Asiké

non sine christi |
supporting builders | Sia grantee @_twikkl |
cooking!!

[Asiké @Asike__]

I attempted
I failed
I fell
I'm trying again
and I will fail (forward) again
But this time, I won't fall
Not because I know where to step
but because I know where not to.

[Asiké @Asike__]

@Ochimdiogor_ @ISWISPodcast @Jollz or season 2 never just drop

[Asiké @Asike__]

@asemota @bunmibae "Once Upon A Time In China"

[Asiké @Asike__]

@lilyyang169 a couple thousand kilometers away, but I'm on my way 😌

[Asiké @Asike__]

@asemota those memories

Please, help us with the prompt used, big chief

[Asiké @Asike__]

@BitgetWallet Why can't I contact support in the app? and you have AI replying to me with nonsense

[Aaron Kay @aaron_kayy]

So this Saka boy no humble. 🤣🤣😂😂

Na title wey we never win make am gentle 🤣😂😂

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

❤️🤍🏆 Max Dowman becomes the youngest Premier League winner ever.

16 years, 139 days old.

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

This belongs to all of us.

[WhatsApp @WhatsApp]

we love you @arsenal, we do 🏆

[Forever Arsenal @Arsenal_N10]

🚨 BREAKING NEWS

Arsenal's Anthem "The Angel" Popular known as "North London Forever" has been voted the best football Anthem in the world.

[Asiké @Asike__]

“Nigeria is the problem with a lot of people; it is not because they are Nigerians but because they are in Nigeria”

Big Chief!!!!!!

[Osaretin Victor Asemota @asemota]

22 years ago, in Enfield, London, I met this Nigerian guy whose job was to wash celebrities' cars at a very high-end car wash. Everything he made, he sent back to Nigeria to invest in property. He was not well educated and didn't know of any other assets to preserve wealth.

At the time I met him, he was saving a lot and regularly sending home millions of Naira. His clients and patrons were very generous, and he was very hardworking.

The first thing I asked him was why he didn't take all the knowledge he had gained to set up a similar business back home. His answer was - "They will rob me blind if I am not there."

He wasn't ready to leave his cash cow in England, and he also knew that setting up a business at home was a risky endeavor. I see this pattern repeated with many successful Nigerians outside Nigeria. Trust is rare, and many have been burned.

The surprising thing is that when Nigerians do the reverse and try to set up businesses abroad from Nigeria, they would most likely choose other Nigerians to run them. I have seen this with banks and churches. Some are successful, and others are not, but they keep doing it anyway.

What happens to Nigerian trust locally, and why is it different when things are abroad? The simple answer is systems. A Nigerian doing business with another Nigerian abroad is protected by the rule of law and the systems in place there. There is also something deeper that I stumbled upon.

Nigerians typically choose other Nigerians to run things, even though their products are originally Nigerian products or products largely meant for Nigerians in the Diaspora. When it is a universal product, they would choose others, but would still likely choose Nigerians first. It is a paradox.

There are many times when choosing a Nigerian to run a Nigerian business outside Nigeria is a very bad idea, especially in those places with xenophobia, and where Nigerians are despised, but the reason Nigerians choose other Nigerians is that Nigerians abroad work hard. They know what they are running away from and put everything into it so they don't go back.

I always joke that I have more relatives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, than in Benin City, and it is likely true, as a family reunion there once had 200 people. One thing I noticed was that the family members almost always employed other family members in their businesses, and those businesses thrived.

One of them even ran a car wash, employing his brothers, who later set up their own car washes. These were informal arrangements without any contracts, but everyone behaved and played their part. The interesting thing was that they never tried to do the same thing back home in Benin City. The answer seemed simple: maybe desperation and greed led to bad choices by those at home, but why?

I have always wondered why the same family bonds abroad that bring people together and help them do well disintegrate when they get back home. The only people I have seen who have kept these family bonds in business, tight at home and away, were the Igbo people. The interesting thing was that the car guy in London was also an Igbo man, but he couldn't leave a business with his people back home to run.

I later asked why, and he told me it was a high-end, personalized service that took years of apprenticeship to perfect. He was cleaning and detailing Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and other high-end cars for footballers and bankers. If he tried to train people to do that, they may end up taking the business away from him. I finally got my answer.

Trust is multifaceted. You have to first trust yourself before you can trust others. I have a barber in Lagos called Chika who has absolutely no fear that I would choose others over him, as we have had a relationship for decades. I have the same relationship with Chika as I had with my late co-founder, because we were always truthful with each other. It was something that grew over time.

