Which Way Nlng?

true talk aniffy and niyoo though i would say that the man who invests his money and then goes for soft loans which is to be paid back on the next pay day isnt disciplined- didnt the bible say that 'he who goes aborrowing goes asorrowing?   its like borrowing money to marry a wife, and u might NEVER (emphasis mine) get your dough back- aniffy rightly noted, 'only lend out what u can afford to lose!' The principle behind this is that SOFT LOANS are often HARD to recover remember they are most likely interest free and non-collaterised! Sha, i ll talk more l8r- i get examz today and i need to fortify myself some more (not with otumokpo o! ).

@all, do have a great day ahead!

You are too much. 
perfectly echoes my mind


Had you expatiated more on that post, it would have been fit for a M Sc. thesis.


my response to Alfa,
Well, I don't see any danger in it, its simply not just a business move from my view point
as long as u are not UN or the china export/import bank or US, its the closest you can get to charity.

Its one of those things you do to build your bank account in heaven 

Now we are discussing money!
Phew! And aniffy is here!
Let me see what I need to learn?

A portion of a hymn ran thus:

It were my soul's desire
Deep waves of cleansing sighs
It were my soul's desire
From earthly cares to rise.

In the above strain, the songist talks about shedding 'weight'. Relate this to a truism: 'He that must travel far must travel light.' If these do not summarily justify my Sacrifices, perhaps nothing else will. And AlfaPrime, you are right. The one purpose of the Litany was to tell one another sweet things about them. Only sweet things. That certain individuals did not realize this is beyond me.

Certain individuals must also realize that salaries are not to be spent on debt servicing. Salaries are meant to be saved. Let's borrow from the Holy Book of the Christians (the bible). Jesus (Isa eis Salaam) told this parable:

A steward was once denounced to his master as being wasteful with his (the master's) money. Hence the master called the servant and asked him to render an account of his stewardship, as he (the servant) was no longer to be in his (the master's) employment.

The steward said to himself: 'What am I to do now that the master is taking away the stewardship from me? Dig? I am not strong enough. Go begging? I am too ashamed. Aha! I know what I must do, so that when my master sacks me I shall not have to suffer.' Straightaway therefore, he summoned his master's debtors to himself and asked one: 'How much do you owe my master?' 'One million dollars.' 'Sit down now,' the steward said to him, 'and write fifty.' To another he said, 'And you sir, how much do you owe?' 'One hundred thousand dollars.' 'Sit down and write eighty.'

If you look at that story well, you can learn something about wealth, and understand why for some people it will be very difficult to be rich, and for others it will be easy.

An individual with an employee mentality will never be rich in the real sense of the word. How? He lives within the confines of 'security'; the security of job and salary, and is always doing all in his power to please the master, and to keep his job. He waits dutifully for the next pay raise, or a better job, or stuff like that: pension, insurance, and what have you. And when it is monthend, he is thinking of his 'responsibilities'; those he must spend on, usually himself and his family; then he also tries to keep up with the Joneses, by satisfying his 'taste' for the fine things of life. This spending behaviour keeps him trapped in what Robert Kiyosaki calls the 'rat race,' and such a person grows perennially indebted to the 'master,' and tied to his job.

On the other hand, the man with the 'business-owner' mentality always looks at his job with the same urgency as the steward told he will be sacked. All the while when at paid employment, he imagines that he will be 'sacked' very very soon. And so he frantically keeps planning what to do when he is 'sacked'. You must not imagine that these individuals are bad employees; on the contrary they are super achievers; but they know that 'you can never be rich while working for someone else'. So they save most of their salary. They do not spend much; not on themselves, and not on family; they also have no time to keep up with the Joneses. Because, as Robert Kiyosaki would say, 'the Joneses are tired'. Instead they stinge and save, and like the Steward, they invest in the master's creditors (that is, they do business). And so they build up their asset column.

And then they resign. And gather OPM and OPT, and set up productive businesses, and become business owners themselves, employing thousands of individuals, and paying them what the 'master' used to pay them long time ago.

Jesus (Isa eis Salaam) said to certain individuals: Let him that has ears hear. I have said my own.

Lastly, let's wax philosophical a bit:

Take Nigeria as a case study. The unemployment level cumulatively is 80% (60% unemployed; 50% of the rest underemployed).

What this means is that only 20% of Nigerians are suitably employed (the likes of Aniffy, Kenosky, Wandel and all those who can truthfully say: 'I like my job,' and who earn good pay in the process). The rest of us fall into the 80% gap. Believe me, I do too (though thanks to America, I will be liberated on June 23, the day on which I have chosen to resign).

