Africa has problems with continuity and succession in our family businesses. And when bad things happen (yes, the company collapses), the usual thing to say is that the family member that took over was not well “prepared”. Personally, I do not think that is the main issue. If you check, some of the sons who took over from their fathers spent time in those companies. Yes, some worked excess of 10 years at different “leadership” positions. Sure – holding a big title does not make you a leader: you simply have a nice commanding business card for conferences.

Instead of looking for preparation from the lens of experience, we need to focus on Capability [edited out natural as it was tripping people] which goes beyond work experience to energy, vision, intellect and raw leadership. Some people are great followers while few others are great leaders. If your son is a follower, and you make him a leader, he will fail. It takes more than a title to lead a company.

There are different levels of leadership. Head of Cleaning is a leader to cleaners in a company. But when you come at the level of that disruptive leadership, you do not prepare people into it with a manual. You can make people better but you cannot move someone who does not have it to become it. I doubt if there is anyway you can prepare any person not Elon Musk to become Elon Musk.  But you can create many CFOs in SpaceX and Tesla. My point is this – watch the person to know if he/she has it before you start throwing efforts if you expect that TOP leadership to thrive. It is not about biology – it could be life experiences, training, education and exposure.

[…]

But anytime biology comes in over competence, few quarters will decide the outcome of the debate. In Qualcomm, the son of the founder grew to become the CEO of a public company. FOX 20th Century is run by families. Yes, families can have the greats inside. See the Agneli in Italy (Juventus owner). I am simply saying – take away biology and follow competence.

[…]

But note that “natural” in my piece did not mention anything “biological”. My point is this: you cannot prepare any other person to become Elon Musk. In companies, the CEO is the leader. It is better you have your son or daughter as assistant to the CEO than ask your either to run the show when that person is not naturally ready for it.  While you can prepare me to be  a fair footballer, I am not sure I will be a great one. CEOs must be great to thrive. It is better as Huawei founder is doing to look for greats for that #1 job.  Willingness and Preparation is fair. But I can say that there are things we cannot do well as humans while others can do them better. You may be willing and ready to be prepared but you may never be great. But you could be a leader at your level. This does not mean that son/daughter can’t be that great. My point is this – do it on merit.

Look at Huawei, one of the finest companies in Asia. The founder had already said that none of his children has the intellectual vision and business capabilities to lead the company. But he is confident they would support any CEO as they are good at their own levels. The founder could have pushed for his daughter (now CFO) to become CEO and then mess up the company. You cannot say she is not well prepared after working for years in different “leadership” positions in Huawei.

The Chinese telecoms giant won’t be listing itself on any public exchange, and the founder’s kids won’t be taking up the reins either – as their dad reckons they’re not up to the job.

Ren Zhengfei, who founded Huawei with a fistful of cash back in 1988, is now 68 years of age. Rumours have been circulating that he’d pass control to his daughter (the firm’s current CFO) or his son (who works at the company in an unspecified role), but in an email to staff seen by Sina Tech he scotches that idea – along with any thoughts of a public listing.

So, let us move away from this “preparation theory”. Let us focus on if the person has it. No matter how well you prepare me for 100 meters dash, I will never win the race if decent competitors are lined up. Yes, I was always coming last in secondary school during inter-house sports heat. At the end, I would smile at the winners – “I won from the back”.

Simply, preparation is not the only thing: you have to check if the person has the natural capability. If that person does not, no amount of preparation will yield great impacts. And holding prior big title does not mean preparation. Until we understand that, we would continue to see great companies go down after the father-founder exits and son takes over.

This is a fascinating piece written for the believers of Bitcoin as a money doubler. 2018 was expected to be the year hodl (not selling Bitcoin) would have taken many young Africans to the big money club. But the year turned out to one to forget as Bitcoin crashed from close to $20,000 to about $4,200 it is presently trading.

Yet, despite my skepticism on crypto as a money doubler, I do think what Facebook plans to do with cryptocurrency is the way to go. You use it as a currency it was designed to be and not as an investment asset that keeps growing. That distinction is critical if one wants to understand many use applications of blockchain and cryptocurrencies especially the stablecoin flavors.

