I recently read this article titled “Why 1 million Chinese migrants are building a new empire in Africa“, it follows a Chinese man who came over to Mozambique to build a farm. You read that article and you see all sort of shrewd acts on the part of the Chinese farmer, but that is not my focus today.
My focus is on the fact that if YOU do not rise up to develop your country, the Chinese, Lebanese and Indians will not hesitate to move in, get it done and just rape your country. I am not really convinced that foreigners who come to invest in your country have totally good intentions.
In case you missed it, a while ago Lagos State Government had to close the factory of Linda Manufacturing Company over allegations that poor working conditions made a worker to die on duty and that the poor fellow was simply dumped into the drainage to rot away while work continued!
When I watched the news on TV, I burst into tears. I could not believe my eyes, how can natives of the country be treated so inhumanly?
But really, it is not their fault, it is our own fault.
If more Nigerians were creating jobs at large scale, we would not need their factories. If a Nigerian was the owner of the factory, perhaps she would not treat her staff so badly.
Here lies the warning for us then, if we do not build Nigerian companies that will create enough jobs for the jobless masses, who will? And on what conditions?
If you fail to build that company or school in your mind, the idea you have carried around you for ages. If you fail to build it, an American or Chinese will come down here to build it and hire you to run it. You will still use the same energy but this time, the profits will not be beneficial to our Fatherland.
If I fail to build a serious tech company, Google will create a Nigerian engineering office sooner or later and I am sure I will be hunted down to work for them or even head their operations here. The ball is in my court!
I would also love to point out that I would love Entrepreneurs of the future (that’s you) to think in terms of the number of jobs your business ideas can generate. It is not enough to create a business to feed you and your family; any job can do that!
What I really would love us to do is think about how you can create jobs for people willing to work but just do not seem to have ideas.
A leading online Nigerian bookstore must emerge, you can build it or wait for Amazon to move in and you can then work for them.
We need better search tools for finding information, and places around us. You can start building it today or wait for Google to create their Nigerian engineering operations.
We need mobile money operators that actually work in real life, you can start building it today or wait… mPesa or PayPal will move in and hire us to work for them.
I could go on and on, but I am sure the message has sank in.
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Watching The World
- Why 1 million Chinese migrants are building a new empire in Africa
- In other news, Richard Branson is ready to go to space and prove Elon Musk wrong.