The rate of growth in employable graduates increases in geometric progression, while the rate of job creation increases in arithmetic progression, and the few companies there are are becoming overstaffed. And those who have jobs eternally consider themselves lucky because afterall, others do not have. And they cling on protectively to their jobs. In the enduring vicious cycle. Too many would-have-been business owners bemused and trapped in the employee-mentality craze. This will not do.

Now, what if more of our employed youths become more daring. What if they realize that they can help by thinking beyond their primordiality, their families and the Joneses, and save up, resign their jobs, create new jobs, and let others take their place, and then in turn employ others in their new companies. Sound unreal?

Imagine if one hundred youths resign each year after saving each two million naira, and then come together to set up viable industries, and after ten years, employ each a thousand other graduates. What this means is that every ten years, hundred times ten times one thousand (one million youths at least) will be employed, and another one hundred thousand at least will take over the jobs made vacant by those entrepreneurs.

In another ten years, this number will grow geometrically, leaving at least ten million youths employed, plus one million at least taking over the jobs left over; and in another ten years again, at least one hundred million youths will be employed, with one million taking over the jobs left over, and so on.

This will be the transformation of Africa. Believe me.

Opoks, your post says a lot but leaves out others, let me expantiate on it the way I see it. I think it's more a matter of stage of life as you rightly pointed out. At the younger age, one is willing to take risks people that are more elderly wont. Y? Because one believes I can still recover even if it goes wrong. So I think most of us are at that stage now, though in varying degrees. For example Kuwena: He's taking a calculated risk leaving a known source of income to chart unknown waters. That's because he's at the age that he can take that risk and know that something will always work out since he's still got the energy and drive at this stage. Likewise Annify when he left his previous job even though there was nothing concrete at that point. Now someone who's older will not even be thinking in such terms because he'll be thinking of all his/her responsibilities and atimes that blocks one from seeing beyond his or her immediate horizon. I can't remember who said this exactly but it goes something like this " To discover new lands, you have to be willing to lose sight of the shore". So whoever you are, if you have that dream, now's the best time to act on it while you've got the drive and 'time' to recover.

Kuwena, I don't think I completely agree with your view that salaries are meant to be saved. Invested? YES. Just plain saved?NO. And there is no one that can "arrive" just based on saved salaries. You have to make it work for you and even be willing to take calculated risks if you think there's a chance that you just might more than break even, that's why some people take loans to invest in different projects, sometimes they get burnt but sometimes they win. Sometimes your salary can actually be used on debt servicing in the sense that if you identify a project (it will most likely be risky, because the higher the risk the higher the return) that you want to try out, you might decide to borrow now to invest in such a project (I know someone who borrowed 10m from a bank to invest in Dangote sugars when the IPO came out that time at N18 and he sold it when it was still high around N70, now if you have that kind of opportunity, wont you be willing to try it for the chance that you might make some profit?) rather than see the opportunity pass you by, this to me is a justifiable base on which salaries might be used to service debts but using salaries to service debts incurred on projects that are not adding value or have no potential to is irresponsible. But as I said it's all a risk and the higher the risk the higher the return. I know someone who took a loan to subscribe for the MTN private issue and at the end of the day his money was returned to him, so you see there's always risk in everything.

Kuwena, your take on setting up industries might actually be a bit naive. With the situation in Nigeria the way it is right now, how much do you think 2m can actually accomplish? It's much more than the idea, one has to realistically project into the future too. Unless the "idea" does not need any infrastructure to run on, I don't see what that amount can really achieve because you actually specified industries and industries require most of the basic infrastructure which are markedly deficient in this "Great?" country of ours. Do you think all these manufacturing firms actually shutting down are not viable projects? It's a whole lotta complex situation believe me. We keep saying the world is a global village, I think we should actually step back and understand this in a global sense. This means the person who produces his goods in China, make i no even go that far sef, the person who produces his goods in Ghana or Benin Republic spends so much less than what someone in Nigeria will spend. Because by the time you factor in overheads, which is really where the high cost of production in Nigeria comes from, there is just no way you can realistically compete with that person who has all the requisite infrastructure in place. And this is one of the reasons why smuggling strives and will continue to, because there is still so much profit to make even after settling all the settleables. What i think might be more viable in the short run is starting something no matter how small even while one is working (remember not everyone is trade/business inclined in that way, not every one is born to be an enterpreneur some are always going to be the 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 30 years I'm finished, give me my gratuity and pension individual) because as long as one is "gainfully" employed in Nigeria, you'll always have some free funds or have access to funds that you can use to invest in your ideas and if they are good enough ideas it should be able to break even and repay back the money invested in it. Then if you think you can actually make more by devoting your time to it fully, then you can throw in the towel where ever you might be working. It's not all about saving the money or having the idea. You have to be sure the idea will be brought to fruition. One doesn't build a house based on speculations about where the funds will come from, You should be certain that it wouldn't be an abandoned project.

