For Love of Country — The Little Things That Matter
As we are still basking in the 63rd independence anniversary of our nation Nigeria 🇳🇬 I’ll like to point out one major way we all can be part of nation building in a small way.
It is obvious that for Nigeria to Rise it’s not a sole responsibility of government officials. We as Nigerians need to deliberately make decisions that is a positive for Nigeria.
A while back I wrote a medium post titled Why Nigeria is The Poverty Capital of The World and in this post i pointed out that many of us Nigerians seeks personal solutions to general problems rather than seek solutions that would help everyone.
This attitude of seeking personal solutions to general problems shows in how we chose to pursue financial freedom particularly how we spend and invest our money.
Few weeks back I reached out to a friend who is a founder in one of the major investment fintech apps in Nigeria. I sent this my friend a voice note on WhatsApp explaining how I currently use PiggyVest to save monthly for my yearly rent and that I would like to take advantage of one of their investments services so that money I save can be better used in the assets they manage so that it can yield better returns rather than keep it in a savings account (PiggyVest).
But I later changed my mind on directing those funds to that platform when this my friend told me they no longer invest their users money in Nigerian based assets because of volatility in the Nigerian market but they now invest in assets in Europe and America in order to better secure their user’s funds and give them a good roi. I perfectly understand this but something in me didn’t feel comfortable making a financial decision that Will directly or indirectly affect the Nigerian economy negatively. Even though we’re not talking about millions of Naira here, but still…
As Nigerians we ought to stop doing things that directly or indirectly hurts Nigeria's economy and the strength of our currency. A lot of Nigerians are buying foreign stocks, investing in foreign markets and patronize all these Nigerian apps that lets them buy foreign Real estate and foreign assets. Yet they come home and criticize the government for not making the economy work.
The economy is simple math actually. These behaviors we are imbibing in the name of investing and securing our money against inflation is part of the inflation problem.
Some months back I was opportune to attend an event where Richard Okunola spoke on business finance. One of the things he said that struck me was that he actively seeks small businesses in his environment he can invest in to the tune of between N200,000 — N400,000 and get his money back with interest within a short period and he gave an instance where he invested in his own barber’s shop to help him expand and got his money back with interest. To me this is absolutely incredibly heroic. He might as well have downloaded these apps and bought some Apple stock or invested in a London property from Nigeria here with that money — it’s even safer and more convenient but he didn’t do that.
Look guys, we ought to start betting on ourselves as a country.
We have people like like Don Jazzy and Olamide that are betting on the Nigerian music industry and are winning big. We have people like Editi Effiong, Kunle Afolayan and Bolanle Austin-Peters betting on Nigerian film industry and they are winning big. My friend and mentor Joseph Edgar is betting on Nigerian theater and he’s winning big.
We have people like Kunle Soname and Allen Onyema betting on the air travel industry in Nigeria.
I’m currently betting on the education sector with my startup Digital Skill School.
There are a lot of Nigerians making serious money investing in the Nigerian stock market with stocks like Nigerian Breweries, MTN Nigeria, Cadbury, Nestle, First bank, UBA just to name a few. WHY cant these fintech apps also list Nigerian stocks on their platforms for people to invest?? Why cant the regulatory bodies make it compulsory for these apps listing US and European assets to also list Nigerian assets alongside so that money isn’t just flowing out of the country when they are options with good roi to keep the money in the country.
If you don’t bet on your country to win don’t expect anyone to do it for you. Newsflash!! nobody is coming to fix Nigeria’s economy. It is our collective actions that will help fix this country.
Nigeria is my country. I will not bet against our currency or our economy. In the words of a song 🎵 by Dido — I will go down with this ship,
And I won’t put my hands up and surrender,
There will be no white flag above my door
I’m in love (with Nigeria) and always will be.
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If you’re trying to transition your career or business to the next level but don’t know how to go about it, I can give you expert advice with actionable steps that can transform you in 6–12 months. Book a free call with me, shoot me an email describing your situation ~ digitalschoollagos@gmail.com
