How Far is Nigeria From Economic Growth?

You know, we Nigerians tend to see the glass half-empty. And often-times we have good reason to. What with various social issues like corruption, mis-governance, political instability, etc. You can hardly blame anybody for being pessimistic about the outlook for the future.

But is it really that bad? I think a lot has happened since 1999 that gets me thinking, well, Nigeria may not be so far off from development after all. Sure, the pace is slow, and the impact is hardly felt. But a lot of things have happened in the economy that we don't usually take notice of. I'll list a few:

1. Pension Act: This fund has grown to around $11bn as at 2010. The funds, having being largely secured in bonds rather than equities or futures, are largely secure from the tanking of the global markets we're currently experiencing everywhere. I wonder if U.S. 401(k) holders can say the same?

2. Insurance Industry: Though not yet uhuru, the industry has managed to grow 11% over the last 4 years, since 2007. They've also diversified into various products. The challenge they still face is the natural pessimism of Nigerians. But that they have managed to grow and sustain their business is quite remarkable.

3. Health Care: The health insurance scheme has changed the face of health care in Nigeria for the better. The only problem is, there is very little investment in private health care by Nigerians. I'd have expected that, just like in India, the Nigerian healthcare entrepreneurs could have teamed up with their diaspora counterparts to finance mega projects in health care delivery, pharmaceutics, and biotech. Health insurance bridges the gap, and more people can now get access to good services. But right now the few private hospitals cannot cope with the volumes, and end up delivering poor service.

4. ICT: I won't dwell too much on this, cos it has been said too many times. However, it is worth mentioning that ICT, especially telecom deregulation, has probably generated an income for Nigeria in the billions of USD, and may have created over a million direct or indirect jobs.

Maybe you guys can help me with a few more sectors where you think we have made progress. Remember, this is about positive developments, and especially areas where we all should be looking at for investment, rather than trying to make our fortune from forex trading or IB jobs (I am saying that tongue in cheek!)

We Need To Rediscover Ubuntu

Ubuntu: "I am what I am because of who we all are." (From a translation offered by Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee.)

I actually stumbled on the meaning of the word Ubuntu by accident this evening, while watching Jacob's Cross. Of course I had heard of the word in computer circles, the operating system that's a variant of Linux, but I certainly was not aware that behind Ubuntu was a very interesting concept or philosophy, and the fact that it was something unique to Africa. So I decided to do a little research.

Ubuntu, from what I have been able to garner, is very much in consonance with the concept of interdependence as preached by Stephen Covey his bestseller, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey, in his book, talked about a Continuum of Maturity, which represents the bridge between low and high effectiveness. Milestones along the continuum represent stages of Dependence, Independence, and Interdependence. According to Wikipedia, Nelson Mandela explained Ubuntu as follows:

A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?

It appears the whole point of Ubuntu is essentially interdependence, which is exactly the same concept Covey has postulated. You first learn how to become independent, and stand on your own, then you unite with your fellows and ultimately depend on each other. It's a noble concept, without a doubt. Why should it concern us? I'll seek to answer.

Sometimes,you tend to wonder what it is all about, why and how it is that we seem to be self-absorbed, and obsessed with the pursuit of self-preservation and advancement of self. We Nigerians are particularly ultra-competitive and, I dare say, quite selfish. We treat each other oftentimes more with contempt than respect, and seem to be more interested in getting one over the next person. We go to great lengths, and ultimately achieve measures of independence. But we inherently don't trust each other, and end up competing against each other. Small wonder we hardly ever achieve beyond the individual.

We need to imbibe Ubuntu.

Why I support FC Barcelona

1. They are mostly short like me.
2. They are kind of geeky rather than cool, like Becks or CR7.
3. They plank a lot during games. Some haters like to call it 'diving';)
4. They are like jackals. Jackals are not very big and strong, but they have fantastic wits and speed. That more than makes up.
5. Last but not the least ... they play darned good football!

...I'm back!

