The crime of being an innovative indigenous firm in Nigeria

By Chukwuemeka Anozie

The penchant of many Nigerians for foreign-made products is so much that one has reasons to sometimes believe that those Nigerians themselves are imported!

As a people, many of us love our things foreign: from the crown of our head to the sole of our feet. The average Nigerian—especially those that qualify themselves as people with taste—would typically prefer an imported product over one made locally, even though the locally made product might be of superior quality. That is the extent of our love affair with everything non-Nigerian.

However, if no one at all prioritises and patronises Made-in-Nigeria, it shouldn’t be the Nigerian government – which is supposed to be the biggest promoter of local industry. But as hardly anything in Nigeria is close to the ideal, instead of consciously supporting local industry, successive Nigerian governments seem to have perfected the act of killing local industry. And so far, the current government has not proven to be any better. For us as a people, the Latin saying, nemo dat quod non habet—“no one can give what they don’t have”—is true. Hence, we, “foreign Nigerians”, can only give what we have, therefore we have always put our kind in government

So, it did not come as a surprise—for a nation that imports toothpicks—when it recently appeared in the news that more foreign IT firms were about make inroads into the Nigerian market. If it were about a decade ago when the Nigerian software space was not as mature as it is now, that news may have been negligible, but not now when the IT industry and specifically the software sector in Nigeria is coming into maturity and capable of being a top for exchange earner for Nigeria. However, if a few weeks from now, a top official in the private or public sector announces in sweet-sounding words that a deal has been signed with more foreign IT firms, it would not come as a surprise.

According to the Office for the Nigerian Content Development in ICT (ONC), Nigeria loses over N1 trillion in foreign exchange annually to the importation of ICT devices and software. Of the said amount, N250 billion is lost annually to the importation and maintenance of foreign software. There is no better proof that Nigeria is a top global dumping ground of foreign-made software than the banking sector, where more than 90% of Nigerian banks currently use foreign software from India, Jordan, Switzerland, Finland and other parts of the world for their various banking needs. Their reliance is not because local technology cannot meet all their needs, but because they lack belief in local firms.

If private firms can be forgiven for depending on foreign solutions when there are capable local replacements, government cannot be forgiven for doing so. Nigerian governments at all levels have been the biggest culprit of favouring foreign software over local software. Examples of this abound: at the federal level, GIFMIS at the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) is powered by a software from Estonia, a country of 1.3million people (about 500,000 people less than the population of Ibadan); ITAS at FIRS is powered by a software made in Canada; IPPIS at OAGF is powered by a software from USA; Biometric Verification Number (BVN) at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) Plc is powered by software from Germany; RTGS at Central Bank of Nigeria is powered by a software from Sweden.

Remita, the well-known local software deployed by the Nigerian government, has been shot at from many quarters, either out of ignorance or because the shooters are against the positive changes the solution has brought to Nigeria. What Remita has done is that it has prevented the formerly prevalent thieving of government resources and has helped to institutionalise transparency in governance. So far, the Federal Government has been able to save more than N3 trillion through this locally made solution, and there is nowhere any top official of the federal government goes that they don’t sing the successes achieved with Treasury Single Account (TSA) which Remita powers. But if anyone told you that the providers of the software that has practically single-handedly brought an end to corruption in Nigeria have not been paid for more than a year (even though it is being used to pay Government till date), you won’t believe it. But that is the truth. Such can only happen in Nigeria!

Why does Nigeria hate her own so much? In a shabbily put-together report on its false allegation of fraud in the implementation of TSA, the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria documented that “In spite of the initial relative advantage the bespoke solution, as  Remita,  could  have  over  the   globally  accepted Commercially available  Off The Shelf (COTS) software like SAP, Oracle Financials, Epicor, Navision etc., a desirable strategy is a two-step approach that starts with locally designed bespoke software solution and transiting to the more sophisticated and tested COTS.”

There is no evidence greater that the Nigerian government—not exempting one that shouts CHANGE from the roof of its voice—doesn’t see local technology as capable of fully solving Nigeria’s challenges. Nigeria also appears to be buried under rubbles of inferiority complex, which have deprived us of the sense of appreciation for what is ours. As was said of Nazareth, it has been asked of Nigeria: “Can anything good come out of Nigeria?” Yes indeed, a lot of good is already coming out of Nigeria, but Nigerian are their own greatest enemy.

According to the Ease of Doing Business Index of 2015, Nigeria is one of the worst places to do business in the world, after emerging 170th place among 189 countries ranked. In Nigeria, you’re literally your own government. Therefore, many businesses have either died or are awaiting death. The least one expects of successive Nigerian governments that have failed to provide power, the most vital element of a thriving economy, is support for local businesses who have managed to survive despite myriad of challenges. But no, not only does the Nigerian government not provide a conducive environment for businesses, Government appears to be all out to stifle local businesses who manage to survive the tough environment.

One of the most common excuses for the rejection of Nigerian solutions is that they are often not up-to-par. Sometimes, that’s only a perception that impinges us from overlooking products that have potentials or those that meet the standard. What we forget is that no solution is ever up-to-par the first time, not even those we have grown accustomed to importing. The solutions we import into our country were first grown by their own countries. Had their countries jettisoned them as we do ours, there would never be anything good enough for us to use.

As a matter of fact, the taste of Nigerians for imported products is affront on our collective capability as a people. It is saying that we are a nation bustling with more than 170 million people without potentials. We are indeed our own enemies because we have not learnt to appreciate and nurture our inventions. Our taste has grown too accustomed to eating the fruits of other people’s labour, we strangle out those who manage to be innovative among us.

Nigeria should truly value her own, and stop despising the days of little beginning. Instead of running down local businesses, we should make conscious efforts to be a part of the growth of what is ours. There isn’t any reason, for instance, why Nigeria should be exporter of IT solutions that have been used and trusted locally. There is no reason Nigeria cannot export its TSA solution to the rest of Africa and the world, and by so doing, earn handsome foreign exchange. As a people, we need to stop being the only hindrance between where we should be and where we are.