₦airaland Forum

Goodenoch:
See this comment from Sunday Igboho, leader of the 'Yoruba Nation' insurgency:

https://www.nairaland.com/8294082/it-high-time-president-bola

Zahra, while you seem to find all of this funny and have been saying that Goke7's points about the danger of these 'offhand' comments are far-fetched and emotional, hopefully, the above will give you at least an inkling into why people may be alarmed.

Obviously we know it isn't her responsibility how anyone uses her comments to further their own agenda, but the 'underlying issues' are very sensitive and require a lot more tact than she's displaying.

Zahra29:
Of all the issues currently plaguing Nigeria, it's Olukemi's comments from London that are causing great alarm. Okay.

Perhaps that's why Shettima was told "to focus on Nigeria's pressing issues instead of engaging in disputes".

Kemi is not the cause of Nigeria's problems.

darknessbegone:
Can anyone recommend a similar platform to Vanguard? They want to start charging customers £4.00 per month if they have below £32,000.00 in their account (Stocks and Shares ISA, General Account or Personal Pension (SIPP)).

Chukwuka16:
Title of my brief this evening - Can we broaden our discussions: life has changed and is leaving us far behind

I have been away from this platform minding life and business – building an ecosystem is hard work and time!

I have recently had cause to scroll through previous pages here and I must appreciate the breadth of discussions. The OGs continue to help as always and bants continue to get thrown as usual. Nairaland still remains a melting pot for Nigerians.

However, for the last 18 months, I have suffered terribly from two things (information asymmetry and the absence of a sustainable ecosystem) that have both forced me to begin to rethink a lot of things about how I build and develop business. These sufferings I argue stem from two things I have noticed are very common in our community as Nigerians – a culture of hoarding and limited ambition.

First, I have suffered from serious information asymmetry which meant I have expended huge funds utilising consultants who are not Nigerians in navigating the landscape. This has mostly been around regulation (pursuing authorisation both in the finance, energy and ISO spaces). Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad thing. What is worse is that money left our business to foreigners whereas there are Nigerians I believe who either have these skillsets or run businesses that can offer these services. I even know of one who I chatted up today on consulting for us in getting PCI DSS and the feedback justified why I will continue to use foreigners in the interim. I want to pay you to get the job done and the feedback is lacklustre. It was like I am not expected to have such. I will be reaching out today to a couple of firms to get that sorted for us – another loss of revenue to our ecosystem. I am practically weeping because my experience working with our manufacturers in China and consultants in UAE and even some of these Caucasian run consulting businesses here in the UK makes me wonder if we as Nigerians don’t want to succeed.

The second thing I have suffered is the absence of an ecosystem of familiar people on which I can build on. As a business, I have no reason to pursue financial authorisation. However, being unable to secure long-term partnerships and my long-term assessment of feedback from people I approached made me rule that a major risk hence the need to pursue that. As a business set up primarily to offer software solution in the energy space – carbon credit arbitrage from DSM and trading flexibility (we are literally building a trading platform to trade flexibility outside of smart meters), I have no business in hardware. That should be something owned by another business that they sell to customers and that I can build on. Unfortunately, I have also ruled that a major risk to prevent that aspect of the value chain cutting me off customers tomorrow. This means new manufacturing contracts to design hardware that caters for different continents, conformity tests, product design, circuit diagrams, packaging, countless emails and travel! As a business, it should have been a lot easier outsourcing my legal needs to a Nigerian-run legal firm here in the UK. Unfortunately, my last experience with a Nigerian lawyer here in the UK means I have to set up one that is in-house. When your heads of legal (finance and non-finance) either have a side gig at Oxford or worked at a leading European Fintech then you know you are toast. What about IP, we have to use US law firms to pursue patent filing and copyright protection. Thank God there is at least a Nigerian in one of the firms. These things are not meant to be so. This is what I love about the US and Chinese ecosystems (that does not include Nigerians).

I have done the numbers and all I can say is unfortunate. With regards to hoarding, I shiver. Folks I consider kin will see opportunities that will be beneficial to me and them in the long-run and keep mute. I’m younger than most so naturally I will supersede them – same way I expect younger folks than myself to exceed my achievements. However, our limited ambition means we don’t mind sacrificing long-term benefits if it will make a fellow Nigerian fail. Last night I concluded with my wife that scarcity and deep-seated jealousy is our problem. Reason why even at our parties we continue to exhibit such alien attributes in a declining country of abundance.

