BO

Venture Capital & Startups in Africa & Emerging Markets | Advisory Board Member, GreenTech Africa

إِنَّا لِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ

[BO @bamiolajide_]

God is the Greatest! ✨

[This Account Makes You Happy @FeelYouHappy]

The Netherlands hides massive trash containers underground so their streets stay spotless👏

[ncc.gov.ng @NgComCommission]

Joint Press Statement: Requirement for Prior Regulatory Approval on Changes in Shareholding/Ownership Structure of Communications Companies

[The Transcript @TheTranscript_]

$GS Senior Chairman Emeritus Lloyd Blankfein: Becoming CEO involved substantial luck

“I got to be CEO of Goldman Sachs because my predecessor got nominated to be Treasury Secretary. Had he not been that, maybe he would have lasted five more years in the job and maybe I would have been too old for it at that point.”

[Classic Learning Test @CLT_Exam]

A culture that cannot explain why virtue matters will eventually stop producing virtuous people.

[BO @bamiolajide_]

@Yinkaoke My investor! 😌👊🏼

[BO @bamiolajide_]

Aradel releases result (finally!):

https://t.co/gmhU8OeEQf

#NGX

[Prof™ @OOlusore]

This is one of the many reasons why Hospitals like UCH are not properly funded.

(Houses built for Judges)

[Nurseinvestor @abalu_uthman]

These MTNN insiders are not here to play oo.
I know what to do 😊

[BO @bamiolajide_]

@Kpono_Abasi He's bought over 1.2B of MTN shares in the past few days
https://t.co/ltlNKwEZeO

[Nigerian Stocks on Bamboo @ngnstx]

INSIDER BUY NOTIFICATION:
Stock: MTN Nigeria Communications Plc
Txn Date(s): June 16–17, 2026
Aggregate Value: ₦1,027,809,764.48
Breakdown: 1,313,732 units at an average price of ₦782.39 per share
Insider: Modupe Kadri
Position: ED/CFO

[BO @bamiolajide_]

This MTN CFO, Modupe Kadri, is dangerously liquid! MTN's recent insider buying disclosures >> 🔥

[Olúṣeun Onìgbìndé @seunonigbinde]

@thekintann @BlehisBack He should write his manifesto and speak to it. I also like leaders who theorize their ideas in books and have an ideological bent. Our political elite recruitment framework is very poor.

[Geiger Capital @Geiger_Capital]

There is no magic soil.
A nation is simply it's people.

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

It was great joining Njideka Akunyili Crosby — a gifted Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist — to unveil our first portrait together. This piece reflects so many chapters of Michelle and my story, and we’re thrilled that it will be on display in the Hope and Change lobby at the Obama Presidential Center starting this Juneteenth.

[shirish @shiri_shh]

Elon Musk: "You cannot ask for two years of salary in escrow and consider yourself a cofounder.

There's got to be some combination of inspiration, perspiration, and risk to be a cofounder."

when Elon recruited Mueller in 2002 from a stable job at TRW, he insisted that two years of his salary be placed in escrow as protection in case SpaceX failed.

Musk agreed to the escrow arrangement, but this directly influenced how Musk viewed him.

[Basil @basilabia]

The year is 2027 and no single Nigerian city or local government area can manage its waste competently.

We have had nearly 70 years as a republic, and at least 112 years as a people in a unified geographical area to figure things out.

Unacceptable civilizational incompetence!

[BO @bamiolajide_]

https://t.co/0I281jnvZ2

[Rufybaba @Rufyb]

Late yesterday, the S&P Global Ratings announced what some folks had anticipated. Nigeria’s credit rating was upgraded by one notch to B (five levels below investment grade), the first upgrade since 2012. According to S&P, the considerations for the credit rating upgrade were:

✑ Higher oil prices
✑ Improved capacity to refine and export crude
✑ The decision to liberalise the exchange rate

This is a big win.

I have seen, in some places, the frustration over the gap between macro wins and micro pains. The honest answer is that the average Nigerian on the roadside cannot connect this progress to their well-being today. They will only feel it through a longer transmission chain that has not yet finished playing out.

A credit upgrade essentially signals to the global market that Nigeria is a less risky borrower, allowing the federal government and major Nigerian corporates to borrow at cheaper rates abroad. The bread-seller in Mushin does not borrow from JP Morgan or from the international debt market, so the immediate effect on her bottom line is zero.

Where it eventually shows up for her is in three indirect channels:

✑ First, cheaper sovereign borrowing means the FG can enter the international debt market and borrow at a lower rate to refinance some of its costly debt. This will result in lower debt service spend and, in theory, provide more fiscal room for roads, power, security, etc.

✑ Second, lower country-risk attracts FDI and portfolio inflows, which strengthens the Naira (we might see an extended stability in the FX market. Naira is still likely to remain a darling). The imported inflation will also slow, and this is the channel where the Mushin trader would feel it the fastest.

✑ Coys can refinance their debt or raise capital for expansion. A business expansion opens the door to hiring, which means higher income in the economy.

However, all of these still depend entirely on whether the reforms continue and whether the fiscal headroom is actually deployed productively rather than consumed (I've been hearing news of how APC Governors have been cornering funds for the Presidential campaign. Toor).

By the way, my family members and I in the equities market will smile at this development.

[Rufybaba @Rufyb]

These things are very desirable, but frankly, a lot of people in that business surely know the value of processing; the sad story is the economics. The economics.

Processing does not scale because the business case is extremely difficult. The industrial chain from raw cocoa seeds to finished products is long.

You need factories, machines, power, water, quality control, packaging, storage, logistics, working capital, distribution, brand, and patient capital. It is capital intensive.

Investors or entrepreneurs consider the viability of a project or business before allocating capital; it is not enough that a product has a higher selling price.

A profitable product (gross margins) may not be a profitable business (operating margins).

You will fight multiple battles at once if you are a manufacturer in Nigeria today, and these battles will limit your scale.

✑ Power is expensive
✑ Diesel is expensive
✑ cost of capital is high (and you are in an environment that hardly provides long-term capital. Very impatient capital, in fact).
✑ ports are not exactly there
✑ Logistics is expensive (look at the haulage and distribution costs of even the top manufacturing firms)
✑ The quality compliance required to make a meaningful product involves high costs
✑ On top of all of these, you then have very price-sensitive consumers.

Anyone who dabbles in such a gigantic project must be able to provide their entire infrastructure before it can work. And providing your infrastructure means some really, really serious capital—crazy one. And when you provide the infrastructure, there is still no guarantee that it will work.

Small deviation
Can we list the top manufacturing firms in Nigeria today? You can think of Nestlé, Nigerian Breweries and the likes. Those guys have been here since my father was born. And they have strong backing from foreign capital.

The ones we look up to, Dangote Cement and BUA Cement, needed the entire industry to be locked down for them to be truly successful—the same goes for Okomu and Presco.

The pattern is that Investors will only deploy capital when they are 100% sure that the industry will be locked down for them, and, as the evidence clearly shows, the value created by such industrialisation only expands inequality in society. The substance is that no concrete value is created.

Back to my gist
If we want cocoa factories (and many other manufacturing activities) to work or thrive, we must fix the conditions that cause factories to fail. At a minimum, fix the power issues.

In your free time, check out FTN Cocoa. Check out Multi-trex. Also, find out why Cadbury has not done more since it began doing business in Nigeria.

[Chase Passive Income @chasedownleads]

Elon Musk didn’t become a trillionaire until age 54

Relax, you still have time