Well, I'm back!
Have I gotten older and wiser since I last came on here?
I guess. My son certainly has, he can't stop yammering about everything and anything. Me I am feeling rather jaded, and want to go back to the days i had hobbies, of which blogging is one. I am a bit rusty anyways, so you won't mind this first return post.

Anyways...my second coming will see me writing about a wider range of stuff. Just ranting about anything in general. Not just career stuff, I am kind of tired of that. Could be politics, tech, religion, music, just about anything that catches my fancy. Like my daughter on the way. I haven't thought about a name for her yet, and she'll soon be here. WOW ... Not feeling less excited anyway.

Anyways, guys...I'm back.

Of Me, Music, and Boredom

This week, it has been a bit lazy for me. Generally I've not had much to do. So I spent most of my work days listening to much of my music archive at work, while pretending to be busy.Started with classical and hymns, moved up to hip hop and reggae, and now on African jazz. Altogether it was a fun experience, but nobody to share the joys with, so i resorted to blogging about it.
Music has changed so much, it's almost unrecognizable nowadays. As a student, my music tastes were wide and diverse, from comtemporary to ancient, classical to jazz, hip hop to Rock. You name it, I listened to it. Still do to a large extent.
I wonder why the current generation of youth/aspirational don't want to deepen their music listening, but rather focus on the mundane. Names like 'Slow Money', 'Mad Cash', 'Vocal Slender' now rule the airwaves. All singing the same stuff. 'Owo to yapa', 'Igboro ti Daru', 'Nothing do me because I be Shayo', etc, etc. Smacks of our typical short- cut attitude. These chaps are doing it to fill their bellies, no doubt.

The Old Boys Network: Does It Exist In Nigeria?

This is something that happens everywhere in the world.
In NY, the Columbia, Yale or Harvard IB scions dominate the world of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan. Likewise for the Ivy League lawyers, they are usually set for a career at some of the most prestigious law firms in the US, mostly founded by some ex-alumni.
Most people know about Stanford/Caltech/UCB and the Silicon Valley connection. In fact, Sun Microsystems is basically owned by ex-Stanford comp sci grads.

My question is, do we have anything like that in Nigeria? Is there really an 'old boys network'? Do we have firms primarily dominated by ex-alumni of some certain institutions? In my early job-seeking days, I came up a number of times against an 'Ife clique', in places like Telnet, Spar Aerospace (later GS Telecom), Philips Projects Center, and even Resourcery. These days, I hardly hear of such things among the fresh guys coming up. Though I hear Renaissance Capital is dominated by Ife people, that's just about it. All the places that I have worked, and indeed most organizations these days, people join from just about anywhere.

I think it's not so bad to have an old boys network. The only thing I have not seen in Nigeria, is what I consider to be the next level: old boys actually going on to set up their own outfit, and taking it up there. With all the Ife domination of Telnet and GS Telecom, I haven't still heard of any homegrown outfit founded by a bunch of Ife guys competing with those chaps. Pretty disappointing if you ask me.

What do you guys think?

The Reality Of Overqualification - Are People Getting Overqualified?

Yes, let's face it. We are getting overqualified, truth be told. Not only in Naija but all over the world.
Someone was telling me today that he attended an interview for Google in the UK. They wanted a Phd! Come on, a Phd to do what? Even Larry and Sergey didn't complete their Phds.

There was a time that advanced scholarship was pursued solely for academics or research. Now you need any number of degrees and/or certifications to hold down a basic straightforward job that requires little more than commonsense, as opposed to Laplace, Fourier, or Lagrange's equations. People cite 'competition' as the reason for all this, and these companies claim they are using these new criteria to generate more competition for their jobs. Are they, or are they just ignoring the basic values required to do a simple straightforward job?

There are a few questions that come to mind:

1. Are all these qualifications necessary to hold down a job in today's economy?
2. Are employers benefiting from any perceived knowledge these degrees and/or certifications are supposedly bringing to the table?
3. Who are the real winners? Could it be that the various professional bodies and degree-awarding institutions are the real winners, raking in millions of hard currency on an annual basis?

Your thoughts and responses are much appreciated.

The Hype About Mobile Money

The Hype About Mobile Money
In the last couple of years, there has been a frenzy about 'Mobile Money'. A couple of success stories about mobile banking in Kenya and Afghanistan seems to have triggered a whole new craze in the tech industry about mobile money, and its potential to revolutionalize banking, whatever that means. Even the Bill Gates foundation have contributed significant millions of dollars towards the development of mobile money, as it relates to the 'unbanked', that segment of society not captured by conventional banking.

What puzzles me even more is, the initiative is not even driven by the financial sector but the tech sector. I would like to ask the house, what exactly do you understand by mobile money? What is it expected to deliver? And how come the banks have been totally ignoring it for now? Will it really change anything anywhere?

Your thoughts.

Are Fresh Grads Of Today Smarter Than Previous Grads?

I had this argument with a few friends yesterday.
Sure, today's grads are younger, have more information, better-looking, etc, etc. But are they really smarter than graduates of 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago?

I deal with fresh grads (NYSC, etc) on an everyday basis, and, based on my interaction, I would say an emphatic NO in general.
My reasons?

1. They seem to know a lot less than older grads about the fundamentals of the course they studied. For example, I have corpers in my team, who are supposed to be 1st class or 2.1 graduates of electronic engineering. They don't even understand the fundamentals of telecoms.

2. They don't seem to have the discipline required for the work environment. They are kind of conditioned for the 'easy life'. They complain about every task you assign to them.

3. They are a lot more focused on office politics, which is surprising for their level and age. In my day, which wasn't that far off, fresh grads who were into politics stood out sharply like a sore thumb. Most of us were just naive, and wanted to learn.

4. They're heavily into Facebook, and Twitter. Not to mention the EPL, Nollywood, Nigezie, and Sound City. I mean, full-time.

5. They are 100% sold on the Quick Fix. Young people nowadays don't just say 'I wanna be a pilot, because I love flying'. Nowadays, what you hear is 'I heard that pilots are paid N1m a month, and they are in high demand. Can you tell me which certification (sic) I can quickly do that would make me a pilot in 1 week?'

At the end of the day, I can say this about most of the younger grads:
They are street-smart, not book-smart.
They are way too aware of money, which makes them seem shallow to me, for their age.
A good time is more important than a hard day's work to them.
They are street-smart, not book-smart.


Now I'm not generalizing. A lot of them still have good values. I'm just saying that the majority don't.
Would like to hear the opinions of the house.

Filipinos - The Real Global Knowledge Workers

It always surprises me when, where knowledge workers, offshoring, and outsourcing are discussed, India and China are always mentioned. However, little or no mention is made of the Phillipines, a country that appears (to me at least) to supply the bulk of migrant workers globally, specifically in the technical areas.

From right when I was doing the NYSC, I noticed the seemingly huge population of Filipino labourers in the energy, aviation, and manufacturing sectors in Nigeria. Good English skills, good technical skills. Unlike Indians and Chinese, they don't really set up businesses but they take up employment, in mostly jobs that require some level of technical expertise. Not so much senior positions, but in the junior and mid-level jobs, you find them there.

On a recent trip to a couple of Gulf nations, I was surprised at the sheer volume of Filipinos I could find everywhere. It was like an Indo-Filipino race for domination. While the Indians were the labourers and taxi drivers, and generally did outside jobs, the Filipinos manned the desks in the hotels, restaurants, and shops. In fact, it seemed that every public establishment had at least a couple of Filipinos in their employ.
I asked one of my Arab hosts, and he said 'well, the Filipinos are smarter and cleaner than the Indians, and speak good English'. His words not mine.

Because we have a similar background to these people (history of misgovernance, large population of mostly youths, educated), I wondered why we seem to not have the same characteristics abroad. Even in the UK, or in the States, I hardly come across Nigerians doing front-office jobs, technical or sedentary. We seem to fall into the three categories of white-collar, trading, and under-the-radar hustling (drugs, yahoo scams and what have you). Not too many blue-collar Nigerians around.