Is no one going to answer my question? Can the Nigerian Stock Exchange be classified as a Weak, Semi-strong or Strong form Efficient Market? Annify, Alfa where una dey?

Kenosky, nothing do you, the way the exam do you, na so e be every one else, so I know say you go scale through. No shaking.

@ Jisi, abi the good news be say u ma don dey follow Kuwena go yankee?

Need I add more?

I lost money but never lost my business sense.
Resolved to make up for it, I went for soft loans, took on higher risks and before one year, I made money.
I had back everything that I earlier lost, acquired more assets and even had some small change to play with.
Today, I take on even higher risks. It is the way for me.

The lesson is that certain individuals cannot understand and grow beyond the risk that they are not willing to take.
We are afterall not made the same way.

My loss sharpened my business sense. It was one of the best business lessons for me.
Not everyone can stomach the nerve though.

Just saving is boring to me.
It's even miserly   Goes against my nature.

Niyoo, your take on this subject is perfect. Shows you get business sense.
I used to respect only Aniffy on this subject. Right now you have another admirer.

Niyoo, I did not say save for saving sake. Please get that point very clearly. I said save so that you can invest what you have saved. I repeat: SAVE, SO THAT YOU CAN INVEST WHAT YOU HAVE SAVED. God in heaven knows that that is what I said: SAVE, SO THAT YOU CAN INVEST WHAT YOU HAVE SAVED. Niyoo, can you hear me repeat it? What I said was: SAVE, SO THAT YOU CAN INVEST WHAT YOU HAVE SAVED. Okay?

Certain individuals may have to take classes in financial intelligence.

May I ask why you would like to know? 

Before i respond to other issues, this is much better, we are discussing issues and not personalities or veiled criticisms of other individuals. I'm not mentioning names but let's please leave personalities out and continue like this, it makes for better discourse that way.

Failing in any venture is really not failure, it's just a lesson of one more way not to go about a project (that's why you hear some people say "I failed my way to success"), now to Opoks experiences which he has been kind enough to share, I'll say he has learnt a couple of more ways not to go about projects, ventures or what have you. He might have gotten his fingers burnt but the important thing is that he learns the lesson ( and that is what i said earlier about most of us being in the risk taking stage of our lives). Which brings me to another issue, we have many people who go their whole lives in "gainful" employment and when they retire, they just wilter away and before you know what's happening, you hear that they are dead or something. Y? Because they weren't adventurous enough and weren't interested in what went on outside of their cocooned world of being "gainfully" employed.  Though i don't know the projects Opoks went into but to me he is certainly better off than maybe other colleagues of his, who just collected their monies and saved it. Y? He has learnt a couple of new ways "not to do things". So for example if he and the "saving" type other colleague are let loose on the world tomorrow, he already has an advantage compared to them, he has experimented before and has some beneficial advantage over them who will just have to start the experimentation process and can get burnt in the process.The good thing is that he is at the stage where he can take those risks now.

Kuwena, that was Y i asked if it was just savings or investment before I delved into my long "dissertation". So if we are both talking about investment, then that's ok. Though I'll still beg to differ on saving to invest, I think i'll just stick with plain investing, when you say save to invest, it can be assumed you are talking about saving in the bank or something and definitely inflation is going to eat into the saved funds and reduce the "real value" of that fund compared to say if you invest it, if it is invested wisely you can be sure that at least the real value of your funds will be preserved because the investment should generate a rate that is higher than the inflation rate. You don't really have to save to invest, start investing from the word go, you don't have to accumulate fund to start investing, investing starts small and grows as time goes by, 50k here, 20k there, 100k there and before you know it, you have the first million and the next and the next. And the good thing about investing right from the word go rather than saving is that you don't have idle funds just lying around waiting to accumulate which might never happen because something might just happen to help you chop the money, like someone comes with a teary tale about some misfortune and not having a heart of stone, you might decide to loan out some of the saved funds (back to that soft loan issue  ) and it'll take a while before you get it back albeit with no interest and not only that, you'll be getting less 'because inflation has reduced the real value of those funds and all that is if you do get it back. But if it were tied up in investments, you sure are not going to liquidate your investments just to help, more so if the investment is yet to break even.

