Invention is an idea; innovation gives you products and services. Fixing the transportation paralysis in Lagos remains a challenge in our nation’s largest economy. Many have postulated how different ideas could help: have a water-based transportation system, have a subway system, move some parts of Lagos to another state, and more. Of course, when you check most of the suggestions, it comes down to political actions at both local and state levels.

But things in Nigeria do not just happen at the jet speed – they crawl when governments drive them. That does not mean you should always blame governments – most times, they have limited resources, despite the huge challenges that abound. The implication is thus: they have to prioritize, and too bad, traffic continues to drain the economic energy of Lagos.

Interestingly, few months ago, I met a company that was doing something in the space: Gokada. The startup is a co-pioneering on-demand motorbike hailing service which makes it easier to move from one location in Lagos to another. The young people there pursued a solution to a market friction, and in less than a year, built a recognizable brand in Lagos.

When they celebrated their first year of service to Lagosians, I visited them in their Ilupeju headquarters during my last visit to Lagos. There, I met the head of the team, Deji Oduntan, who communicated his vision that motorbike was just the entry point into the broad transportation opportunity. They have a really nice artwork where they declared “The Future is Green”. Gokada is that green – very fascinating futuristic vision I must note.

So, I was shocked when I read that Deji had left. It does happen – they always have things ahead. Who knows – he may announce something new in days: fintech, edutech, agtech, insurtech, VC funds, etc.  While he gets my wishes to his future [no company statement yet of reason and possible next thing], let me examine what has happened in this sector and Gokada over the last one year he ran the show.

I’m Deji Oduntan, Co-Founder and former CEO of Gokada, an innovative motorcycle taxi startup that has taken Lagos and soon, the rest of Nigeria, by storm. Yes, former CEO. I can confirm that I’ve indeed left the company, and as finally announced, Gokada recently raised its Series A round of funding, an achievement that took a great deal of my time and effort, which I now fondly consider one of the best parting gifts I could’ve given.

• My understanding is that Gokada co-pioneered this sector by professionalizing the regular okada domain. Yes, they utilized aggregation construct and unlocked huge value for the stakeholders. Today, Nigeria has at least five motorcycle taxi players including MAX. Simply, Deji and his team stimulated a latent industry and opened new areas for investors to deploy capital and create opportunities in the nation. That they created such impacts within a year is commendable. The sector Gokada plays is going to become more active across Nigeria in coming years.
• If anyone had told me that something like this can be done in Nigeria that quickly, I would not have believed. But the day I rode a bike in Victoria Island to meet an important meeting reminded me why innovation is key. Finding a roadmap to separate the amalgam of okadas in Lagos, and creating a unique brand along the way is not easy. That Deji and team did that demonstrate capability on awareness and observation in the market opportunity.

When I visited their HQ office, I noted they planned to get female riders in the game. They have setup a Driver Training School to train new drivers. The idea of training is critical because anything happens on the Nigerian roads with okada drivers. So, finding a nexus to have professionally trained drivers was strategic for Gokada. And getting women into the sector is great for economic equality.

Running a business of this type is never easy – you have to have statistical models to ensure supply and demand are well managed. That can come via decentralization of drivers while ensuring that originating and transit locations must offer you volume to attain sustainable equilibrium point. To get the best drivers, you may even have to have the recruitment localized while making sure their locations are strategic in the hub where the business runs.

This is not Uber or Bolt – this is Gokada. It is a very great example of Aggregation Construct which actually worked locally. The scale of many elements that must align and how they were able to piece them together within a year to great the brand bring optimism that Nigerians can build category-king companies not just locally but internationally.

To Deji Oduntan, who executed this with his team, he just opened a Pandora box in this sector – I expect great things to continue to happen in the industry. The Future is Green may include Black, Red, and Blue with the end goal being that traffic frictions are fixed across the streets in Nigerians.

We will be checking what comes next for the exiting CEO. Nigeria needs people that can kickstart new sectors and expand our economic growth. And build to glory, at scale.

In July 2017, I wrote  a piece titled “The Andela Problem” and partly concluded thus: “The business cannot scale outside the blue, because the revenue is the developer, and you cannot mass produce them. There is a space constraint on how many you can have in the offices. Sure – you have more offices, but that also increases cost. For the very fact that these workers remain with Andela, and not leaving, it will quickly run into carry-capacity” paralysis.