So I did a little checking up, in the following areas:

Country Literacy: Phillipines is right up there in the 90th percentile (95.1% literacy level), compared to China (86%) and India (59%). This is probably due to the fact that the Phillipines was a US colony from 1898 to 1946. That definitely gives them the edge when it comes to foreign English-speaking jobs. Nigeria is rated at about 68%, though we have a larger population, 150m, as opposed to their ~90m.

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_lit_tot_pop-education-literacy-total-population.

About 11% of the total Filipino population are migrant workers abroad, contributing about 13.5% of the country's GDP as remittances:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Filipino. Now that is similar to Nigeria, isn't it. There is some World Bank report about remittances amounting to about $10bn from Nigerians abroad, though that would not be a significant part of Nigeria's GDP.

Technical Education: Just like in Nigeria, education is not doing well in the Phillipines. In fact, in 2005, the Philippines spent only about US$138 per pupil compared to US$1,582 in Singapore, US$3,728 in Japan, and US$852 in Thailand. (source: Wikipedia). They are also not particularly supplying graduate students to other Asian countries, the U.S., or Europe. As per technical education, they seem to have a plethora of privately-run diplomate schools and colleges offering a wide range of vocational and technical trainings, from construction to automotive technology, to catering and hotel management. These schools are centrally accredited by a body known as TESDA in the Phillines. So how come they have a high literacy rate, and strong technical skills?

According to this website http://www.chalre.com/articles/SME-Filipinos_Knowledge.htm, “Filipinos speak better English, have a better customer services mindset and the cultural gap between the Philippines and Western countries is less. India is reported to have better technical universities but the Philippines is better in liberal arts, which is more appropriate for back-office processing,” according to Richard Mills, an expert on outsourcing in the Asia Pacific'. I find that particularly interesting. You could say the same about Nigeria in Africa. Or could you?


Outsourcing: Phillipines is already the 3rd largest outsourcing destination in Asia, after India and China. McKinsey data indicates 2003 outsourcing revenue from the Phillipines as US$1.7bn. India was the largest at $12.2bn and China at $3.4bn. This is old data, it would probably have grown a lot more since then. https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Attracting_more_offshoring_to_the_Philippines_1684

Long and short of it? I think the term 'Global Knowledge Worker' refers more to the Filipinos than any other people group. They are just about everywhere, they have a highly skilled and literate population, and they seem to be everywhere, in every industry. They may not have the volumes like India and China, but they are making their presence felt. And I think that's something we can learn from in Naija.

Management: The Great White Elephant

his for most of us salaried employees.
When you actually take some time off your own painful sojourn in the organization, and study some attributes or characteristics of your company's 'management' people, you find tons and tons of interesting, and downright funny behaviour.
Being a humorist of sorts, I've been doing this for years. And I assure you, I always find it hilarious. The body language, the 'speak', the antics, general air, and nuances of top management people are something worth seeing.

I'll start from something that's common to those of us who work in projectized environments - The Project Steering Committe Meeting. Cast of characters are usually the CEO, the CFO, the Implementer, the Project Manager, The Conscientiously Objecting Executive, The Whistle Blower, and the Fringe Players. Short description of the characters follow:

The CEO - Self-explanatory, abi?

The CFO - Finance man, money man, whichever you prefer.

The Implementer - The guy who runs the team that's supposed to do the actual work.

The Project Manager - Usually some flunky with mutiple certifications, and knows nothing about what needs to be done, but facilitates the project.

The Conscientiously Objector - The chap who is doing his best to ensure the project doesn't fly.

The Whistle Blower - Always there to play the government-will-not-like-this card, but never shows any actual evidence of what they're saying.

The Fringe Players - No real deliverable, but just need to be in the meeting to stay relevant.



So our Project Team Meeting (never mind which project, they generally go the same way) usually runs like this:

Project Manager: Hi everyone, pls take a look at my status report/gantt chart/graph/spreadsheet, and look at the way I've organised the information. Though, none of the deliverables are on track, but never mind that, just appreciate the aesthetics.

