The old saying that knowledge is power remains valid since no one succeed in ignorance. At Tekedia Institute we create one product: knowledge that transform careers and organisations. Visit school.tekedia.com Email: eyitayo@fasmicro.com WhatsApp; 2347035670954

The game of chess has started as Binance responds to Nigeria: "According to data provided by Binance to the ONSA [Office of National Security Adviser], Nigerian trading volume on the platform in 2023 alone amounted to $21.6 million." Note "million", not "billion". Recall that Nigeria had noted that about $26 billion was moved via Binance from Nigeria (I assume lifetime data). Binance was founded in 2017. If you take the average, you should be getting $4.3 billion per year. But Binance said it did only $21.6M in 2023! Good People, it does seem like the only way is for Binance to produce the data requested since the numbers are totally out of sync. As that happens, no one should be deceived that Binance is Naira's problem. Since they disconnected Naira in their ecosystem, Naira has not returned to N600/$. Yes, Binance obey the law of the land, and for Nigeria, do your thing and move on, because Binance was not the reason why Naira is fading. Binance still operates in other markets across Africa and their currencies have not collapsed. Partly, the reason Naira has been fading was on display in the National Assembly when senators padded the budget, making it clear that we wasted the 2023 electoral cycle when we thought it could bring a reset on governance at the federal level. Until we fix those demons, the Naira will continue to fade, Binance or no Binance tekedia.com/court-orders-bin…

AI is reshaping the ordinance of the market system, and Tekedia Institute is committed to educate, inform and train on the fundamental components of AI in business. We generously make this particular class open to all our investors at Tekedia Capital.

Are you ready to unlock the secrets to crafting a powerful business vision that will propel your business success to new heights? Tonight, at @tekedia Mini-MBA Live, join us for an inspiring lecture on "Creating and Executing Strong Business Vision." Time: 7pm WAT.

Indeed, the wonders of IP laws: "Intellectual property (IP) rights law is quite interesting and most times controversial: An intending husband and wife hire a photographer and pay the photographer handsomely to come and cover their wedding. By common sense, the husband and wife are right to assume that since they have paid the photographer, every picture of theirs snapped by the photographer ought to legally belong to them. But no, that’s not what the law says; the law says that though you have paid the photographer, though it is your image that was snapped by the photographer, those pictures legally belong to the photographer and not the couple." Yet, the same law assumes that if you are employed to work for a company, the creation out of you (phones, cups, garri, burger, etc) belong to that company, because you created them under the employment of that company. So, why should you “employ” someone to take your photos, and you are not automatically assigned ALL RIGHTS to the photos? Do we have lawyers in the house? tekedia.com/the-photos-you-p…

While in Nigeria during Christmas, I noticed that our academic programs in Tekedia Institute could be given new distribution channels to help more people. Simply, the cost of data to watch a 60-minute video is a burden in Nigeria for many. A Tekedia Mini-MBA edition has more than 150 hours of video! So, I started thinking about how to fix that friction. I decided to tap into the powers of artificial intelligence (AI) to assist. Upon return to the United States, I set up environments to build an AI model which could understand me, beyond just a mere translation, but with “memory” to understand my business viewpoint. Good People, I souped dozens of previous videos, and after two weeks of training, the outcome is Tekedia AI. Tekedia AI understands me. If I speak for two hours, it can understand, transcribe and summarize, with 98% accuracy, within context because after hours of videos, it knows me. Last week, after a class, I uploaded our video, injected it into Tekedia AI, and within minutes, a summary came out. We shared it with our co-learners and amazingly, after days, no one complained. So, we got it right. Tekedia AI Lecture Companion will anchor our newly launched Tekedia WhatsApp School, enabling us to summarize video/audio sessions besides written courseware. With it, I can deliver a video-, audio-based class for hours, and send the summary to people via WhatsApp. They can always go back to the videos.  Register for The Great Lectures from Tekedia WhatsApp School which begins April 1 and experience the power of technology on accelerating impactful learning school.tekedia.com/course/wh…

One initiative which I think Nigeria’s Central Bank got distracted by was the whole thing on eNaira. With digital wallets, virtual accounts, USSD, and other options out there, the real contribution of eNaira to the advancement of Nigeria’s economy remains muted, from my perspective. It does not yield more money than old Naira, and it does not help you make more money than the traditional Naira money. So, what is really the big deal for an apex bank to be spending time on it? Yet, it seems smarter people are finding ways to use eNaira: “A recent report by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has disclosed that the value of eNaira in circulation rose by 302 percent in nine months to N10.26 billion at the end of September 2023, reflecting an increase in the adoption of the Digital currency.” That may look like a good number until you remember that it was launched on October 25, 2021. So, the adoption is very poor! If you pick one Nigerian company, Moniepoint, which does $14 billion value of transactions per month, and compare it with eNaira lifetime equivalent of $11 million, you can understand why they should shut that thing down, and focus on the core mission of the apex bank: strengthen the Naira currency by controlling inflation, and ramp up employment via interest rate management. Running eNaira is a distraction now. Please do not attack me: if eNaira is a startup, and if you look at all the resources put in it (a presidential launch on national television), by now, it should be considered to have failed to attain a product-market fit. With that, either there is a pivot or the company will fade. Not many investors will keep investing in it. I think Nigeria should allow the eNaira to fade, and redirect the efforts on important things. tekedia.com/central-bank-of-…

