Opinion: Lagos and its steady shift towards excellence

by John Onwumere

ekoLagos is the city of this century, in the near future don’t bother going to Dubai for your shopping, and watch out for the Eko Atlantic City.

Lagos is the economic capital of Nigeria, the most populous city in Nigeria with an estimated number of twenty million people. A recent research by Renaissance Capital (Rencap) projects that Lagos will be the 13th largest economy in Africa by 2014. It produces about 12 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP which is equivalent to $32 billion by the end of this financial year. Lagos is attracting entrepreneurs at a rate close to the speed of light. Investment, opportunities, infrastructures are springing up with a touch of brilliance and in the near future the dream Lagos will be born – ‘Eko Atlantic City’.

Going back in time to the 80s and 90s, the business model in use was more of a linear model where there was direct sale of only goods and services. I remember vividly going into a retail store where your transaction is straight forward and succinct, a manual style where you ask the price of a commodity then hand cash to the seller and you are given your goods in a paper bag. The level of sophistication and expertise was at the barest minimum. It might suffice to say that business was performed on a slate at a fledgling level; shop owners cared little about the comfort and aesthetics of the business space, customer relationship, after-sales services, e.t.c. Doing business then is a far cry of what is available now.

The millennium merged business with technology, thirteen years after, the business world in Lagos has gone digital. With the click of a button you can make purchases on the internet and your goods will be delivered to your doorstep, you don’t need to go through the stress of waking up at the wee hours to get a tally number to do your bank transactions. A new transformation has come; civilization is catching up with us. Some of our parents who are stuck with the old ways are forced to ‘make the shift’. The paradigm shift that ‘Thomas Kuhn’ talked about, a shift from the norm or the status-quo. I laugh when I hear expressions like ‘that was the way it was done before the civil war’, ‘it has always been done like this’, technology is moving so fast that businesses can’t afford to slow pace. You will agree with me that the pressure social media is placing on individuals and businesses are so immense that if you don’t jump on the band-wagon you’ll be left behind. Most businesses now have a social media department that negotiates deals with clients and also improves their on-line presence. In 2012, some companies in the US, such as ‘Netflix’ are so heavily integrated into social media that they planned to make disclosures to investors on Facebook and Twitter, and a tech giant such as ‘Enterasys Systems’ makes headlines by hiring based on tweets rather than résumés. Even our own politicians are actively present on Twitter and Facebook trying to lure more following. Unlike the 90s business is moving at the speed of thought. I like to call it a shift to excellence.

A customer now has ample rights and opportunities in the business world because the competition is way over board. One cannot afford to slack for a second or else one will be run over by adversaries.  Being a customer is more fun, you are treated like a ‘V.I.P flying first class’, the malls are now so conducive that shopping is equivalent to an excursion, you feel like spending the whole day there. Customers are well related to, sometimes I’m just carried away that I justify the want of spending more money. If you go to the malls with her then the cashless policy will take a toll on you. With this policy you don’t need to carry cash, just your loaded card and the world is yours.

The population and hard work of Lagosians invite and attract commerce, talk more of the new Eko Atlantic City. The hustle and bustle of the early risers makes Lagos look like an action movie. This is the machinery that drives the blossoming economy of Lagos combined with the efforts of the past and present governments having taken advantage of this attribute has improved infrastructure, construction of roads and a city rail network, investment opportunities, created a near-level playing field for both small, medium and large scale businesses.  The ‘Distance to Frontier’ (DTF) percentage points, for Nigeria increased from 54.0 in 2012 to 54.3 in 2013, though small but significant. Our dear erudite Dr Mrs Okonjo-Iweala has always portrayed our country as the best place for investment, just recently the IMF and World Bank ranked us 131st out of 185 best countries where one can do business. I dare to add that Lagos is the first port of call.  The New York Times estimates Lagos to be Africa’s largest city by population surpassing Cairo. Statistics shows that 65 percent of the nation’s non-oil Gross Domestic Product is from Lagos, it also accounts for over 60 percent of Nigeria’s value added manufacturing.

Lagos is the city of this century, in the near future don’t bother going to Dubai for your shopping, and watch out for the Eko Atlantic City. ‘Eko o ni baje’.

————————-

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail