“The moment we (the Nigerian elite) agree that ordinary Nigerians deserve to live well, then we will discover that there is business opportunity everywhere in Nigeria”.
– Fred Okoigun, Founder &Group CEO, ARCO Group, in response to a question as to how he keeps innovative group going.
There is something fundamental in this statement by Fred Okoigun. For those who may not know him, Fred is one of the most successful private entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Nigerians use the term self-made man, loosely and generally, to describe mostly, people whom they consider to have worked hard and become successful, apparently, without any significant push from anyone else. Well, we all know that people succeed through the assistance of others. This fact sometimes makes the concept of self-made man often a controversial one. However, if anyone in Nigeria can claim to be a self-made man, that person is Fred Okoigun – one of the most humble and successful indigenous entrepreneurs in Nigeria.
Growing up in the Ire Akari Estate area of Isolo, Fred used to come over to look up Nduka Nwosu and I and I noticed that Fred was consistent on things concerning oil and the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Warri, his school. The only other thing anyone would notice was that he was sober and very gentle. Given what he has accomplished for the oil industry, PTI and hundreds of Nigerian youths, I believe it is a service to this nation to make his views available to both present and future entrepreneurs in Nigeria.
Okoigun made this quoted statement during an interview he granted after receiving an award by the Old Boys Association of Government College Ugheli, in recognition of his many achievements in the oil industry. What he said, in effect, was that poverty in Nigeria is compounded because the elite do not think that other Nigerians deserve the good life. The general belief is that the average Nigerian being poor is local, unexposed to good things of life and does not deserve the good things of life. Accordingly, there is little or no serious thinking going on about their sad economic conditions.
In response to a question as to how he creates the novel ideas that seem to always underline his many innovative and successful ventures, especially in the oil industry, Fred said that Nigeria is full of business opportunities but that our businessmen do not see the opportunities because of their mind-set. In other words, the moment our entrepreneurs and leaders see ordinary Nigerians as human beings equally deserving of the good life, which the rich enjoy, they will see that there is much to be done. And doing these things unearths the most lucrative of business activities.
This column completely agrees with Okoigun. The money minting business called GSM telephony is an example. Who would have thought that Nigerians, rich and poor, could downgrade other things they need to keep their telephones working. It had been said before in this country that telephone was not for the poor. Actually it wasn’t. I got my first private telephone line when I became Special Adviser to the Minister of Finance! And I was already a bank manager before that appointment. Today, multibillion Naira opportunities have opened due to the GSM explosion. And almost all beggars in Nigeria today have phones.
The same thing will happen the moment our leaders agree that we deserve steady electricity. Those who want this country dead have continued to defer the provision of regular electricity to the people, knowing that the prosperity that will happen in a 24/7 electricity economy of Nigeria will dwarf every economy in all of Africa. This is why it is such an irredeemable shame that the last administration allowed economic terrorists to set up the world-acclaimed Robotics expert, Prof Berth Nnaji, who, not only had a clear vision of what he wanted to do in the power sector but also had the intellectual capacity (a rare attribute in many high places today) to deliver it. Nnaji created one of the first private power producing companies in Nigeria. As the Senior Regional Lending Officer in the bank he approached to finance the project, I found it novel and highly sophisticated, needing creative financing techniques. I am still proud to have superintended the initial aspects of what is today one of Nigeria’s leading power providers – Geometric Power.
When Prof Nnaji was dispensed with, to the shock of the sane world, the Power Roadmap bifurcated and Nigeria, under President Jonathan, and characteristically, went the wrong way again, as did the Obasanjo regime before him. Darkness regained momentum and Nigeria continued the foolish ambition of building a modern industrial state with energy from generators humming in homes, shops, offices and every imaginable human location. The economic terrorists won and the transfer (so called sale) of the power assets of Nigeria to a few incompetent, unprepared, inexperienced and evidently uncommitted persons, which followed, in the name of privatization (we know it was far from what privatization connotes), is one of the biggest disasters of our time.
The lost opportunities and wealth trapped under the convoluted energy politics of Nigeria, in consort with corruption, is the biggest cause of poverty in our country. It is the most potent source of the expansion of the bottom of the Nigerian pyramid. President Buhari must do all within his power not be profiled on the same page with his two predecessors when the history of the Nigerian power sector is written. I have no doubt that Nigeria’s GDP will at least double if we have half the power supply our nearest competitor in Africa provides to its economy. It will be our second independence after 1960.
There may be fortune at the bottom of the pyramid but that is only if you can reach the fortune and extract it. For as long as crude oil remains in the ground, it adds no value. Dig it up and sell, then you become a man of great fortune. When fortune is mismanaged it turns to misfortune. Remember oil boom and then oil doom! And that is exactly what we are doing with the abundant energies of our people at the bottom of the pyramid.
Our youth are known for their stamina, will-power and determination to succeed. The zeal to succeed forces them into the open sea of economic adventurism. They see the proverbial Golden Fleece when they imagine the population of their countrymen ready to buy up whatever they produce. They set up businesses and alas, they realize that they need to also set up a mini power plant. They buy generators from the generator cabal, dissipating their meagre capital, to generate their own electricity. Then they discover that they, like their parents in the homes they were raised, need to set up mini waterworks too. They drill boreholes only to discover, if they are in swamps like Lagos, that they also need treatment plants.
Some voodoo water engineer helps them set up purification systems. But wait a minute, the water is salty and can only be purified by a mechanism which the voodoo water specialist calls Reverse Osmosis (RO) technology. On enquiry they are told that RO would cost a million naira in the minimum. They don’t have any more money to invest. They begin to produce substandard products and you call them fake and send the taxman and the Standards Organization (SON) after them. It is time to quit. They shut down and begin to free-lance either as street hawkers or touts – the type that follows you everywhere the moment you arrive Alaba, Idumota or Tejuosho market, claiming to have what you have not told him you want. Sooner or later they will either be Radicalised, Ariwanised, Oduanised or Biafranized. And you begin to prophesy about insecurity, the root cause of which you appear incapable of understanding.
We have postponed every good thing in Nigeria for too long; from economic diversification to political unification through equal opportunities. We can harness the fortune at the bottom of our pyramid before it becomes a misfortune. I can proffer some suggestions.
Emeka Osuji