This time last year, people gathered around the dinner table for the holidays and avoided discussing politics by explaining cryptocurrency to each other. Digital tokens and their various schemes were exploding after a year of steady gains, reaching a precipice on December 16, when bitcoin hit a high of $20,000.

Heading into the new year, virtually everyone believed in one way or another that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology had a bright future. For masters of the universe like Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, the talking point changed from “bitcoin is a fraud” to “blockchain is real.” Mid-level Wall Street traders were suddenly excited to engage in futures betting for or against bitcoin. Thomas Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors and someone mainstream finance analysts paid attention to, predicted and kept predicting that bitcoin would hit $25k. And John McAfee still has a bet going that bitcoin will hit $1 million by 2020—he’s promised to eat his own genitals if he’s wrong. And no predictions could top the run-of-the-mill enthusiasts who simply screamed “hodl” (meaning don’t sell) because it’s all going “to the moon.”

It did not go to the moon.

Few days ago, a Nigerian minister complained that ECOWAS’ free trade protocol may be hurting Nigeria. Yes, smugglers have abandoned Lagos port for Benin Republic’s. While Nigeria has issues with smugglers in West Africa, the minister may not be aware that most importers do not necessarily like to bring things through Lagos anymore. Because of the unprecedented congestion paralysis in the Apapa port, people prefer Togo’s port of Lomé.

The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Heineken Lokpobiri, has blamed rice smuggling in Nigeria on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) protocol on free trade.

He said the nation’s fight against the smuggling of foreign rice into the country is being hampered by Nigeria’s neighbours, particularly Benin Republic who he said take advantage of the free trade to frustrate government’s efforts at tackling the menace.

Now, Togo is ahead of Nigeria in number of 20-foot containers transiting West Africa ports. Over five years, Apapa has lost 30% of its traffic (see plot below)!

Togo’s port of Lomé has overtaken Nigeria’s Lagos port as regional leader. Never-ending congestion at Nigeria’s Apapa port in Lagos has resulted in a loss of nearly 30% of container traffic over the last five years. But Nigeria’s loss has proven to be Togo’s gain as reforms and investment to transform the port of Lomé into a regional transit hub are starting to have an impact. (QZ newsletter)

Nigeria has stalled on building the Ibom Deep Seaport in Akwa Ibom. With Ibom seaport, one thing would happen: most containers for Aba and Onitsha will avoid Lagos for Ibom. When that happens, Lagos port will improve as traffic has been diverted. More than 70% of things imported into Togo are destined for Nigeria; a working port in Lagos will move the traffic back to Nigeria. Yet, no one wants to get Ibom seaport running.

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Between the NPA, NCS, Ministries of Transport, they alone have the answer to that question. The thing defies logic. It costs me an arm and a leg, to imprt a container to Onne, than to Lagos. Even Lagos has two pricees – Tincan and Apapa. Its so opaque, a lot of clean up of that sector is needed. In Nigeria, it costs me more to clear a new cleaner and fuel efficient automobile, than it does to bring in an older car, encouraging people to buy more and more old smog belching vehicles, damaging the air quality more and more, this again runs contrary to commonsense.  All the NPA and NCS care about it declaring increasing revenues, the easiest way the govt cleans out their citizens, all in the name of supporting local industries and manufacturers.

Last week, I received communication from the National President of my undergraduate alumni association that my name has been included in the Notable Alumni list. Before my name made it, the list had only three people. You may wonder that we joke that if FUTO (Federal University of Technology, Owerri) graduates decide to sit at home, most technology departments in oil & gas, telecoms and banking sectors in Nigeria will stall. Yes, we have extremely distinguished professionals in Nigeria and beyond. Yet, the leaders in our alumni community have set the standards so high that making the list is just hard.

It is a moment because when your classmates, senior colleagues and junior ones honor you, you can be sure you are doing something right. As a village boy who came to city the first time to attend a university, I knew that FUTO was made for me. I found success in FUTO, and I admire our tradition of excellence. There are few universities in the world where you could graduate with three degrees in one: I left with three, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, and Computer Engineering. For us, it is the three-in-one – a potent certificate that allows a graduate to simultaneously look for job in many areas at the same time. FUTO gave me all I needed in an undergraduate education.