The Live session of Tekedia Mini-MBA will begin on Saturday, Feb 10 at 7pm WAT. I will kick start it with a lecture on the Mission, Purpose, and Why We Have Companies. I will extend the construct into Business Growth and Building Category-King Companies. The Zoom link is in the classboard school.tekedia.com/course/mm… . Sat, Feb 10 | 7pm-8.30pm WAT | Innovation, Growth and the Mission of Firms – Ndubuisi Ekekwe Next week, we will examine Design Thinking and Innovation from a zen-master from SAP. And from NATO Europe, another faculty will explain how supply chain delivers the ability to win in markets through efficiency on the utilization of factors of production. Thank you NATO for approving our application to make him available. again. The week after, a business growth-maker from Microsoft, will explain how to craft a winning business strategy. This academic festival will run for 13 weeks, with eminent faculty teaching us. I am so excited. A man or a woman with Knowledge is a FACTOR because in the 21st century, the most dominant factor of production is knowledge. Tekedia Institute is a temple for mining and distributing knowledge.  I thank you and I welcome you again for choosing our Institute for your continuous education. The light is ON and this is Africa's largest school for the mastering of entrepreneurial capitalism and business management. Welcome - a journey for knowledge. Ndubuisi Ekekwe Professor & Lead Faculty Tekedia Institute, USA

Very scary indeed: “In a controversial ruling that is likely going to impact Nigeria’s economic situation, the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos, has mandated the Nigerian government to regulate the prices of essential goods and petroleum products within seven days.” Good People, this is not a good ruling because the Court is fighting the wrong people (the sellers). The reason spare parts, cars, etc are expensive is not because the shop owners are pure greedy humans, but because the Naira is not doing well with US dollars, and the Customs has also increased import duties on products. So, asking the government to fix pricing makes no sense. Rather, the Honourable Judge can use all the powers vested to proclaim thus: "1 Nigerian naira is now equal to 1 USD dollars, and all import duties waived". If those are done, we can then talk of fixing prices in shops on imported products. Sure, that is not to say that I support those who are exploiting the paralysis in the nation to bring more pain; those should face the law. tekedia.com/federal-high-cou…

Tekedia WhatsApp School is coming. You wake up in the morning and you will receive the most important tool of the 21st century: knowledge, packaged in concise and actional lessons. You can ask questions and Tekedia will answer. Our mission is clear: your continuous professional growth and development. Knowledge and the acquisition of it should be unbounded and unconstrained by geography. We want to see how we can overcome the limits of time, through programming on where you are, and when you want it. WhatsApp offers something amazing, and we’re building on it. Tekedia on WhatsApp is promising because WhatsApp is the largest market in Africa with an excess of 250 million customers! Starting on Saturday, we will use AI to engage even during live Tekedia sessions. You can ask questions without interrupting the Faculty, and the AI will answer you based on what the faculty has already taught! Yes, you came late, AI can bring you up to speed with a summary. Our school is a vector quantity, we’re covering distance and we know where we are going. That destination is to stay ahead of what you need, in the direction you want to make that career blossom. tekedia.com/tekedia-whatsapp…

Wow: The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has an x-factor to the Naira challenges, and is “introducing a single singular foreign currency (FCY) gateway bank to centralize all correspondent banking activities...” in Nigeria . According to Investopedia, a “correspondent bank is a financial institution that acts as an intermediary between domestic and international banks.” Banks like Citi and UBS serve as correspondent banks to many Nigerian banks; it seems Nigeria wants to take them up. If Nigeria goes ahead with this FCY gateway bank, many good things will happen, but it will also open the nation to new risk vectors, on contract obligations. Yes, if Citi serves say Zenith Bank, Zenith Bank arguably expects the funds to be there since they’re far apart. But if a unit of CBN is taking care of that, how would the commercial bank’s global customers view that arrangement in the international market? More so, how would Zenith Bank relate with its regulator in this context? Yet, if this playbook works, expect money landering, round tripping, etc to drop. In this piece, I also argue that Nigeria's FX problem is not connected with dorm accounts. Most countries operate dorm accounts, from Canada to China to Kenya, and their currencies have not crashed. Instead of seeing the $30B in dorm accounts as a negative, Nigeria should flip it as a positive. In America, people buy debts, repackage them into exotic assets and sell them for $billions. The Nigerian capital market  which has access to $30B in USD in our banking system can come up with something more exciting. Lack of innovation is the reason we see positives as weaknesses. Our stock market is worth $50B when South Africa is worth more than $960B because they innovate; someone there would turn that $30B from money to capital, and by the time all is done, you have a new asset-sector worth $100B. tekedia.com/central-bank-of-…

Good People, please be paying attention to what is happening in the Chinese stock market: “China's stock market has been in a free fall since the beginning of the year, wiping out more than $1 trillion in market capitalization in days. This is the worst start to a year for the world's second-largest economy, and it has sparked fears of a global slowdown and a financial crisis.” As the manufacturing capital of the world, China affects the world.  Please pay attention because if this continues, some of those partners in China will be affected. tekedia.com/the-slump-in-chi…