Nigerian economic crisis? who should we blame?

The nigerian economy in crisis.

The SEC chief blames the banks for the current economic downturn and mainly for the stock market plunge. He blamed the ways the banks gave out loans and their way of raising money.

Lending is a vital part of every capitalist economy, but sometimes not paying back the loans can bring out the cons of a capitalistic system or a free market.

In Nigeria, 388 billion naira in such loans could not be recovered, why? Because mainly the loans where used to buy shares in the then thriving stock market and the colaterals used to borrow such loans where also stocks. In an event of any bear market, consumer confidence will plunge and a big sell out will make the market fall further thereby making the borrowed money depreciate with the stock prices and as the collateral also depreciates, this causes more kaos and panic. Even if the borrower sells the stocks, plus the stocks, he cannot pay back the loans and the banks are left with collateral in stocks that are almost worthless. In this kind of scenario, the borrower or investor loses everything and the bank too loses the money it lent out.

This is very similar to what happened in the US, only for what we have in Nigeria may be less stable and a bit more risky. there also, the crisis was ignited when people took mortgage, they couldnt pay back the money they borrowed for their homes, while the homes depreciated in value and they were forced to go into foreclosure. The lost their homes and the banks got stuck with real estate far less in value than the money the lent out to the home owner. The crisis hit the banks real hard that Government had to intervene and many people lost their jobs, many more their homes.

What we are seeing here in Nigeria could be worse than what there is in the US. why? Because the stock market is more volatile than the real estate or housing market, i.e a housing crisis could be a bit more stable than a stock market crash.

As a solution, we can see how the Government in America reacts to its crisis. If successful, we can borrow a few startegies and save the economy.

Also government can buy and hold a few stocks to reduce the amount of selling and dealing that causes the stock to plunge back as soon as they start gaining some ground and people start selling off again. the sec can also intervene and try and enforce a minimum holding period for some stocks so as to eliminate some trading done by investors to profit from turmoil like this.

The executives responsible for this shouldnt go unpurnished if the is proof of their wrong doing or carelessness.

At first, the Government officials though that Nigeria was immune to the global economic crisis. I dont blame them, though I dont know why the thought so, but I also though we were immune to the crisis citing our growing revenues from crude oil sales. I thought we were heading into a boom like in india and china only that ours is not fuelled by manufacturing or information technology but by crude oil.

I did not expect the crude oil prices to fall back quickly and now we are stuck in a correction following the overvaluing and manipulation of share prices in the stock market.

Anyone knows where we are heading?

NIGERIAN CURIOSITY: NIGERIA'S INTERNET FUTURE

NIGERIAN CURIOSITY: NIGERIA'S INTERNET FUTURE

Nigerian online payment solutions, which one to use?

As a growing online economy, Nigeria's ecommerce is still in it's infancy, and the scammers are not helping things.

There is still no universal online payment system and this is much needed for Internet startups and online retailers to make money and grow. This is a big limiting factor.

For Nigeria's Internet economy to have any significance to foreign investors and venture capital firms, they have to be able to generate some revenue. Where will the revenue come from if its not safe to buy or sell anything online. Something has to be done!

Anyways a few companies are trying to solve this problem, but is the online community with them?

Interswicth:- The biggest ATM/debit card provider in Nigeria. They are also in the e-payment, online payment business. The users may be a bit more comfortable with this service and it can easily claim being the biggest online payment service because of its large number of ATM card users due to their e-banking contarcts with so many banks in the country. The startup cost for websites here is around 150,000 Naira.

Fastecash:- This service is very similar to paypal, users make bank deposits to fastecash's bank account and their online account is credited which they can use to pay for goods and services on websites registered to the service, users can also apply for credit cards so they can pay for the services they buy in dollars from international websites.

NetNaira:- This service claims to have more than 15,000 members. Registered members can use ATMs to load their online accounts and pay for goods and services on Nigerian sites that are registered with NetNaira.

Nigerian Internet marketers

I think at first I underestimated the knowledge of many Nigerian Internet marketers.
I think this is part of Ignorance from my side.
Being into internet marketing since 2002, that is long before most of them had a website or even email adress, I just didnt listen to any of them when they started out.
I have learnt from so many of the World renowned Internet marketers, but I still learnt a lot from our own Internet marketers here in Nigeria.

I have began studying most of them and here are a few that I find most interesting.

Lateef Olajide

I think he is the most respected of Nigerian Internet Marketers, he owns the site Internet Marketing Nigeria, I have read a lot of his articles and he surely knows what he is doing.


There are a few other names that I will write on and study them more

Have You read the Classic?

If you have read the classic "think and grow rich" by napoleon hill, you will come across this sort of idea in chapter 2.(the idea I talked about in my last post on this blog).
In the former post, I wrote the article without knowing of such an idea in the book think and grow rich, and just a week later while reading the book I came across it and I thought "oh I just blogged about this".

The idea was stated in his list of 6 steps to transmuting a desire for riches into financial success.
The idea was clearly stated in step 6 and brought up again and again in the following chapters.

# ways of motivating yourself to work towards achievement

Sometimes, setting up a time table to finish a certain project isn't always enough to have you work at your best and make sure you meet up with the date. Projects or building products or business may suffer not being completed or dropped in the market at the right (best) time due to delays and lack of motivation from the product builders or people working on the project.

How many times would you spot an idea and a good money making potential and sit back and do nothing about it or sometimes you start and stop or just forget about it on the way.
The most successful people in the world are highly motivated and focused. Whenever they get busy with something, there is no turning back.

So how can you get yourself motivated, focused and not be a failure in what you do.
I am a writer and a building designer, to succeed in either of these fields, one needs not to be lazy and one needs to be highly focussed.If I will take longer than usually to produce completed building designs, I would slow the project, the client and the contractor. This will affect future jobs I get and I will end up not having a job at all.

As far as writing is concerned, sometimes you just dont feel like picking up a pen to write or logging on to a computer totype a story, and if you dont move yourself to do so, no words means no job to a writer, so you really need to settle down, compose yourself and come up with a good article, take your time to do reviews and corrections if you want that article to be presentable and to fetch you anything.

Sometimes you just feel too busy to do anything, so let my give you a few tips that may help.

1. put on a video and move staright to a rich fabolous scene.
2. read a quote or a page in an inspirational book
3. picture yourself in the future (as a rich and succesful individual)

In the next post we will explain more on how it is done, till then...

Nigerian Forum

In our first feature we will review Nigeria's no 1 online forum, though it is not a start up, but with a good makeover it will be one of Nigeria's hottest web destinations.

Nairaland.com

Members - About 250,000 members

Type - Nigerian forum


Nairaland is a very busy forum for nigerians to discuss all sorts of topics (including gossip) its been online for a while and is also a good spot for promoting anything targeting Nigerians.

It has subforums for entertainment, politics, business and many more.

Possible Makeover - The forum can be transformed into a social network discussion, features like better profile pages, picture and video sharing can be added to improve the user experience.



If you have a Internet startup in Nigeria or one targeting Nigerians, drop us a comment and we will give it a visit to consider it for review.