of onions to his business line. But, how he went about it was making things quite difficult for me. He will call the attention of a customer who is standing in front of my shop to his onions, narrating to the customer that the onions he offers for a price, is better, in quantity and quality, than the one they will buy from me for the same price. Practically, he was selling at a loss. I knew this even more than he knew it. For I have been in the business for many years. I lost some of my customers to him as a result. I didn’t want this to continue so I decided it will be OK to sacrifice my gain for the season, if that’s what it will cost me to make him leave sales of onions alone and focus on his other trade items. I was no longer comfortable with him selling what I sell in the same place.”

That was a real issue there. The difficulty lies in the fact that it’s not easy to know beforehand how everything will turn out. The relative strengths of competing parties could influence how things will turn out in the end. The amount each can command, the loss each is willing to incur, the knowledge of the primary competitors, how competitors deploy resources and knowledge at their disposal are important factors here too.

When waging a price war, it’s important to have an insight into what your competitor is up-to. Here, there are two categories. The first are those who came because of quick cash benefits and are therefore unwilling to risk more than a little tolerable losses. These group will withdraw when prevailing circumstances make it difficult for them to make gains. So rather than risk more losses than they can tolerate, they quit. In other words, those in this category are interested in immediate profit. When this is not forthcoming, it’s alright to call it quits.

The next category comprises of those who, in addition to the desire to make gains, are willing to pay the price, if short term profit is not feasible, to gain good standing in the market in the long run when they can be able to recoup their short-term losses. This often involves subscribing to loss-incurring short-term strategies, aimed at frustrating as many other competitors as possible, out of business. If these prove successful in the long run, the coast will be clear to make gains. The thing is, there’s a difference in the task demanded in each case.

Let’s get back to our case study. From the quote above, it’s clear that NG assumed that her neighbour belonged to the first category. Recall she’d said “It will be OK to sacrifice my gain for the season”. With these assumptions in mind, her task was to cause heavy erosion that will discourage his neighbour from the onion business: “the day I made up my mind to sacrifice my gain, I bought a bell ” [Chuckles] “it’s funny but it had to be. I brought it to market the following day. Trust what started happening from that time onward. I used the bell to attract customers attention. Doing so here gives customers the impression that you’re selling at a give-away price. And that’s what I was doing. Days ran into several weeks and we continued the unexpected ruin. Certainly, it was hard, those periods, to recover half the cost at which I bought a bag (of onion). This was not what I had seen coming. But I couldn’t risk stopping the madness until he stops selling. He was losing. I was losing. I lost so much but I had sources to keep things moving. My suppliers trusted me. When I offer to pay them later, they send me goods, without demanding immediate payment. I also was getting grants. In this way, I kept business moving while operating at huge losses. After a while, he stopped selling. But then, I had a weighty debt hanging on my neck…”

In this typical case of NG, she’d continue to operate to recoup losses and also make gains as long as others have not found sufficient enablement to join. What would have happened if the parties were willing to stretch the fight far into the future? The outcome is beyond this discussion. It may not however be as in the above case especially if the newcomer is willing to deploy massive capital that can help it to dare more than the existing party is willing to cope with.

I belong to an online discussion group where we talk about Investment opportunities in the capital market among others. One of the common questions that comes up almost at a predictable interval is usually “how can I invest in US stocks from Nigeria?” It’s a big challenge.

After my experience with the NSE (article here), I have inadvertently also developed an appetite for US securities as I believe the market is more efficient and if I do my homework, I can be abundantly rewarded. Hence, I wasn’t left out of the frequent question and continual search for how to invest in US security from Nigeria. Quicker than I had expected, the predictable interval question surfaced again and someone asked the same question except that this time, a member of the group now has a definite and precise answer to give, “check out Trove.”

Little did I nor anyone know that one Oluwatomi Solanke (CEO Trove Technologies) and his friends and many others who are now using Trove have been facing similar issues. Appetite for foreign stock on a micro level with no cure for the cravings.

“Check out Trove” was the answer given by my group member and I chose to take a deep dive at understanding the architecture that enables Trove, the risk involved and opportunity that abound.

Architecture

Trove is the solution to the age-long problem of the typical retail investor. Trove allows you to start your investment journey with as low as N1,000 or $4, which is a low amount if you understand the workings of stockbroking.

Trove completes your KYC check within 48 working hours, after which you can make deposits in your Trove wallet that can then be used for investment in Stocks, ETFs, Bonds and more traded securities.

In Nigeria, Trove partners with Sigma Securities for its stockbroking activities and ARM as the investment manager for managed portfolios.

In the US, Tove is in partnership with DriveWealth, a technology firm providing the trading architecture for second parties who are interested in trading in the US Securities market from anywhere in the world.

DriveWelath CEO Robert Cortright said:

“Making U.S. securities available to investors of any size in countries all around the globe is an essential element of the mission of DriveWealth. We are delighted to work with Sigma Securities and Trove Technologies on this effort to democratize investing in Nigeria by bringing to its retail investors the largest and most liquid, transparent financial market.”

Risk Involved

For the question of “how safe is my money,” Trove has this to say:

We pride ourselves in the quality of strategic partners we work with. Nigerian assets bought on the Trove app are held by Sigma Securities Limited, a company registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a dealing member of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

US assets are held by Drivewealth, LLC a regulated member of FINRA/SIPC. Drivewealth is a member of SIPC, which protects securities customers of its members up to $500,000 (including $250,000 for claims for cash). We also work with Microfinance banks who are regulated by CBN.

Lastly, we use state-of-the-art data encryption when handling your financial information.

All in all, you are rest assured that your money and assets are super safe.

From Trove you can be sure your money is safe. But that’s not the only risk involved. The normal risk that accompanies any investment still lies on you to manage. You will need to perform your analysis and choose which security to buy/sell per time. Trove will not do that for you, at best, Trove is only providing you with a platform to buy securities of your interest.

Remember currency risk as well. While doing your analysis, remember to make room for this. USD/NGN has become a variable for consideration while analysing.

Opportunity that abound

Equity has historically been a way to grow wealth and it will continue to be. The opening up of securities in the US to retail investors in Nigeria presents a new way to grow wealth for the enterprising retail investor.

If you do your homework well, it might open you up to wealth and if not, you know what it means.

Visit Trove website today to know more.