Shoprite and the urgent need for Foreign Investors -By Kareem Itunu Azeez

First, it was the Leventis group that left, then followed by Kingsway and UTC, now we are talking about the Shop-Rite, also leaving, and possibly to render about 200,000 Nigerians jobless amidst the collapsed economy of a country far behind in the list of nations growing. However, we must not be unaware if the situation of the world right now, but if this situation has an impact on retail trade one can argue even less.

Here is an analysis of how poor her citizens might even become if nothing is done to attract foreign interest if retaining the above organization seems impossible.

It baffles me when people say Nigeria has a big economy, and boldly they state this claim, but the reality is for our kind of population we have a small economy, compared to the southern part of Africa. This wapt thing people say is absurd, if for example just about 50, 000 new cars are bought in Nigeria Yearly, as compared to about half a million brand new cars bought in South Africa, although that isn’t just the criteria to use, however, it is more than that, that is just a fraction of the many reasons yet to unravel, so to what I said earlier concerning the moving monster, you definitely know from there the balance books isn’t balance, and as a matter of fact, this cars are own and bought by the future sucking politicians we have in this country.

Now in Nigeria, it is a fact that there seems to be nothing like the middle class, it’s all about the rich and the poor, more of the haves’ and the have not, the politicians and the citizens or the wretched civil servants, who have yet time and time again failed to realize and live to their full potential of holding the government accountable.

63% of the Nigerian population is under the ages of 25, that’s more like children with apologies to the youths, this is because you assume most of them are either in school or probably learning a trade, in whichever way you look at this, they surely are dependent on someone or their guardian, for their survival, and or planning for their future, out of this percentage, 43% of this people are under the ages of 16, that’s about 90 million children, and we are just about 200million plus, as a country, so where does the large economy you see on papers grow from?

In addition to this narratives is the multidimensional poverty ratio in the country, which has led to the terrible life expectancy in the nation, of just 53years of age, and one could basically breath its last, this ranks us among the global below the par countries with the lowest life expectancy, much worse than war zones, then where is the peace we preach?

The above alone distort the demographic profile of the country, and only a sane country and government would understand how hungry the country is for quality education, and survival skills to match the dynamic world, and even precision skills, to make ever needed tools such as computers, tablets and the rest. and even more importantly only purpose-driven youths would understand quickly how their future isn’t in their hands anymore, so as to act faster than a peregrine falcon. Nigeria, a country of poor smiling youths searching not for their future but wallowing ignorantly in penury.

The remaining equation of the above listed, youths are already unemployed, earlier this year, we recall the vice president Osinbajo saying we may have over 29 million unemployed youths, well the reality now is, more than 30million youths are already unemployed, I haven’t even counted you in that equation, yet you rejoice on meaningless things on social media in the name of wallowing your sorrows away.

All this has in one way or the other contributed to the leaving of various multinationals of which the big supermarkets are not left out, and this is because their wealth comes from the middle class, which seems to be existing no more.

Let me run quickly to the power sector of the economy, many still many don’t even know how poor how state of power is, and yet again, we just have to continue to lay emphasis on this, electricity which is one of the major needs to survive during this terrible times, in Qatar, which its population should equal Alimosho local government part of Lagos, is already generating over 10, 000 megawatts of electricity, meanwhile a 200million plus group of people celebrates 5000 unstable megawatts of electricity, simply because the grid hasnt yet collapse, and this sole reason is because of some greedy people who would rather suck us dry in the name of leading us. But Nigerians would take anything you throw at them.

The global standard for power is a hundred thousand megawatts per million people, which ultimately means Nigeria should be running on nothing less than 200,000 megawatts, and every politician and minister having being sworn in, beat their chest promising to add more watts of which at the end of their tenure nothing usually comes out of it, what a terrible governance literacy we have in this country, and we continue to push out even more illiterate educated people. A government with nothing in its think tank.

A government that doesn’t recognize the importance of demographic profile, its debt balances is surely on a steady way to crumble, and how unfortunate many do not even know this, Amazon, Alibaba is run on artificial intelligence, in fact, Amazon employs over a million staffs, two amazon in Nigeria would have wiped out the unemployment rate in the country, but how can foreign investors come when the infrastructural level is unencouraging.

Meanwhile, thoughts and business ideas of this sort are not eluded to Nigerian people and their thoughts, but enabling the environment is Paramount, the government has made life suffocating and anyone defending such is also an enemy of the people.

Let us look at Russia, whose basic GDP, is mostly on gas, (GASPROM), for all champions league fans is just like the NNPC of Nigeria, they whitewash all of Europe with gas during winter, yet there has been no negativism, I brought this on so as to remember that a major source of income can make a country great if used wisely, yet we have many reasons to diversify, and explore other routes, here in Nigeria we set our gas on fire, apart from vandals, when the government policy is in itself vandalism, through cost of governance, why won’t the ignorant citizens vandalize their source of income? And even the tourist centers haven’t being maximized to its full potentials, you can’t even book anything in Nigeria, especially with zero infrastructure

Now, 7.5-8million children born every year, over 13million out of school, Adamu Adamu once mention it could rise above that, now a good policy should state building a classroom of about 30 pupils translate to about 300, 000 classrooms, yet we celebrate a classroom that has been inaugurated in a most dilapidated part of the country when we should rather be tearful. We trend such on twitters and acknowledge their folly too, Borno state is a good example of this.

Considering the disposable income differences, it is impossible for retail markets to survive, especially of the stature of Shop-rite and its counter path, because majority can’t live on minimum wage, meanwhile, a minimum wage that is not a living wage is totally useless, little wonder we live in multidimensional poverty. And this is where larger traders make their
Wealth.

The implication however of this to our economy is awkward, and degrading as a matter of fact investors do communicate, any incoming investor of similar motives would inquire about how Shop-rite fare in Nigeria, if they cant survive how then do the incoming one survive, and to grow economically the reality is we need foreign investors or multinationals. A big problem we are having, when a system is badly skewed on the people. I did have mention how it might encourage locals, but Nigerians have no access to the credit facility, if you doubt my fact then check the debt profiles of Nigeria, at least non would you see small scale business of #200k loan being granted, it’s always the big people who seem to have access to the cooky-jar, then what is the usefulness of such credit facility, to the common man on the streets where you and I dominate, yet we look without actions.