The trouble with buying Nigerian

By Morenike Taire

Quite recently, I visited the one- time headquarters of the Nigerian Postal Service (Nipost) in Marina, Lagos. The décor was far from modern, and one got a sense of the front desk being much larger than it is required to be. Nonetheless, a consistent buzz assured of the functionality of the organization.

Posters on every wall issued instructions as well as information and staff was more than polite- they were friendly, at least to my party. Perhaps it was to prepare us for the information they were about to give: the elevators were out of service, which meant we would be using the stairs on our sojourn to the 8th  floor.

The elevator was not the only thing out of use. Half of the 8th  floor had been cordoned off on account of disuse. Every word spoken virtually echoed, perhaps on account of the old-fashioned, high-ceilinged nature of the architecture; or perhaps because of the under-population.

One can by no means refer to it as a first visit except that this time, one actually had business with the organization. I was in the company of the promoters of the BuyNaija campaign, who had come to parley with the leadership of the postal service in Lagos. Led by William Otabil, the BuyNaija team also included a Syrian Nigerian who runs a yarn factory in Otta. A native of Aleppo where he has lost several close relatives to war, the Syrian is very much appreciative of his second home of Nigeria, which has inadvertently provided him more refuge than his first home had done.

He matches the completely detribalized Otabil on energy, passion and sheer determination to see the BuyNaija project succeed. They speak about six languages between them: Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Arabic, Pidgin and of course English; and boast a rare level of national and international exposure as well as intelligence.

William Otabil once drew parallels between his approach to the BuyNaija project and the difference between building the foundation for a bungalow and building the foundation of a skyscraper. A skyscraper’s foundation, he said, would need to be as deep as the skyscraper is high. For this reason, he is more concerned about building a suitable foundation than all the hype that attend many Nigerian projects because, according to him, “what is to come will be explosive”.

The postal service’s leadership welcomed us very well, and after all the pleasantries, the matter of the day had to be broached: the postal service has plenty of space; BuyNaija needs space across the country in order to build experience centres. The postal service and BuyNaija were to enter into a collaboration that would add value to both organizations and increase the revenues that will accrue to both parties. The Nigerian Postal Service, once thought to be moribund, is proving to be the master of reinvention. It is a win-win situation.

This simple but truly futuristic approach is one that is so very rare to find in our economy within both the public and the private space. We speak very often about how much our country has been blessed by God with sundry natural resources which we are not putting to good use. It would seem that not only natural but also human and manmade resources, though widely available, are not being used for the common good because we lack both the willingness and the abilities to enter into mutually beneficial arrangements such as the above.

A quick tour of the Marina facility (actually, it is too expansive to allow for a quick tour) revealed an incredible amount of unused space, not to mention abandoned vehicles, which the new leadership has began to lease out to multinationals, while taking most of their operations online and deploying monies so realized to the truly intimidating task of renovating the facility in this time of recession.

There are other lessons to be learned from BuyNaija by the rest of the teeming made-in-Nigeria movement in general. First they must learn that the consumer in Nigeria is exactly like the consumer anywhere else. He does not care whether the product is made in Aba, Abeokuta    Albasu or Australia. He only cares about two things; quality and price. And he is king!

The practice of placing arbitrary bans on popular items’ importation by government with a view to increasing production here at home has never worked in our environment for this very reason. The factors that modulate industry are varied and are, again, universal.

First of all, the evil twins of low power supply and corruption have always ensured neither quality nor good pricing is assured. The result is a throwback to the days of “essential commodities” when either too much money was chasing too few goods, or essential goods were priced out of the reach of the average man.

Rather than co-opting and harassing people to buy Nigeria, this administration ought rather to focus on working on finding our comparative advantages as a nation; as well as ensuring that the factors guiding efficient production are available and equitably distributed.

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