Implementer: We are unable to deliver on any of these timelines, due to various random instances of force majeur. For example, a car ran over my dog's leg, and we've been in hospital ever since!

Conscientiously Objector: I have an objection to these deliverables. And I would like to debate each and every one of the points.

Fringe Player: .

CEO (in whispered aside to CFO): I have no idea what any of these people are talking about!

Project Manager: : Please let's stay on track! Now I have some next 20 slides on the status of this project . . .

Whistle Blower: It's very clear some of these deliverables are clearly violating some government statutory obligations xyz . . . following by a lot of big words. Deep silence followed by confusion on all sides.

CEO: Wait a minute . . This is not what I asked you guys to deliver!!!



Do you have similar management scenarios you see play out in your company on a daily basis. Please share with us.

Happy New 2010 in March?

Hey all,
I have been away from this blog for a while, for so many reasons. Busy at work, busy traveling (visited China this year, yay!), and also busy pursuing my personal and career objectives. Lots of exams to write till May
2010 is a interesting year though. My focus has changed a lot. I am under less pressure, emotionally and physically. Trying to find new skills to build, new challenges to conquer. Trying to not be trapped by that monster called the 9-5. Let's see where the journey takes us. See you guys soon.

Hey all,
Been absent for a while, for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, I lost a beloved aunt, who was very close to me, on the 14th of November. So I was a bit down for a while.
Secondly, I was busy rounding up my eMarketing course, and I was really behind in a number of ways, and was tired of giving excuses for not submitting assignments on time to my course co-ordinator. Well, finally completed all of that today, and we'll see. Would not want to fail a program I paid $700 for, in this recession time!

Anyways, I am here again. And what is there to blog about? Maybe the art of goal-setting and keeping committed to one's personal goals. Personally I am extremely pleased about 2009, as this would probably be the first time in maybe five years that I am able to achieve most of my set goals. Year in year out, I set these goals, but am never able to fulfill them. However, this year, I even surpassed my own expectations, and somehow was able to achieve all the personal and family goals I set out for myself and my family at the beginning of the year. Which means I'm going into 2010 on a higher note, despite the very negative economic outlook that seems to be overshadowing next year. We all have to tighten our belts and look inward for resources. 2010 is definitely not the year to waste any money, clearly.

My focus for next year is as follows:

1. Spend much less.
2. Eat much less.
3. Sleep much more.
4. Read much more.
5. Work harder, not at my job per se, but at something that makes use of my personal skills.
6. Make more money, not from my current job, but from private business.
7. Spend time more on meditation and spiritual exercise.
8. Talk much less.
9. Listen much more.
10. Learn a lot more than I have this year.

Seeing Opportunity in Importunity?

I had car trouble yesterday, and had to hitch a ride with a friend home. We were stuck on 3rd Mainland for almost an hour, and he asked me 'Don't you think there is something we can do, some kind of business opportunity, seeing as more than 3 million or so cars are stuck in traffic in Lagos everyday? You've a creative guy, that's what you do, think!' And I burst out laughing.

You see, for many years, I used to think like this my friend. And basically, that's how the average Nigerian living in Nigeria thinks. When we were in primary school, there was this Yoruba poem we learnt, titled 'Ire ti o wa ninu ibi', meaning, the Good in Evil. The poem basically said look at doctors, grave diggers, casket makers, lawyers, executioners, etc. They make money from someone else's misfortune. So therefore, there must be a good thing to be derived from someone else's misfortune?

But let's look at this critically. Is it really a good thing to profit from someone else's misfortune? Find opportunity in importunity? I've thought about it of late, and made a personal conclusion, which is what influenced the answer I gave my friend.

I told him 'Look, there is no solution. Government should just do what they should do, build more roads, repair bad ones, create new routes. After all we pay them taxes, and we have oil money. What else should we do?'

I guess what he was expecting was for me to propose some kind of telecoms solution that enables commuters to maybe get MMSs of gridlock spots, or some kind of traffic alerts. For what? So they can sit in Sue bar for hours waiting for traffic to subside? It's not like the information will change anything. Today is Thursday, and everyday since Monday I have spent 2 hours between Ikoyi, where I work, and Ikeja, where I live.

