PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI APPROVES NEW APPOINTMENTS
Following their confirmation by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, President, Federal Republic of Nigeria has approved the following appointments:
(i) Mr. Anthony Okechukwu Ojukwu – Imo State (S/E)
Executive Secretary,
National Human Rights Commission.
Initial term of five years.
(ii) Mr. Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa – Ondo State (S/W).
Non-Executive Director,
Niger Delta Development Commission.
Initial term of four years.
(iii) Hon. Chika Ama, Nwauwa – Imo State (S/E)
Non-Executive Director,
Niger Delta Development Commission.
Initial term of four years.
(iv) Mr. Nwogu N. Nwogu – Abia State (S/E)
Non-Executive Director,
Niger Delta Development Commission.
Initial term of four years.
(v) Professor James Momoh – Edo State (S/S)
Chairman,
Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission.
Initial term of five years.
2. The appointments take immediate effect.
(Signed)
Olusegun A. Adekunle, Esq.
Permanent Secretary,
for: Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
This is a good opportunity to get support for your startup and business if you operate in South East and North Central. The deadline is May 5 2018. It is the Office of the Vice President that is coordinating this.
Startup Nigeria is an intervention of the National Social Investment Program (NSIP) under the Office of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as part of the program to support private sector innovation hubs for the strategic increase of entrepreneurial and technological capacity across Nigeria.
It is a 3 month incubation program designed to help Nigerians with great innovative ideas – create viable products, go to market and gain traction.
The program will provide training, mentorship and equity free funding to selected startups, with a specially curated curriculum designed specifically to help idea and early stage entrepreneurs find their footing and grow in Nigeria’s socio-economic terrain. Startup Nigeria gives founders the needed leverage to excel.
Other startups that don’t get accepted into the incubation program will also be able to access support in business model generation, customer acquisition and other business engineering skills – from Startup Nigeria representatives located in every state in the North Central and South Eastern zones of the country.
North Central
Any Individual or start up who has an idea or a solution in Agriculture and Governance as it affects the North-Central Region or the nation as a whole. Your state of residence or startup must be located in any one of these states; FCT, Benue, Plateau, Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa or Niger.
South East
Any Individual or start up who has an idea or a solution in Commerce or Fintech as it affects the South-Eastern Region or the nation as a whole.Your state of residence or startup must be located in any one of these states;Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Abia or Ebonyi
IDEA STAGE APPLICATION
If you are still at the idea stage of your product, you can apply to participate in the Startup Nigeria Hackathon from which you get a chance to qualify for incubation
This daily series focuses on business ideas for those looking to launch new ventures in Nigeria (and Africa in general). The short ideas are archived here.
The Problem
Nigeria will hold general elections in 2019 covering local, state and federal offices. With the permanent voter card (PVC), pure rigging will be largely curtailed since every PVC will produce one vote and the total number of votes cannot exceed the number of issued PVCs [the anomaly between PVC and voters register .has been updated]. Consequently, politicians will need to take their messages to the constituencies because power will be in the hands of the electorates as old-style rigging like ballot stuffing cannot just happen. Communicating, collecting data on voters, sorting and aggregating them remain a huge challenge in Nigeria.
The Opportunity
Provide data systems for parties and candidates. Using these systems, the candidates and parties can reach voters for their votes, and communicate their visions. These parties and candidates will pay for the services, ranging from mobilization, voter sensitization, get out the votes, etc.
Action Roadmap
Use big data and analytics [this includes web, SMS, apps, field data, etc] to build election/campaign tools with capabilities to handle elections/campaigns from ward to presidential levels. The tool will have the following features among others (I detailed a possible system architecture here).
Mission-oriented platform with secure and intuitive architecture core to win an election for the candidate
Allow volunteers at polling places to update the camp’s database of voters in real time as people cast their ballots. This will help the campaign deploy resources more efficiently and wring every last vote by knowing those that have not voted.
A data-driven tool to discover voters which can be targeted and persuaded to vote for the candidate
Technology has three core modules – Field, Analytics and Digital – and unifies the voter file, various field offices, the analytics people, the website, and mobile elements.