Then, few minutes ago, I received a note: “Andela just announced it has broadened its hiring criteria for Senior Engineers; whilst previously, the primary route was via the Andela Fellowship, as of today, Andela will also recruit mid and senior level engineers in 2019, as it looks to scale its operations. They will be hiring more senior engineers across each of their four hubs on the continent.” People, that is both evolution and revolution – Andela is now supremely amazing.

Andela is solving the global technical talent shortage by building distributed engineering teams with Africa’s top software developers. In four years, Andela has hired over 1,000 software engineers out of more than 140,000 applicants and become known as the “Best Place to Work in Africa,” with tech campuses in Lagos, Nairobi, Kampala and Kigali. Backed by Generation Investment Management, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, GV, CRE Ventures and Spark Capital, Andela is powering global engineering teams while catalyzing the growth of tech ecosystems across the African continent

The Andela Problem

That 2017 piece has been read more than 25,000 times with varying comments. Interestingly, few days ago, I received an invitation from Andela that it was going to unveil a new initiative – The Power of X.  I do receive many daily – so nothing special. But few minutes ago, the Andela people shared this press statement (I have reproduced the relevant portion).

Andela, the company building distributed engineering teams with Africa’s top software engineers, is recruiting mid and senior level developers in 2019, as part of a new Power of ‘X’ campaign, as it looks to scale its operations and meet growing demand. This comes as more companies seek to enhance their technology teams via distributed workforces.

Since its launch in 2014, Andela has received over 140,000+ applications to it’s Technical Leadership Program and has trained 1,000+ software engineers, who have worked with global companies including Safaricom, Invision, Viacom, and Skillshare. Andela now accepts applications from experienced software engineers who are proficient in Ruby, Javascript (React, Node, ES6+, Angular), Python (Django or Flask) and Native Mobile Technologies for iOS or Android. The move to recruit more senior technologists is an expansion of the company’s business model.

Andela engineers work on global challenges, within global engineering teams, yet play an important role in their local ecosystems. The 1,000+ Andela Software Engineers are central to Africa’s growing tech community, and are leaders or members of Forloop, Teencode, Startup Grind, Progate, Facebook Developer Circles, to mention a few. Andela is a gateway for experienced and talented engineers to become part of Africa’s most expansive network of technologists. Apply here for Senior Software Engineering roles at Andela.

Simply, Andela is looking for Senior Software Engineers. In other words, if you have the experience, Andela will hire you! Yes, you do not need to have gone through the Andela training system to be “andelaized” into the system. This trajectory is huge. It is huge because Andela can easily scale without marginal cost paralysis of having to train talent. Yes, it can find talent anywhere it wants without the construct that it must FIRST train before it can scale.

The Power of X is a brilliant pivot as the pool of talent is now unbounded and unconstrained for this category-king company. With capital, it can hire 10,000 people in a year and put them to work around the world. This is better than training mere 1,000 people in five years. Yes, 1,000 in 5 years – you cannot change the world at that pace.

If Andela had invited my practice after that piece, they could have arrived at this trajectory in 2017 instead of losing precious two years. That is what we do for startups around the world. But thank goodness, Andela is now unconstrained with a huge scalable advantage. I see this company listed in the New York Stock Exchange by 2024. It has a great business model now – and I can conclude with “The Amazing Andela”.

First, I am very happy that Nigeria has killed the idea of merging Arik and Aero Contractors to form a national carrier. I read with pains as industry players were demanding for the merger to seed a national carrier.  Sure, Arik and Aero are largely under the control of the federal government through AMCON, the debt buyer, and could be taken over finally. I have no opinion on what to do with Arik and Aero, but I have a clear one on what Nigeria should not do: forget the idea of a national carrier!

The Federal Government has foreclosed the possible merger of two of the country’s local airlines, Arik Air and Aero Contractors Limited, into a national carrier, says Minister of State for Aviation Mr Hadi Sirika.

Sirika, who is on a country tour of aviation sector projects initiated by the Buhari administration, said in Lagos that the large indebtedness of the two local airlines to creditors as well as pending litigation in courts had forced the government into foreclosing the merger option as suggested and demanded by industry stakeholders.

[…]

“The suggestion that Aero and Arik Airlines, which are under the control of AMCON, should be merged to form a national carrier is not tenable as the national carrier would get entangled with the huge indebtedness of the airlines and other encumbrances,” Sirika said.

