In Ghana, The Customer Is Always Wrong

Kingsley Nwose
Nov 1 · 10 min read
Kente weavers in Bonwire, Ashanti Region of Ghana. Kente is said to originate from this village. Source: https://www.for91days.com

If coffee be the drink of tech, go on, shoot me excess of it…this was my mood when pressure thought it could catch up with me during the various sprints in the past weeks. Entrepreneurship is hard, I guess everyone knows that already and if tech is the area you choose to do your Mother Theresa duties to humanity, you are more than doomed to hit several fire points. Therefore, sparks ain’t unexpected when almost 60 strong personalities sit in a room to reverse-engineer high tech problems. Everyone has ideas, everyone knows many innovative ways to go about creating solutions for them; how do you convince someone to try your suggested solution instead of his/hers? This is why the design thinking process was invented, to filter problems and find high priority ones, filter possible solutions and find the most feasible ones. However, methods are just tools; you still have to deal with humans — their convictions, egos, preconceptions, values, flaws, strengths, judgments, etc. If you don’t find a way to tolerate the various personality traits, the only problem you gonna be solving is building an app to manage your enemies.

“Paystack and Flutterwave are helping merchants receive payments, Carbon is giving loans to people we never thought could get loans, Andela, LifeBank…just name it. The speed at which we are going, we may soon develop an app that downloads economic development from the cloud”

After many weeks collaborating with great minds at MEST Africa, I realized I needed a slight getaway and jogging felt like a great option. Putting behind my PTSD from the Fulani herdsmen brouhaha, I made a big came back from retirement and laced up my running shoes again.

Read about my hilarious encounter with Fulani herdsmen here in an article titled “Ghana is Nigeria and Nigeria is Ghana”

The destination was the same but it was an evening, plus this time it was a team effort. I joined Lucky, Andrew, Oscar, and a few others for the exercise, everyone running at his own pace. As we ran through Boundary Road, approaching the Shell fuel station, I noticed what looked like a baby traffic jam. It was ignorable until I overheard a driver complaining bitterly about how he had been there for over 10 minutes. I was like whaaaaat? 10 minutes and he thinks that was a delay? This folk doesn’t even know waris going on. If he gets into Lagos traffic when his wife is 4 months pregnant, she would have been delivered of a baby and the same baby would already be in primary school by the time he gets out of the traffic. You can’t even call anything in Accra traffic, Lagos traffic is a market segment in itself! Matter of fact, Ghana should hope to be like Nigeria when she grows up. Yes, I said it. Bad as the media portray Nigeria to look, or worse still as we the Nigerians castigate her to look in the eyes of outsiders, it is very safe to say Nigeria is a land of opportunities. What the media don’t tell you is Lagos traffic is a source of livelihood for a lot of Ghanaians and other Africans. I mean people leave their homeland with a business plan, headed for Nigeria to eke out a living selling stuff in traffic.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/whitenaijagirl

Nigeria manages to turn everything into opportunities and advantages. When the electricity goes out, men and women see an opportunity to also go out and socialize together. When people see heavy rains and floods, we see a weather for two. When the government ditches meritocracy for favoritism, we take things personally and produce personal favorites in the form of children. The result is a 200-million-strong market in a geographical enclave and a similar number of people hungry for results. Nigerians can make gold out of clay, just present the opportunity. The Nigerian spirit is unrivaled anywhere, similar to the hustler spirit that propelled China to global dominance but unique in that it thrives even in the absence of encouraging policies. Take a cue from the tech ecosystem revolution in Africa, somehow South Africa and Kenya seemed to have kicked off first, Nigerians didn’t care until someone invested millions of dollars in Jumia and Konga (both Nigerian e-commerce startups) and everyone was like…” seriously? You mean if I learn to write jargons on a black screen and call it apps people will invest millions of dollar$$$?” That was all the motivation we needed. Fast-forward to 2019, over 2000 tech startups solving problems nobody thought Africans could solve. Paystack and Flutterwave are helping merchants receive payments, Carbon is giving loans to people we never thought could get loans, Andela, LifeBank, CowryWise, Kobo360, PiggyVest, Riby, so much problem solving everywhere, just name it. The speed at which we are going, we may soon build an app that downloads economic development from the cloud.

Read more on Ghana and Nigeria similarities in my hilarious article titled “Ghana is Nigeria and Nigeria is Ghana”

Tech may be the new bottle, but the hustler spirit is pretty old school. The Igbo apprenticeship system has raised more global entrepreneurs than any tech incubator. The traditional systems in Nigeria teach you more salesmanship than a business school. I remember stopping at a boutique in Accra on a Saturday morning to pick up some footwear, I asked for the price of a particular pair of sneakers but the seller insisted I must put it on to confirm it’s my size before he tells me the price. He believes putting it on is proof that I’m serious about buying. I wasted 20 minutes trying to convince him that I know my size when I see it, besides knowing the price is central to my buying decision because if it costs more than I can afford, putting it on would be an exercise in futility. The guy kept doling out superstitions he holds about morning business and how he doesn’t think I will buy shoes that early. Onku woke up that early and opened shop for business but didn’t believe anyone will patronize? I left without making the purchase. I will not buy out of sympathy, a product that can be bought in a million other stores nearby. If only he knew, I just received my lean stipend and footwear is my favorite vanity. I had a similar experience buying mobile recharge card. Got to a store around 7 pm, dudes were still inside the store counting their kill for the day. The burglary proof was already locked but the main entrance door was still open. They told me point blank that they have closed for the day and won’t sell — recharge cards available and within view, I pleaded as if it was to be given for free, they still refused to sell.

