THE FUTURE IS MOBILE

Mankind has always wanted more. Mankind has always wanted speed. Many innovations in the history of human existence have been indicative of mankind’s subliminal/overt craving for ease and wealth creation. Many innovations have changed the course of history; the steam engine, electric bulb, electricity, radioactivity, polymer, telephone and the internet. The introduction of GSM, internet and many information technology tools have changed business models, organizational communication and created great companies, offering business as well as social services. Mobile phones and devices give the advantage of portability and convenience for movement. They offer the same speed desk devices such as the PC offer, maybe better in some cases. Globalization would not have a better ally than mobile devices, because they are the last in the race and lineage for offspring’s for human communication. Anything that would be created after smart phone's, feature phones and advanced feature phones would also be mobile and that’s the idea-making life easy and portable for mankind. The import of the pervasiveness and functionality of mobile phones is that services and businesses would be created and optimized around them. Mobile payments, internet banking, social networking and other emerging industries are customized along mobile lines to avert big bang disruption. The world currently has 6.8 billion mobile phones in a world of 7billion people. This implies a penetration of 128% in the developed world and 89% in developing countries according to ITU. The penetration of mobile phones in Nigeria according to the regulatory body for telecoms-NCC puts the figure at 78.8%. The NCC informs that a good number of Nigerians own more than one mobile phone. The leading network MTN has 45m subscribers, Airtel of India- 25m, Etisalat- 15m and indigenous Globacom- 28m.Many firms’ asides having regular websites now have mobile sites dedicated to serve mobile phone users. According to research, 69% of Nigerians access the internet through mobile phones. What business decision should this inform? I think advertising decisions. Many people spend at least 2hours on the internet and if most of them access through their phones, then brand managers and government in cases of e-governance should create strategically a mobile advertising budget to cater for this latest insights on mobile usage and pervasiveness. To ignore the potent regime of mobile advertising is to prepare for a loss of branding war. There are networks that have done well in Africa in mobile advertising in Africa. Inmobi and Twinpine have productive footprints in this area, but I hear Inmobi has left, leaving Twinpine. Globally, over 130 mobile money initiatives have been deployed. About 80% of that is in Africa. 31% off Kenya’s GDP moved through mobile money platforms. Total African mobile transfers are expected to exceed $200billion by 2015, accounting for approximately 18% for Africa’s GDP. Is the future mobile or not? The most notable of mobile innovation is in Kenya with their M-Pesa and M-Shwari. The smartphone industry in Nigeria is now worth 245bn dollars , that’s different from the regular mobile phones. The lifes of people now revolves around their mobile devices. Mobile devices have become a vital organ in humans, particularly people in Africa, since they had to leap frog other means of communication and embrace the mobile fad. Mobile devices such as tablets, Blackberry, Android, Nexus etc. have become things people build their emotions around and the means through which they conduct their lives. This calls for some computer mediated communication research. Lastly, the fundamental premise for this piece is to note that anything that is pervasive and makes life easy for mankind carries the day. The mobile devices are just the perfect fit for this description and the future of mankind would be determined by them. The future is mobile.