I think we all need to stop deceiving our selves that we have found any solutions. Those solutions are not individual solutions. Government should solve the major problems with the nation: food, clothing, shelter, infrastructure, public transportation, etc. Once they do that, they can watch and see how things will fall in place.

Your thoughts?

eMarketing

The actual reason why I started actively to blog is partly because of a course I am currently doing, relating to eMarketing. After like a decade plus of work, partly as a software engineer, and partly as a product designer, I decided it was time to learn something new. So I stumbled on this course online in eMarketing, and decided to try it out.

The course basically runs you through the rudiments of digital marketing, online and mobile marketing, proximity marketing, and so on. At the initial I was like...duh, is it not website designing? I program ASP and JSP web apps already! I started it kind of slow, but now I am picking up a lot of interest, and am even considering adding the knowledge to my repetoire of consulting skills.I'm already more than halfway through the course, and should be rounding up in a couple of weeks. It actually has a final project, an exam, and a pass to write the certification exam for the Certified eMarketer credential, from the eMarketing Association. That plus the PMP I did in September makes it two credentials I've earned this year!

One thing that strikes me most about the course is how much fun it can be to learn new things. Since I started, I look at every website differently, I see what could have been done to optimize the site for SEO,rather than just a coder slapping graphics around. It's been exciting really. The really catchy one is that so many businesses in Naija are not even taking advantage of the web to do their business! Obviously there is a major goldmine in Web business and marketing, and we should all tap into it.

Today I sat on an interview panel with some of my other colleagues in Tech.
We had three candidates, one of which was internal, and likely to be picked, cos he already knew his onions, but the manager still had to follow through.

Usually when I'm not the hiring manager, I generally ask one question: Tell me what you understand by the job you are here to interview for. Nine times out of ten, the candidate doesn't even know, or can't explain. Once you don't know, interview ends for me. I still do that for my own hires, but I still try to ask a few dud questions, just to appear transparent and fair. I mean...you came for an interview and you didn't understand the role? Total waste of my time.

Today was no different. The first candidate was totally terrible, next one failed my 'Cooper Test', but was still an interesting prospect for a more junior role,. The third one (did I hear you say yeah right, the internal one) was the only one who came out to bat. And he definitely did not bunt.

Moral of the story is...interview slots these days are few and far between. Why should you go and be wasting people's precious time? If you don't understand a job role, you won't get the job, period. Except of course you know the hiring manager, possibly even in the Biblical sense.

So all of y'all, be on the lookout for skeptics and haterz like me in your next job interview...which may be soon!

First Real Post

This is my first real post. And I thought I should start by describing myself. I'm in my mid-thirties,married with a kid to a wonderful woman who takes my breath away everytime, living and working in Nigeria.

I'm into anything wired, basically. Gadgets, widgets, what have you. That's even what I do for a living. I create products and services, and evaluate other people's ideas, for a wireless network operator in Nigeria. Earlier in my career, I was a nuts and bolts kinda guy, wrote software for a living. Now I write only for fun...truth be told I haven't written anything in over a year! More like i design and someone else writes.

I would not be revealing my identity at this time, cos this isn't really a professional blog, but I will focus a lot on professional issues. I'm very much settled in my personal life, so you won't see much about that in this blog. I will be touching mostly on my daily experiences in Lagos, blog about places I've been to (can't post any pictures of me, sorry), talk about workplace experiences, and generally share stuff about the vagaries of being a working professional in Nigeria.

Therein goes my first post. Ta!

i'm back!

Intro...

This blog is about searching deep down to bring out the fire in I. For 35-odd years, one has lived an interesting, albeit mediocre life, doing the same things, recording some successes, having all kinds of fun - up until I read Tim Ferris' book 'The 4-Hour Work Week'. Now I am suffering a paradigm shift, and want to start doing all the good things I should have done years ago.
We'll continue later, when you'll meet me.