Targeted and efficient communication via email, SMS and other methods to voters
Empower field workers with tools that provide on-demand political intelligence. In real-time, gives state’s offices information on volunteer activities – number of voters persuaded, their locations and feedbacks
CtizenMatcher: Outreach opt-in Facebook plugin that target and can send direct messages like, “Your friend, Uche in Minna, hasn’t voted yet. Go tell him to vote.” It has an SMS version also.
A tool that engages voters with measurable metrics and manages volunteers from the Campaign Headquarters.
It has been extremely tough knowing that I am living in this generation where nothing (catalytic) seems to work in Nigeria. The last few days have been unbelievably shameful: killing of priests, kidnapping of soldiers, sacking police station, jumping senator from a moving car, killing of farmers (again, again and again), and add your list.
In my business, I receive reports weekly from teams. Last week, one began with “Sir, our risks are no more just markets but sovereign-infested quagmire where our strategic imperatives are uncorrelated with elements of any efficient economic systems. We have asked men to stop work in […] to make sure that girls and boys will have their dads tomorrow”.
Many of us pray. Please pray for Nigeria. This is no more about APC and PDP– this is Nigeria.
What can be done to help our leadership to fix these issues? Keep politics out of this: what can Nigeria do now? My concern is that if we do not fix the root causes, they grow out of control because our capacities to provide solutions are linear [arithmetic progression] while the stimulating root causes are geometric [geometric progression]. Simply, any problem not solved today multiplies faster than our ability to get the problem under control in future. I see massive hopelessness anchored on unprecedented unemployment as the main root cause: that is the gray lizard.
We have a big problem in Nigeria right now. Unemployment is destroying the promises of a generation of young people. With extremely limited decent labor entry points, our young people would lag their peers in career developments within years.
In America, they talk of black swans: ” high-impact risks that are highly improbable and therefore almost impossible to predict”. Yes, “an unpredictable or unforeseen event, typically one with extreme consequences.” That is it: “something extremely rare”. So, because it is rare, you do not (usually) plan for it. Arab Spring was a black swan as the leaders of North Africa could not have modeled that risk.
In Nigeria, we do not just have black swan. We have gray lizard. It is a high impact risk, that is highly probable and evidently visible but totally, widely and irresponsibly ignored. The massive youth unemployment in Nigeria is a gray lizard. Governments see it daily but it is totally ignored.
We need to CREATE jobs in Nigeria. It may be time to bring $1 billion home [from the foreign reserves] purely to stimulate job creation through SME growth, and possibly see if the companies can help provide jobs in the nation. I have proposed how these jobs can be created in Nigeria . The greatest weapon in our nation is the economy. Yes, while we spend $1 billion on weapons [guns, grenades, etc], there is also a need to invest in the growth areas so that we can use jobs as weapons against insecurity. If we can have average of 3,000 jobs per ward within a year, things will improve across Nigerian communities.
Our problems are in geometric progression while our solutions are coming in arithmetic progression [source: trans4mind]
Aba shoes sector would grow with partnerships [source: technomy]
This daily series focuses on business ideas for those looking to launch new ventures in Nigeria (and Africa in general). The short ideas are archived here.
The Problem
Aba (Nigeria) is a makers’ ecosystem with extremely talented people in the broad fashion business. They design and make shoes, clothes, etc. These designers sell these items across Nigeria and increasingly beyond. However, they have no identity and that remains the weakest link.
The Opportunity
Aba designers can transition from small business owners into entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have the scaling capabilities and their ventures grow. For that to happen, Aba needs identities which mean Aba needs brands. Only brands sell fashion. Others sell clothes and shoes which are easily forgotten. Aba must create fashions, not items because it is evident that it needs the brands to even improve volume.
Action Roadmap
Establish a vehicle that will galvanize the different shoe, clothe, etc making entities into brands. Each brand will push for higher quality through better tools and training. Through strategic advertising and marketing, Aba will reach its promise. Read more here for some insights as you craft your roadmap.