Why my rant this evening? If I continue like this, our businesses will fail. We are lucky to have secured funds to setup for our global rollout. We can achieve more, if we focus on what matters to us. Can we within this platform encourage anonymous discussions on Nigerians and what they do? I want to know of Nigerians who can handle accounting in the middle east – I will ditch the folks I’ve signed up with asap if I get a better deal. I want to know of Nigerians who can handle compliance or digital marketing across the UK, Europe, North America and the Middle East with budgets that are affordable (make sense) and with an attitude of seriousness. I cannot forget an experience I had some months back. Our BDM set up a meeting with a company to interview them for our marketing campaign. The rep perhaps felt that an all-black team didn’t deserve his presence and so turned off his video for the entirety of the call. That was the last time they heard back from us. I have recently held back on signing off on a report from another so-called top research organisation here in the UK because of the shoddy job they have done. By the time I am through with them, when they see a black business, they will “jump and pass”. I may be black but as a researcher and scholar, “I hold ground”.

Folks, as Nigerians we are powerless if we don’t own and run thriving businesses. Forget your high paying job, it is the businesses owned by Nigerians that gives us a voice in society. However, how can we ensure we have thriving businesses that can enable us to generate an ecosystem that enables us to keep wealth within our community. I know the health and care visa folks made a mess of things. Can we move past that and talk about the things good Nigerians do in their little corners so we can patronise and utilise them?

Today, I cringe about all the software we have bought for HR, accounting, compliance, communication, project management, etc. Some I just see the debit and am like what is this? If Nigerians had them and they were suitable for use here, I would be buying them. I want to scale from buying African food to patronising Nigerian owned businesses in marketing, consulting, research, audit, compliance, AI, etc.

Today, Nigerians cannot setup businesses easily in the UAE. If we had Nigerians owning businesses in strategic sectors, that won’t be the case. Today, for our staff to visit China, our manufacturers need to obtain letters from the government backing their own invitation letters simply because they still have a single nationality – Nigeria.

Time is moving very fast and severe structural change is coming. In our business, 99% of our staff are Nigerians. We have one very excellent chartered engineer who is European. I can enforce this because I am majority owner. Same thing with other businesses. I want to go into the city and enter a Nigerian-run finance business and see Nigerians just excelling. Please, can we broaden our discussions to include talks on this. I recall reading here of someone who was exploring building a currency-exchange business based on crypto. Next year, we would be exploring launching our own coin based on the carbon credits we generate from arbitrage. That would be a partnership worth exploring for me.

As I conclude, I recall an event held in the city in 2022. Two of my businesses had won funds in climate finance out of 30 funded across the country and we needed to attend a meeting with the Oxford folks and finance players (the major institute is based in Oxford). I have never felt out of place in my life. We were only 6 blacks in that meeting. Three from my end (including myself), two from my friend’s end who also had 2 of her businesses winning funding and 1 other guy who works with a major finance institution in the city. I vowed to avoid such meetings in the future. We may think such events will help us get networks. I laugh. My experience partnering with white-run businesses has made me realise that it is safer and better to partner with your kit and kin than with foreigners. You will appreciate this when trouble arises. Only your own will bring out their necks and reputation to defend you. I want to join in building such networks.

Chukwuka16:
Title of my brief this evening - Can we broaden our discussions: life has changed and is leaving us far behind



Folks, as Nigerians we are powerless if we don’t own and run thriving businesses. Forget your high paying job, it is the businesses owned by Nigerians that gives us a voice in society. However, how can we ensure we have thriving businesses that can enable us to generate an ecosystem that enables us to keep wealth within our community. I know the health and care visa folks made a mess of things. Can we move past that and talk about the things good Nigerians do in their little corners so we can patronise and utilise them?

Goodenoch:
The point remains that it's false to make it seem as if people here (and immigrants generally) are opposed to immigration law enforcement or the changing of policies to restrict entry in the perceived national interest.

In fact the most popular view here recently has been that if the UK government wants to change the laws to ban any category of immigrants or even stop immigration totally, they should go ahead and do it.

darknessbegone:
Can anyone recommend a similar platform to Vanguard? They want to start charging customers £4.00 per month if they have below £32,000.00 in their account (Stocks and Shares ISA, General Account or Personal Pension (SIPP)).

darknessbegone:
Can anyone recommend a similar platform to Vanguard? They want to start charging customers £4.00 per month if they have below £32,000.00 in their account (Stocks and Shares ISA, General Account or Personal Pension (SIPP)).