Colonialism or Business Modernity: China's Engagement with Africa

Trade between China and Africa was worth over $200billion in 2012. That is a good figure between both trading blocks. However, the terms of engagement as well as the macroeconomic dynamics of the relationship between Africa and China needs to be explored. The nature of value exchange between both blocks has taken the dimension of exchange of minerals and crude oil with infrastructure largely. There is also the platform of flooding our market with Chinese mass produce goods. This evidently has an effect on informal sectors, hence micro-economic activity of the average African citizen, especially in places like Nigeria where the regulatory environment seems to favour the Asian business engagement. Manufacturing which has always been in a state of coma is enjoying accelerated death owing to this. According to Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria's CBN governor, "the decline of African manufacturing from 12.8 per cent to 10.5 per cent of regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the United Nations." Sanusi has warned against the mode of engagement as a catalyst of redefined mode of colonialism. Colonialism was simply using of political control to make colonies resource efficient, transporting the resources abroad and producing goods in overseas manufacturing firms for consumption in the colonies. The Chinese are doing it in a redefined manner that I like to call business modernity. It doesn't involve political coercion. It just requires engagement through provision of funds for infrastructural development and hedging against risks associated with such development and drawing huge mineral resources for further production of export goods in their country, which make their way to other parts of the world and Africa particularly. They made available a credit line of $20billion available for Africa, alongside other initiatives and partnerships. It is worse for Africa, because many countries have comatose manufacturing sectors, and the model of consumption of Chinese export goods further makes the manufacturing sector susceptible to decline, because of the inability to compete with Chine se firms that have scale, energy, supported by a technocracy and also has ambition. The dialectics offered by western representatives such as Hillary Clinton "a model of sustainable partnership that adds value, rather than extracts it" from Africa. Unlike other countries, "America will stand up for democracy and universal human rights even when it might be easier to look the other way and keep the resources flowing." and David Cameron," believe the model of authoritarian capitalism [in China] we are seeing will fall short in the long term. ‘When people get economically richer they make legitimate demands for political freedoms to match their economic freedoms. This model is unable to respond. These statements are significant and unnecessary concomitantly. Significant because it brings the business modernity to the consciousness of Africa's sleeping intellectuals and dormant administrators in local development institutions. It is unnecessary because African leaders seem to even lack the fundamental will , which is the political will to get things right on the economic and wealth creating front. A phenomenal profligacy censured by corruption has led to an economic situation where over 400billion dollars has been stolen from Nigeria since crude oil has been discovered in 1978 according to Oby Ezekwesili, former World Bank chief and $851billion between 1970's and 2000's according to Global Financial Integrity. The argument by the west is not a generous one, its an economic one. it originates from trying to recover their slack, where China had gained by engaging the will bankruptcy of African leaders. China just built the headquarters of the African union. The west have enjoyed this sort of thing in the past and it help their fortunes in great bounds. I bet they want to feel how China is feeling now. Africa is growing owing to the commodities boom, the population of Africa comprises of young people who would according to Mckinsey have a deep pocket of $1.8trillion to spend from by 2030. The west need not act like they love us, China needs no further patronage. Its our leaders we should call to account. We youths particularly should get involved in foreign policy-in policy making generally. We need to stand up, so that the many years of slavery and colonial rule and the redefined business modernity won't further reduce the optimum we can get by being economically responsible and proactive. China is engaging Africa, the west is apprehensive. What are African's doing? They are not aware and their leaders are not proactive enough. We must do something. Colonialism or business modernity are just the same.

