Have you noticed that every time you come up with a brilliant concept, or an idea of something that has never been done, and you tell it to someone, their reaction is often "It will not work in Nigeria!"
Have you noticed that?
Do you remember that when you first ever mentioned shopping on the internet?
They said, "that works in America. This is Nigeria".
When you said you would develop apps for Blackberry phones? they said, "apps won't sell in Nigeria".
Now you want to import solar panels and wind turbines to cure the endless void of electricity deprivation in the entire proud country?
They would still say, "those things are for Europe, this is Nigeria".
You want to gather and empower young Nigerian inventors collectively networking within a Google+ community?.....you guessed, they would say..... "It cannot work in Nigeria".
So please tell me,
What exactly is wrong with Nigeria?!
Surely, you would be tempted to ask, what is wrong with Nigeria, that good ideas cannot see the light of day in it??? Surely some attitudes need to change!
The attitudes of some of us, that just can't seem to stand the sound of good ideas.
Sometimes it could be something that inspired you after you read about great achievers like Steve Jobs,Barack Obama, Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Bill Gates or Elon Musk. Other times it could just be an idea that came to you while you were brainstorming about how to solve the problems that plague so many people around you.
Either way, you realize that the worst thing you can do with your idea is to tell it to someone else.
The result is usually the same.
They discourage you! And you honestly can't understand why.
Well, I am here to announce to you that it is time for your VISION to dominate the conversation. It is time for you to stand up and fight back.
If Henry Ford had not developed the assembly line that made cars affordable to the middle class, where would all the tokunbo cars that today jampack Third Mainland Bridge have come from?
If Southern African companies Multichoice (DSTV) and MTN had had the same mentality, would they be sitting on top of the world today? Thanks to the very same Nigeria??!!
What about Silverbird Cinemas? Or even Shoprite?
I know Ben Murray Bruce is indeed a pure Nigerian (may God bless his soul) but still, if he had been thinking the same way as must of us do in this country, how many places "of escape" would we have to go to, where we can actually live a little in this country....honestly?
I was a huge critic of the "rebrand Nigeria" campaign of 2008, and for good reason. I was amused at the idea that someone somewhere felt that creating some fancy logo, and formulating a tagline that says, "Good People, Great nation", would somehow have some magical effect on the world's perception of our country.
Was there nobody with some knowledge of marketing communications or advertising to educate those people that branding starts from within the organisation?
That before you think of logos, you have to have a great product that excites you first, before you start boring other people with it. That before you start playing with words for your tagline, you must first fix whatever it is, that is causing your own "employees" to despise the product they are helping you to sell.
The problem we should all recognize here is that the more we keep telling ourselves that good things will not work in Nigeria, the more we are inviting foreigners to come in and take over our wealth. I am not sure if you are happy with this scenario, but I am not.
And by the way, I am not against foreigners coming to invest in Nigeria, while we Nigerians are busy thinking that we were all created to be involved in crude oil business....or politics.
And I am especially not in any way against South Africans, who are clearly serious minded people with bright ideas and are ready to invest huge capital to back up those ideas.
I just hate to sit by helplessly while many people in this country just seem to keep doing and saying the wrong things at the right time, and the right things at the very wrongest of times.
If you had told these doubting thomases that you wanted to start a digital satellite television service in Nigeria in 1990, what do you think they would have said?
Yet, they would unashamedly be the first people to jump on the South African DSTV bandwagon in 1993.
Thing about it......What research do people actually do that let them know when and where your business would not succeed? These things just come out of their mouths as word-vomit. They shouldn't mean anything to you; They don't really even mean much to them either.
Anyway, as you think about these things, please understand that what I am doing with this article is to warn those of you who are carelessly involved with this pessimistic vision-killing behavior. Stop it!!!
As for me, I am not moved by people's negativity. I have tried my hands at several high sounding business ventures. I have come to realize that carrying people along can be the most difficult thing in the world when the people prefer to be left behind.
But for you out there, who has a vision. You who has a genuine idea that you believe can change your environment or even change the world; My advice to you is to keep dreaming big, and keep putting as much effort as you can to actualize your dreams.
Even if it seems that no one believes in what you are doing, and no one wants to support you, you can simply postpone the vision; You must not let it die.
Be agile! Keep up to date! Read, and read more. Learn as much as you can! Figure out how to survive without completely giving up on your dreams.
But one thing I would never advice you to do is to stop telling people about your vision.
I won't do that because I feel that telling people where you want to go, no matter how many thousands of people trample your dreams with their careless words, would eventually lead you to the people who God has raised to strengthen you and build you up.
Take care as you think deeply on these things.
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Thank you.
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