Viruses:
Instead of charging those with plenty money, they are charging those with small money...what kind of wahala is that

jedisco:
You put this succinctly. I wonder why folks wrongly thing immigrants would be against immigration enforcement.

What we stand against is the folly of granting a million visas, dissipating the funds received and turning around to blame migrants for every problem in society. This allows rioters and riff-raffs to point fingers accusing productive members of society whose roles they cannot replace as being the reason for their sorry state.

Like I've long chorused, the UK needs to move on from this. They should determine what number of migrants they need and enforce it.
It's so easy- end the post-study visa, end the care visa, stop or severely cap the NHS granting visas and the numbers arriving within a year would be in the negative. I'd rather a trial of that for a decade and let’s see the prosperity it brings.

babajeje123:
To see many Nigerians lose their sanity and running aimlessly, just speak the truth. The peace they have from pretence would suddenly be bygone.

seyejohn94:
Hi Guys, Please I need your advice or information on how to proceed regarding passport renewal.

I am being requested to provide sworn affidavit by a court and newspaper publication for change of name. I did not change my name and my NIN was already linked to my current passport.

However, my nin has my middle name but my passport does not. Is there a way to resolve this. I have sent emails and called NIS but no response. I am stuck in the application process and cannot proceed both on the app and web. I will sincerely appreciate every support I can get. Thank you.

seyejohn94:
Hi Guys, Please I need your advice or information on how to proceed regarding passport renewal.

I am being requested to provide sworn affidavit by a court and newspaper publication for change of name. I did not change my name and my NIN was already linked to my current passport.
However, my nin has my middle name but my passport does not. Is there a way to resolve this. I have sent emails and called NIS but no response. I am stuck in the application process and cannot proceed both on the app and web. I will sincerely appreciate every support I can get. Thank you.

Meogom:
Compliments of the season my good people.

Please I need help with something.
I gave out a room in my rented house. Lodger is moving out and wants me to give a reference for his new letting agent. Am I qualified to give a reference? Cos I'm not the owner of the house, I'm renting. Abi how does it work, make I no go enter one chance

jedisco:
Good take. I've always believed the conversations we have here would chabge with time.

In a capitalist society, access to the means of production (i.e capital) is a strong pillar of success. I do most of my work via my company and I can see firsthand the advantages running a business gives especially in a business friendly nation.

I hope you don’t by any means mean that the UK is a business-friendly nation? When you have a government that is hell-bent on destroying SMEs through perverse policies and careless and inconsistent statements, you cannot identify such a country as a business-friendly country. When you hear the founder of Revolut dismiss LSE and hype NYSE, or you see the declining performance of the LSE or the miserable market caps for firms that raise funds or the abysmally low pot of government funds that exists in the UK VC/PE market, or the massive poverty the UK boasts of outside London, or the miserable outlook that the UK shamelessly presents, you cannot identify the UK as a business friendly nation.

I take an exception to the 'health and care visa folks' phrase. To be clear, I'm not condoning certain practices.
First off, for those working in health- alot of the PR and restructuring of the Nigerian image in the UK has subtly come from folks who work in healthcare. I work in a town which would be easily >98% white. At my practice, it's s not uncommon to have 3 GPs out of a working 5 be Nigerians. The local hospitals is also heavily weighted towards immigrant professionals. Much of the populace might have deep seated racist beliefs but if the person who's treated you on multiple occasions is Nigerian, you begin to have a different view. An older colleague once told me about his dad who was a staunch racist but would now swear by his Nigerian GP.

If you're referring to the care route- look at how the British (and many others) migrated and see there is an advantage in numbers. Most of what you seek would take time and would only be achieved with the sufficient numbers. I see the qualifications and grit of a number of recent care workers and have no doubt many of their kids would grow up to be distinguished members of society and man positions of authority. I only hope those kids appreciate their background.

dustydee:
Welcome back. I was thinking about you some days ago and wondering if you have left nairaland finally. I agree with your points and I have been thinking of setting up a business in the field of AI consultancy but do not have the courage and self belief yet.

Life moves so fast. If you have the skill set, please go for it. You don’t even need to worry about the infrastructure as Microsoft will finance your first $250k of cloud infrastructure (Azure) enabling you use ChatGPT and other connected services. That space is exploding in ways not imagined and only our creativity will be the limiting factor.

I like your crypto based carbon exchange. I have some level of crypto/blockchain experience and happy to be involved in bringing the idea to life.
As you have suggested, it is a good idea to share our skillsets and perhaps someone might benefit from it.
I am into process/business improvement and digital transformation and do blockchain and crypto on the side.

