As the airplane taxi’s down the runway of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport on this Independence Day morning, many restless thoughts race through my mind.
This latest thought is best summed up somewhere in between the famous John F Kennedy quote; “…ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” And this tweet by Ezinne Anywanwu; “I just saw a problem and I couldn’t walk away. I decided to do something about it and in the process lives are saved. All I did was refuse to walk away. It’s not rocket science or magical powers. Just refuse to walk away…its that simple.”
October 1st always presents an opportunity to reflect on our corporate and collective progress as Nigerians, and perhaps Africans. On a day like this, one must take a step backwards and locate his/her individual journey within the broader context of the nations journey. How has “my” effort / job / assignment / ministry / startup / business /venture — contributed to the future Nigeria I desire?
Every generation has a sacred responsibility to build the future for the generation after it. Very few people take this call. For those who do, building the future becomes their life mission. In Nigeria today, we urgently need many more people heeding this call to build a better future — and not just in government.
To illustrate, let me tell you the story of someone I know that answered that call.
About 2 years ago, while consulting for banks, Shola Akinlade saw the inefficiencies in making payments online. The process was fraught with red tape, high costs and simply didn’t work well for the many people looking to start businesses online. Shola and his co-founder Ezra, decided to do something about it. They founded Paystack.
Today, with Paystack and maybe Instagram, “Ada” can be up and running with her Brazilian hair selling business in less than 45 minutes. This was impossible just 2 years ago. You see, just 2 years ago, it was really difficult for business owners in Nigeria to collect payment’s online.
Back then, you would have had to sign up with one of the big legacy payment company’s by filling a lengthy paper form, then wait for someone to call, or visit their office ourselves. You would pay a hefty fee, perhaps using up your startup capital and then hope that it worked. This process took a couple of weeks at best. Thank God Shola built the future of payments.
You see, building the future starts in the mind. Minds that busy themselves, constantly contemplating the challenges around us as opportunities to create something new, something better.
To build the future we desire at scale, we need to recruit many more future builders. Men and women who see it as their responsibility to build a better future. Once recruited these future builders must then arm themselves with certain capabilities.
To get you going as a future builder on this Independence Day, I’ll highlight 3 capabilities needed to build the future;
- To start with; you need boat loads of empathy. The kind that makes you realize that if you feel some inconvenience with a poor process or a service gone wrong, then others too must feel that same pain.
- Secondly, you must also have a sense of urgency, so much so that you realize that the 411,000,000 Nigerians that will inhibit this land by 2050 are depending on us to build the future they will live in.
- And most of all curiosity — the kind that questions and rejects the status quo, deciding instead to take action and venture like Shola and many others have.
By now, you must have heard that Nigeria is officially the poverty capital of the world. I also don’t have to remind you that we have as many young people out of school as the entire population of Switzerland.
Young people like you and I are the most important tool to urgently build the future in education, healthcare, agriculture and a host of other sectors where Nigeria and most of Africa is failing. Remember our minds are the soil upon which the future will be built.
So today I invite you to put-on the vest of empathy, the sneakers of urgency and the spectacles of curiosity.
After-all, there’s still a future to be built even at 58!