Kuwena I still beg to disagree with your take on the industries thing, it's still a bit naive if you ask me, The US's, Japan's and China's of this world are not where they are because their people established industries (Our people also established industries, but they are packing up on a daily basis), they are where they are because they had honest (not necessarily good) leaders, leaders that genuinely loved their countries. That were willing to sacrifice for the common good rather than a selective few as we have in this "Great?" nation of ours. I'm sure you are seeing the outcomes' of the various probes, those things didn't start today or yesterday or in the last 7 - 8 years, it has always been there and that's why we are where we are as a nation to day. Those countries are where they are because the leaders would not condone situations like what we had with the IPP's under Obj and DFFRI's under IBB and many other white elephant projects that have been the hallmark of Nigeria. Monies are disbursed, projects are not embarked upon and nobody questions anybody. (This is a much wider topic and not one for today and let me not digress too much from the issues at hand).

These are some of the factors that contribute to closed industries and ruined lives and the embarrasingly high level of unemployment we have in this country. I make bold to tell you that Nigerians are some of the most enterprising individuals we have on earth and if we had half has much infrastructure as some of these countries you mentioned have we'll be way way above, (how much can one achieve in a nation of over 140 million that generates less than 3000 Mw of electricity  , the backbone of any industry) but we have been unfortunate in our choice of rulers and this has had a terrible multiplier effect on so many other things. (Make i no to digress). Nigeria as a nation has been so traumatized that we have become hard (I don't meant this in a negative way), we've had to struggle for so many things that it has made us stronger mentally and physically which is why we always excel anywhere we go because it's much more easier over there than here. That's why I know that you Kuwena will make it over there, just as well as you'll have made it here if not better because you survived when it was tougher over here and over there, at least you'll have some better conditions.

I think I'll expantiate more on what Stan posted. How do you go about getting a 100 young men to pool together resources to start a business? Will you be talking about a partnership, a limited liability Company, Unlimited liability Company or what?  It's simply not feasible, before people come together to do anything, there has to be a clearly spelt out basis for their congregating which is why Partnerships have "Deeds of partnership" and Limited Liability Companies have their MOA and AOA ( for the uninitiated that's Memorandum of Association And Articles of Association) and the legal limit for partnerships' is 20 except for Law chambers. So on what premise will you be having 100  able bodied dynamic young individuals gather to set up an industry? Na so so fight them go dey fight because idea go too plenty

(On a lighter note, Ok, Kuwena, Opoks, Thought, and some of the other gladiators this thread has seen, come together and start an industry      ) I'm sure we don't know where that kind of industry will end.

You know the good thing about God that created us is that He made us distinct individuals and no two people are the same. That's why we have different aversion to risk taking, though we are at the risk taking stage now, there'll still be those that will take much more bigger risks than others. And what i might consider a risk may just be normal to say someone like Kenosky and vice-versa so what i'm trying to say is that it is not compulsory that two people see the same level of risk in the same projects. But the Universally agreed basis is that the bigger the risk, the higher the returns but it should be calculated risks and not just baseless ones. To some peeps in the US now washing corpses or sweeping floors or being cab drivers, they'll give their right arm to get a job in any bank in Nigeria but yet at the same time some are leaving jobs over here to go try their hands at things over there in the US. So it's all just a matter of each person's beliefs and perceptions.


@ Stan I beg to disagree very strongly with you, Nigerians are not poor in mind or creativity neither are we pessimists. I believe very strongly that we are one of the most optimistic people living on earth and most creative too. It's just that we sometimes turn our creativity to negative activities which is part of why we have the reputation we have all over the world now.

@ Stan Kenosky no dey stoke you, hin just dey vex say u never come render him daily picture of him for am.  So make u perform next time  u log on.

Na wah o. i tire for myself, when i turn to story teller like this?  See long epistle. 

@ all goodnight.

When I first bought my BankPHB shares, it was sold at N4 per share.
I simply bought as much as I could afford, I mean as much as my earnings could carry.
I even bought against the next months' salary thinking that I was smart.

That was a mistake.   Unknown to me, that move was not even smart enough.
Had I known better, I would have gone for Soft loans.

If I had gone for a loan of about N4 million and mortgaged that against my future earnings, I would have been worth about N25 million net today.
(That is after liquidating the loan and its accruing interest).

The last time I checked, Bank PHB shares were worth N30.5 per share

I made the mistake of not taking soft loans in the past because I was naive.
Today I know better.

I make more intelligent decisions now.

Thank God for little mercies! which often go unappreciated.