Zahra29:
Sorry about this. I recently helped someone with their NIN registration and Nigerian passport application so I know first hand how incredibly frustrating the process can be.

I'm not sure where you got your NIN from (UK or Nigeria) but have you tried contacting an NIN agent here to ask for advice on how to resolve this issue? I'm sure they've come across this situation before with all the people they see.

If you'd like, I can send you the details of the NIN agent we used - she was very helpful and knowledgeable about the NIN and passport process.

giselle237:
To be able to renew your passport due to a middle name appearing on your NIN then both the passport and NIN names must be same, that is like for like, 3 names for 3 names. …have 2 options
1. Modify the names on your NIN to remove the middle name . You go to the NIN office and enquire about modification of data to remove the middle name officially…
2. Add the middle name to your passport to go forward but you will need to still do correction/change of data and provide a court affidavit + newspaper publication to be able to add this middle name
Your family members in Nigeria can help u with the court affidavit and newspaper p as they are not hard to get or look into getting a deed poll.
But there’s no other way as the names must match- NON and passsport

Viruses:
Instead of charging those with plenty money, they are charging those with small money...what kind of wahala is that

Lexusgs430:
Unfortunately, you cannot give that lodger a reference.....

Is your landlord aware you have a lodger...... 😁

Meogom:
OK, thanks boss.

Yea, landlord is aware.

dustydee:
Welcome back. I was thinking about you some days ago and wondering if you have left nairaland finally. I agree with your points and I have been thinking of setting up a business in the field of AI consultancy but do not have the courage and self belief yet.
.

Jamesclooney:
Kemi is atrociously bad but I agree with your general point.

Labour doesn’t feel any different these days with figures like Keir Starmer, Rachel ‘from Accounts’ Reeves, David Lammy and Angela Rayner, to name a few. Perhaps it’s nostalgia, but I miss the era of truly formidable politicians on both the left and right. The same issue exists across the pond (Trump & Kamala). Or is it that the internet has stripped away the mystique surrounding politicians/leaders? Just feels like the bar has been lowered drastically.

Zahra29:
Agreed. I've come to realise that many Nigerians tolerate and pretend about negative situations, bad governance etc but it's highlighting the truth of these situations that they are unable to handle.

The impressive Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala wrote a book exposing the deep and systemic corruption in Nigeria and her experiences fighting this corruption as a public servant. Imagine if she had done a global book tour, promoting her book on BBC, CNN, podcasts etc She would likely have received similar hate for "denigrating Nigeria".

But "luckily", very,very (very lol) few Nigerians have read it or even know of its existence, and even the governors she mentions in her book are blissfully unaware, so it's okay 😂

Telling my story is risky,” Okonjo-Iweala writes. “But not telling it is also dangerous.

Chukwuka16:
Let me put it mildly – forget expertise or the folks as GPs, it is dime a dozen. We should be owning GPs and running them as chains. Who cares about my nationality? If you have value to offer me, I am game. Being a GP is very good, can you scale that and own the practice along with your network? You talk about kids of immigrants today becoming something tomorrow – that’s now a pipe dream.

There was a time when being a migrant was enough – the arbitrage in living standards between the two spaces meant you could exploit the advantages overseas to build massive wealth back home. Today, if you are not in the places that matter, with the network that matters, and with support that matters, life has won you. The kids of migrants will have ok educations and earn averagely. If their parents are not millionaires, they will mostly be poor or average – unfortunately. I am saying, the possibility of our kids exceeding us if we are not millionaires is now zero (rounded to 2 decimal places). You can’t be a millionaire on a salary except you are a cofounder in a start up with significant equity and you raise funds. We need to own businesses to provide the ecosystem for our kids to thrive. How many of our kids will graduate debt free if we are already asking questions about child benefit? How many will be done with university and get a check of £200k from their parents as angel investment into their business venture? Can we today as immigrants come together within our network of say 5-10 people and comfortably raise £300k to try out something or buy a business or take some risk?

We are so lost, and that realisation is driving me mad. Innocent kids of today’s migrants will enter another strange dimension of poverty in this UK that parents today will find amazing. You are watching OpenAI and xAI and the others raise $billions to carve a niche in the AI space and we are watching other monster organisations coalescing and consolidating market share and you think because my dad is a GP or a professor, I stand a chance in life? When you deduct mortgage, car note, house bills and pension how much does the professor or GP have to put in ISA for the child or themselves?