If you check, we cannot manage waterboards well – and FAAN (Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria) has been unable to fix leaking roofs in our airports effectively. To think it is an airline that we can manage at this time, I have a bridge to sell to you. Nigeria should use any money it has for national carrier to improve our airports so that private sector participants can come onboard.

Port Harcourt is unfortunate, Owerri airport is largely gone, and Enugu airport is terrible. In some few ones in the north, you will pray that cattle will not STOP the planes on the tarmacs. Visit Kano airport and you cannot believe that is all we have for the great center of commerce.

Simply, fixing and upgrading our airports are where we need governments right now – not a national carrier that will surely collapse within five years.

And finally, what will government do with Arik and Aero now? Take them over – you will have more debts to service from the national budget. Leave them as they are – they will largely bleed to death! Tough decisions.

LinkedIn Comment on Feed

The rate at which we produce comedians in the land, if half of them were to be thinking heads, we could lay claim to be one of the most efficient and upward nations in the world…

Almost 60 years after independence, it still feels like the colonialists left too early, because we have essentially failed to improve on what they left us with, even to maintain the very ones they left, we have consistently proven our inadequacies and how incapacitated we are.

We couldn’t manage government assets and businesses that are less cumbersome, they keep underperforming, and somehow our talking heads seriously believe that we can manage national carrier? It’s impossible for a country like Nigeria to run an airline profitably, we are simply not good enough in a business where profit margins are very small. Whatever that bewitched us must be very strong!

As for Arik and Aero, the solution to solving problem is not pouring more money into the problem, you could run out of money, while no improvement has been recorded. AMCON has more or less impoverished the Nigerian people, because most of what it buys are bad debts, with no chance of recovering any decent amount. We need to cut our losses by liquidating AMCON, it’s another business gone bad.

Everyone knew it would be drastic changes for Nigerians who want visas to visit U.S. Yes, when one country (Nigeria) records 10% of people who overstay their visas, America would be expected to look deeper. When U.S. took off the Dropbox option, I knew that was the beginning.

Now, according to Nigeria’s foreign affairs minister, the options may even look more challenging – “Things like you have to have guarantor or surety and the like, all those things are what they are trying to apply to really address this issue.” Unfortunately, the problem is not asking for a guarantor, the deal is if that becomes the norm, the system would then be rigged for those that can provide credible guarantors – yes, rich people with fat bank accounts. The poor boy attending a conference or going to school on scholarship may experience lockout. But no one can blame U.S. for exploring ways to execute its immigration plan.

The minister said most of the unfavourable migrant decisions taken by some countries were triggered by the negative perceptions about few Nigerians who do not obey the rules of those countries.

“The issue of migration is a challenge and such a sensitive topic because the U.S. has just suspended the `Dropbox for visas renewals.

“And a lot of it is that they released statistics to show that 10 per cent of people who overstayed their visas globally are Nigerians.

“Those who do not obey the rule of other countries’ have more negative impact on those who obeyed,” the minister said.

[…]

“The issue of those who overstayed their visas is a real issue. We have engaged with the U.S government over it.

“We are just trying to work through them and they are looking at various alternative and solutions and to make less difficult for the genuine visitors and the like.

“Things like you have to have guarantor or surety and the like, all those things are what they are trying to apply to really address this issue,” he said.

Comment on LinkedIn Feed

1. Trump Administration immigration is based on this premise that “Immigration is a privilege not a right”. Folks overstaying their visas are making the issue of non immigrant visa quite a complicated one. But again, one must also understand the reasons why people overstayed their visas. It’s no brainer when you come to sanner climate where things work and you can be somebody without knowing anyone. I completely understand both sides of the argument. The man or woman overstaying his or her visa is not looking at the strategic impact to the country of origin or US in this case but just want to survive. The onus is on the US to use every tool they know how to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the fall out will be bad. Fixing Nigeria or just moving Nigeria in a different direction from its current course might change the outlook of Nigeria when it comes to immigration.
2. The Trump Nation is on a mission, many things will change around the world, within a decade perhaps. Unfortunately, the word – ‘genuine’ is relative, no one can truly figure out what is in another’s heart, there are too many barriers… Well, people are looking for better life, and where things are easier, so the struggle continues.