I have followed Chika from Ikoyi Hotel to Victoria Island, to a shed when his shop was demolished, and finally to his current place, where he has operated for the last decade. I have even begged him to come to Accra, as I still don't have a regular barber here after 17 years. Many others in Lagos have the same relationship with him, and there are more of them there than in Accra. Chika is that good.

He has also been unable to transfer that skill to others, making his business less scalable. It will always remain a niche luxury service. The type of business we try to do matters. High-trust businesses with a personal touch require the founder to micromanage everything.

In Ghana, I once lost a $ 330k-a-year deal because someone (a Ghanaian) was too laid-back to respond to an email on time. Another Nigerian took the deal. Nigerians are more aggressive in doing business than others. So, I understand why people hire Nigerians abroad, especially in other African countries. They have more hunger. Nigerians choose Nigerians because they are easier to micromanage.

Hunger at home can easily turn into greed. A Nigerian guy I recruited in Lagos for a project at MTN Group in the early days had tried to circumvent me with my South African partner. I was lucky to have seen the email he wrote to that effect when he left his screen open in the office. I became more cautious about who I worked with. It repeated itself much later, when I saw that our internal company emails were being read in the Ericsson office before they poached a lot of our people.

Could these things have happened outside Africa? Maybe the probability would have been much less. The hunger is the same, but the greed is less, as many of the needs are usually already met. This is the same for Nigerians working in other parts of Africa. You don't need to worry about diesel for your generator, fuel scarcity, or security. When those basic needs are met, Nigerians become very different people.

This is why I keep telling people recruiting from the diaspora not to bring them to Nigeria, but to allow them to settle in other African countries for now. Trust is enhanced when people worry less about basic things.

This is a simple and pedestrian explanation, but trust me, it works all the time. There are people I know who would love to work for Nigerian companies but would never want to live in Nigeria. Hire them, but don't let them come back home unless you are ready to treat them as expats.

Nigeria is the problem with a lot of people; it is not because they are Nigerians but because they are in Nigeria.

[Chisom Agbafor @ChisomAgbafor]

One thing I noticed after meeting people from different countries is that Nigerians are raised with an insane amount of pressure attached to success.

Everything is urgency.

Make money quickly.
Blow quickly.
Figure life out quickly.
Help your family quickly.
Get married quickly.
Buy house quickly.

You people don’t even realize how much anxiety that kind of environment creates until you leave it for a while and suddenly meet people who are actually allowed to grow at a normal human pace.

[Alex Secara @thesecara]

when your first 6 YouTube videos brought $300 in new MRR

so now you have to shoot more

[Asiké @Asike__]

People can sing❤️

[Asiké @Asike__]

@asemota Bournemouth away is even more slippery
as the cherries are better on the counter + got better individual players than Everton

[Arsenal @Arsenal]

Everything in its right place.

[Asiké @Asike__]

@ReplitSupport @manishkhara @amasad @Replit I sent a dm

[B/R Football @brfootball]

Bukayo Saka's assist brought everyone to their feet... except Raúl Jiménez 😭

(via @NBCSportsSoccer)

[Ty Ngachira @anto_ty]

Addiction is proof that you are capable of intense devotion. You just have a false god

[tonyolendo.eth @tonyolendo]

Kid: So daddy, what happened when you got stuck on a bug before AI?

Dad: We'd go this site called Stack Overflow and ask absolute strangers for help

Kid: And then what?

Dad: The package maintainers would ask you "why would you do that?". Then you'd respond but the maintainer would say "working as intended" and send a link to the exact same documentation you shared earlier.

Kid: Then what would happen?

Dad: You'd join these god-awful daily meetings called standups where you'd be asked about the bug, but you have no update. Maybe work on something else in the meantime. The package maintainers would have closed your issue by and declared it a feature, not a bug. You then have to reopen it, contest it or paste a full stack trace that would log everything.

Kid: Wow, then what daddy?

Dad: You'd keep searching and find another issue that's EXACTLY like yours, you'd follow OPs thread only to find he said "solved it, thanks" but wouldn't post the actual fix and the maintainer says "glad it worked".

Kid: So no solution yet?

Dad: No, but it's day 3 of standup and you're avoiding eye-contact with the senior dev while searching LinkedIn for open positions but eventually you don't go on that date, lock in and go read all the documentation afresh, log everything and fix it yourself.

Kid: amazing, and you'd update your post with the fix right?

Dad: um...