It was a magical transformation in the first year through the GST (general studies courses) where the professors deepened our knowledge on Philosophy and Logic.  As I wondered why it was necessary for engineering students to learn of Thales, Socrates and all those guys, the next semester used those foundations to expand our mathematical science of numbers, postulating validity in mathematical constructs.  Yes, mathematics is logic and the origin of knowledge goes back to Philosophy.

Then in 3^rd year, they connected the mathematics with electronic logics and electrical circuits. By the time it was getting over, they had transformed us into makers and creators.

To my fellow GREAT FUTOITES, I want to say THANK YOU. We are all notable alumni because we are FUTOITES.

I am Ndubuisi Ekekwe – I’m Built FUTO-tough.

By Nnamdi Odumody

It is less than 90 days to the most anticipated Presidential Election in Nigeria’s history on February 16^th 2019. It’s a contest between the incumbent President; Gen Muhammadu Buhari(rtd) who is seeking a second term mandate with his ‘’Next Level’’ manifesto and his main challenger Atiku Abubakar a former Vice President of the Federal Republic during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration between 1999-2007, former Central Bank Of Nigeria Deputy Governor and economist Prof Kingsley Moghalu, Former World Bank Executive and Minister of Education Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, journalist and founder of online news platform Sahara Reporters; Omoyele Sowore, Business Transformation cum Motivational Speaker Fela Durotoye amongst others.

Whoever emerges victorious at the polls should know that his victory is not a tea party. There are 13 million children out of school while the number of unemployed Nigerians is 20.93 million and home to the world’s largest number of people living with poverty at  87 million. Investment in Human Capital Development is at an all time low with 7 percent allocated to education in 2018 and less than 10 percent also in the 2019 budget respectively falling short of UNESCO’s benchmark of 26 percent.

The government of the day has had to cope with falling oil prices while trillions of naira is spent on petroleum subsidy and the Social Intervention Programmes which has not translated into lifting majority of the citizens from the poverty trap. How can the next administration prepare Nigerian youths for the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

Increased Investment and Redesign of Education Curriculum

The next administration should allocate not less than 26 percent of annual budget to Education and Human Capital Development in the country. Our curriculum should be redesigned to prepare our undergraduates in Universities and Polytechnics with skills needed for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. They Include:

• Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
• 3D Printing
• Cybersecurity
• Cloud Computing
• Robotics
• Embedded Systems Development
• Internet Of Things
• Blockchain
• Augmented and Virtual Reality
• Collaboration
• Emotional Intelligence
• Agility and Adaptability
• Critical Thinking

These skills should be embedded into an e-learning portal leveraging Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality in a gamified experience which will be used to train  60 million Nigerian youths from the six geopolitical zones.

Creation of Innovation Hubs Across The Six Geopolitical Zones

Innovation Hubs which will create at least 1 million jobs from technology developed should be established across the six geopolitical zones. Each Hub will be required to create innovative solutions to the problems which are peculiar to them, Nigeria and Africa at large. The Universities in each zone will be the knowledge partners for the regional innovation Hubs providing Research and Development services to entrepreneurs in the hubs.

Technologies for industry 4.0 (source: researchgate)

Establishment of National Innovation Fund and National Venture Capital Fund of $5 billion each

The National Innovation Fund of $5billion should be established by the federal Government. This fund will be sourced from the floating of NNPC shares on the capital market after divesting 30 percent of it’s shares on the New York Stock Exchange which will boost it’s market capitalization to about $200 billion. This fund will be managed by a Chief Scientist and Innovation Officer of the Federation and will have representatives of the academicia, defense and private sector on it’s board. It will be saddled with funding R&D in Climate Change Issues, Clean Energy Generation and Distribution, Security Issues, Smart Health, Smart Learning, Food Security, Smart Construction, Smart Transportation e.t.c. All universities  and polytechnics will be given Innovation grants from this fund and their solutions will  be commercialized by entrepreneurs.

The National Venture Capital Fund of $5billion will be established by the Federal Government of Nigeria and the private sector to fund 6 million entrepreneurs from the six geopolitical zones who will create a minimum of 10 jobs to boost the economy. They will be given tax exemption for four years  and other necessary support such as entrepreneurial capacity development to help their ventures scale across Nigeria and Africa making revenue and profits.