My speech at the Ease of doing business event; Lituation (10/11//19)
There are various challenges that make doing business in Nigeria difficult such as infrastructure, access to finance, unemployment and high inflation. There are limited opportunities for young people who often receive very little education and training yet are expected to compete in increasingly global markets.
Also, as a Doctor of Medicine and a student of economics & finance, I can’t shy away from the relationship between healthcare and economic growth. The low levels of investment in healthcare have adversely affected growth and business.
All this said, I think we must acknowledge our successes and there are many. The World Bank Ease of doing business rankings are the global standard that measures how easy it is to do business in any country. They are a result of rigorous analysis and research by some of the best minds in the world, but they don’t always tell the whole story.
I am wearing a backpack right now, because when I first arrived in Lagos State, this is all I came with.
You can do research on my family, you will see that I am not from a wealthy home. I hardly knew anyone in this city, but within just 2 years, I had gone from earning a modest salary to running a multi-million-dollar international corporation from Nigeria.
I was born in England and lived there, but through reading the Punch/Ovation etc, I could see Nigerian owned banks in Nigeria, airlines in Nigeria, large constructions companies etc and I wanted to be part of that story of impact. So when I talk about ease of doing business, beyond the rankings, I talk about the fact despite the fact that Nigeria has a relatively low EODB ranking, young people like myself, people like Jason Njoku of Iroko TV , were able to move here with backpacks and build enterprises.
Yet the people of my parents’ generation , Nigerians that moved to the UK/America/Norway/Japan countries, that have high EODB business rankings, haven’t been able to build big businesses. So when we talk about enabling environments, we have to ask, enabling for who?
Eko Atlantic the largest land reclamation project in Africa, has been built by a third generation Lebanese multi-billion dollar family business, think about the Chinese manufacturing firms, the large Indian family businesses that not only survive and thrive here with the support of our government.
Yet how many Nigerian multi-billion dollar businesses are thriving in France or Germany? These are the stories beyond the rankings that I wanted to use this opportunity to share.
I also wanted to touch on some of the cultural factors that I feel may be holding us back, that have nothing to do with policy.
For example, every Nigerian parent wants their child to be an engineer/doctor/accountant, but being good at these professions doesn’t necessarily prepare you for starting a business; even if the business is related to that profession. To give an example from my own life, we once transferred a patient to the UK for treatment and the patient ended up not paying his bill. I ended up being sanctioned because of it.
A newspaper even covered it and wrote things that were completely untrue. Everyone loved the lies. No one ever reads the retraction/apology.
That wasn’t a problem with my medical skills. The panel that sanctioned me made it very clear. It was a problem with my business skills. I was fully reinstated after the sanction. But that painful period taught me the hard way that being skilled at the technical work of your profession is a totally different game from being good at the business of your profession. The first air ambulance in the world was started by a pastor, not a doctor or pilot. Dangote is not a chemist or structural scientist that understands the molecular structure of cement. But he has hired those people, like I hired registered doctors, engineers and pilots at my company.
I am a doctor, but currently most people know me more for economics, finance and investment as I spend a great deal of time working in the investment fund that I run with Mr Bode Agusto and Abas Idaserit, Greentree investments and have no input in clinical aspects of Flying Doctors. I have investments in banking, media, software and ecommerce. The most important skills of business are often the soft skills, management skills, not technical skills which you can hire. I am glad I learned this early so I could focus on helping to build big African companies.
Another cultural issue learned from my experience investing is trust. I always thought that access to finance was the biggest problem that Nigerian investors face, which is partly true. But there is also a problem with trust. We have invested in companies that spent the money recklessly, we have even heard of cases, thankfully outside our investment company, where founders absconded and used the money to relocate to Canada!!
I have spoken about some of the challenges of doing business in Nigeria, the importance of sharing our success stories, how we need to change the narrative about business in Nigeria, improving our entrepreneurial culture and some problems with us in the private sector, like integrity. Like trust, these are things that government cannot fix.
But I will finish with a story of how the new ease of doing business reforms by the current Administration have been transformational for my business. Visa on arrival, a simple, policy change has changed the way my business runs forever. Flying Doctors Nigeria, like every air ambulance service is focused on moving patients from areas where they have overwhelmed the level of care to a more suitable level of care for them.
So there are certain tourist attractions especially in the mountains of Chad that America/European adventure tourists visit every year. Accidents happen to many of these climbers and they have to be flown to the closest point for stabilization Lagos. Before the reforms, you can imagine how difficult it was for an American to obtain an emergency Nigerian visa to receive emergency care in Lagos.
But now our patients are able to receive visa on arrival. This saves time and lives and also contributes to the economy, hospitals, hotels, banks, doctors & nurses all benefit.
I am excited about the business prospects for the future, I believe that a combination of cultural shifts, policy innovation and better story-telling will fuel Nigeria and ultimately Africa’s growth, lifting millions of people out of poverty and creating global impact.
To learn more about me, read my profile by clicking here.