Were we not taught in elementary school that one of the advantages of a sole proprietor is he can sell after closing hours, even at midnight? God knows any businessperson who tries this in Naija will receive barbequed thunder from the god of sales. A Nigerian businessperson will make the sale and worry about size later; they will sell after closing hour and include it in the next day’s record. They will never miss an opportunity to sell. I asked a few Ghanaians afterward and was told around here, the businessperson is always right as opposed to the global belief that customers are always right. My years of education in sales was laid to waste in a matter of seconds.

“I’m far from religious but I got beliefs…We at MEST Africa are building awesome startups to help humanity, we can’t go to hell”

Life continues to be awesome at MEST Africa, even though things have become quite routine. Routine enough for folks to notice the mobile pastor who operates an open-air church by the road on weekdays, routine enough for all to notice he doesn’t come on Mondays, routine enough to notice he drives a cool SUV, enough to notice he has an offering basket where passersby put money in appreciation. Some of my colleagues even plan to alight from the bus someday to give an offering. They argue the pastor is doing great work for humanity. Well, I’m not against that philosophy. I’m far from religious but I got beliefs, and I know that God is not stupid. I don’t believe preaching in anticipation of incentive makes one good, I don’t believe people will rot in hell because they don’t congregate. There are a billion and one people individually doing more great things for humanity than all the pastors put together. Goodness comes naturally to a good man. For instance, there are lots of private jet flying pastors in Africa preaching divine healing and blessing. They feed people with the ‘all things are yours’ mentality, and when these folks discover that shouting ‘I receive’ in church all day don’t better their lives, same pastors sell them ‘your reward is in heaven’. Meanwhile, these pastors get their rewards right here on earth. During the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa, everyone were sympathizing with the victims but no one seemed to take any action until a private airline operator in Nigeria — Peace Airlines — made a trip to South Africa and volunteered to airlift the victims back to their various home countries. Trust the internet to always remember, many were quick to observe that none of the private jet flying pastors volunteered to help even though they claim the jets are for the charity work of God. After the internet backlash, one of the pastors held a press conference to announce his readiness to volunteer his jet; sorry sire, afterthoughts don’t count. Entrepreneurs and scientists could be doing more for God and humanity without even knowing it. They are building tech to heal the sick, fighting hunger by making crops produce better, they even give their lives to save other lives at times — a case in point is Dr. Stella Adadevoh. In 2014, she gave her life to save millions of people in Nigeria from the Ebola outbreak by intercepting patient zero despite pressure from high places. Will you say Dr. Adadevoh is in hell and the jet-flying pastors are angels on earth? We at MEST Africa are building awesome startups to help humanity, we can’t go to hell.

So last Saturday I woke up with itchy feet. I kit up and hit the road for a good jogging as usual. I wanted something different so I faced a route I am not used to, took many unfamiliar bends until I couldn’t remember where I was coming from how much more know where I was going. I didn’t use any location aid, I was trying to figure out where I was as I continued to run. I finally gave up and started walking; I came to an open field with a handful of people there for a weekend workout. Walking in to stretch out and get some rest, I noticed everyone at the pavilion were in small groups or at least in twos. However, a lady by the corner — who I later knew to be a South African named Lesedi — was sitting all by herself. She is probably in her late fifties or early sixties, slightly greyed and in great shape. She was alone but doesn’t appear to be lonely. I eventually sat a little distance from her, saying nothing more than a gesticulated greeting. Some minutes later, she spoke up — not exactly addressing me or anyone within view, but loud enough for me to hear clearly. She spoke calmly with a cosmopolitan accent. First, she did a philosophical deep dive into the vanity of life, then the importance of love for one another before delving into the perennial xenophobic attacks in South Africa. I would have told her that was a sensitive topic and warned her to tread carefully but then she wasn’t exactly talking to me. In her words, bad policies could be bad for Africa but it has so far exposed those who hate unity in Africa. Continued Lesedi, “how can the chief of police justify the killing of a brother by another brother simply because the white man gave us different labels? How can the president of a country be holding a conference to unite Africa while playing blind at his citizens killing the people he hopes to unite?” She said most of the killings stem from the belief that foreigners are taking the jobs meant for locals and that the foreigners champion crime. “This is the argument of lazy uncompetitive, over-pampered kids, encouraged by a heartless government” she continued “Do the foreigners take jobs from locals at gunpoint? Do they force patronage for their businesses?” With her arms wide open as if beckoning, she said “come to market with your best game and the best will come out tops.”

Xenophobic South African locals looting shops of displaced foreigners. Inset: Youth set on fire while some officers watch. Sources: Aljazeera, http://theconversation.com.

She continued in this direction, not hiding her dissatisfaction with the actions of her countrymen and the inaction of the government. She even said her compatriots are just mad because foreign guys especially Nigerians are naturally very caring, well-endowed and are very generous. No, I didn’t mention I’m Nigerian and Yes, I feel proud but that’s not a cue to how endowed I am, bye. Lesedi has been married to a Ghanaian for 35 years as she told me; she spent most of her life traveling the world. Her take is — these attacks have been encouraged by the government and their bad policies have exposed their hatred for Africa. I didn’t accept all she said, but in the end, she did breakeven. The sun was moving fast from friendly to fierce, I ditched the expired GPS in my head and called an Uber.

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