NIGERIA: ONLY KNOWLEDGE CAN SAVE US, NOT CRUDE OIL

Bill Clinton once marvelled at how Japan, a country that produces no steel, manages to churn out a great deal of durable and competitive steel based products. We all wonder how countries like Malaysia and Thailand in East-Asia are recording so much success without a huge reserve of resources driving their economy. We must also not suffer in amnesia or forget the Asian Tigers like Singapore and Taiwan. It may be shocking to discover that in the 70’s the USA economy was about 4.9trillion dollars, but today it’s over 15 trillion dollars. One thing that we need to account for is what the major economic activity was in the different periods. The 4.9trilllion period was dominated by exchange of goods, the 15 trillion dollars period was dominated by exchange of goods and services, but services accounted for most of the growth. The core of this text is to provoke the question as to what accounted for the success of this various nations without huge reservoir of natural resources or failure of its employment? It’s called knowledge, yes knowledge. In an era that in increasingly globalized, where countries are involved in international trade and financial markets are intertwined, a country’s investment in telecommunications, education, innovation and appropriate economic incentives gives it the competitive advantage. Many countries have moved from the resource based economy to the knowledge based. It seems to me that the primary reason for human existence is to be productive, to be innovative and create wealth, not to depend on nature’s reservoir. Though I don’t agree with much developmental rhetoric peddling of the fear that crude oil reserves would dry, I believe we need to harness knowledge, innovate disruptively and reap economic benefits like countries such as India. India derives 42 percent of its revenue from selling of services to other countries. This is possible because of the presence of human capital quality there. Many American countries have outsourced filing of taxes, Human resources functions, software development and customer care service to India! In an increasingly globalized world, the phenomenon of Average, according to Friedman is over! Malaysia for palm-oil seedlings from Nigeria and today they are the largest producer and exporter of the product. Israel a small nation of 7 million people is phenomenal with innovation and export of services. Many information technology firms like Intel, microchip producers and Google; search engine giants have recorded major breakthroughs in the Israel outfits. The Google suggest was developed in Israel, a country constantly at war. Back home in Africa, many professional jobs are outsourced to South-Africa, Ghana and Togo and Benin even provides artisans for Nigeria’s local industry which lacks the requisite skills and knowledge to get even menial jobs done. Nigeria, through its Federal Government outsources jobs worth 960billion naira to neighbouring foreigners and the likes. What is NOTAP and the other agencies doing? We still import software to the tune of 1billion dollars yearly according to the National ICT Policy draft, trust me that is fair.I guess the figure is larger. From the points made heretofore it is apparent that there is a huge gap in our creation, production and distribution of knowledge. This is what the knowledge economy is all about, creating knowledge just like power and distributing for economic gains. It is interesting to note that the government has this within its frame of thinking as the need to become a knowledge economy is included in the Vision 2020 document and the Vision for the National ICT Policy draft is to become a knowledge based economy. The problem with this is that the seriousness is not aggressive. South-Korea has a ministry for knowledge economy, South Africa has a document for knowledge economy policy and Malaysia has one. The Chinese have theirs also. Our knowledge economy policy should not be lost in another policy. Besides, Oil and Gas has PIB and knowledge economy has greater potentials that Oil and Gas if properly worked. The pillars of the knowledge economy are: i) Education ii) Innovation iii) ICT iv) Economic Incentives. This was developed by the World Bank. Our education system no doubt needs a serious overhaul, with rapid improvements in curriculum to meet present day challenges. We need to revive vocational centre and encourage private innovation. Thomas Friedman in his book: Lexus and the Olive Tree espouses that transportation encouraged economic growth in past centuries with construction of huge railway lines and creation of retail cars for mass market. Today, telecommunications with miniaturization, computerization, fibre-optics, GSM and the internet in place, opportunities abound for people to interact and conduct business worldwide. The mystery of capital is such that opportunity and time creates it and telecommunication advancement just ensures that borders are almost non-existent and people can now endow other areas with their knowledge. Innovations in other ICT areas such as broadband, fibre-optics increase in micro-processor power-Moore’s law and software development must be encouraged in Nigeria. We need research facilities that would be manned by our cream of professionals and academics. General Electric has a facility in India that is staffed with over 1,800 people, a quarter of this have PhD’s. Yet our private institutions are enjoying the services of just 40 percent of lecturers with PhD’s. We need to wake up. We don’t have a purposeful innovation system. The other countries I have highlighted do. Israel’s innovation system is driven by a military-civil complex. The military facilitates most of the growth in terms of innovation. The same is to be said of the world powers. Most of the innovations in manufacturing, finance, management and particularly operations research for producing war equipment were created during the Second World War. What role is our military playing asides maintaining peace in neighbouring African countries? What has happened to our agricultural research institutes? IITA has fared better than them. What about our lecturers and professors? Something revolutionary needs to be done. Economic Incentives come in the form of research grants, technology development grant, protectionism, access to credit and favourable fiscal , legal and other policy frameworks. However, the most important economic incentive is national marketing of local innovations. What is the essence when local innovations suffer from the popularity of Chinese products and other American innovations. Finally, it is important to bear the facts mentioned in mind for calling our leaders to the table of accountability. Labour and natural resources used to ensure adequate welfare and sustainability. Today knowledge does that better, not because it has never been there but because the world is now hyper-globalized and you are a citizen trying to compete with an Indian, Chinese, American, British, Portuguese. The knowledge economy is real and it would be delusional to depend on bottles of crude oil for spiritual and welfarist satisfaction.