AFTER Nigerians had soaked up another disappointment from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the postponement of the February 16 general elections to February 23, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) began to count the losses the country has incurred.

The director-general, Muda Yusuf, said that the postponement cost the country about $1.5 billion. This may not be far from the truth, but LCCI probably came up with the figure with little or no consideration for the informal sector, which contributes more than 80 per cent to the economy.

Of course, there is no parameter to adequately measure how much the bricklayers, painters, plumbers, fashion designers, shoemakers and tailors, who operate as sole proprietors, make daily or monthly, they are more affected by government policies, including the recent election postponement.   

Those that had earlier fixed social activities on March 9, due to the election would have to change the date, while their contracted event planners must reschedule their itinerary.

The LCCI boss is of the view that the last minute decision of the electoral umpire has definitely affected the economy and will affect mostly the informal sector in the weeks to come.

The petty food vendors, artisans, commercial motorcyclists and bus drivers were the bigger losers that ‘holy’ Saturday, as they recorded low patronage.

Food vendors who were contracted by political parties to supply foods to their agents ran at a loss because most of their condiments perished.

The mechanic workshops across Lagos metropolis were under lock and key. Tailor and barber shops were shut and could not deliver to their clients.

Many residents took time to rest, while a few commercial buses that hit the road after the postponement could not make much. The roads were virtually free in Lagos and this may continue because many residents had travelled out of the metropolis to vote where they had registered.

INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, announced the postponement about 2.30am that Saturday, a few hours to the proposed election, making it difficult for the players in this informal sector to attend to their customers.

Mrs. Toyin Ogunleye, who owns a restaurant on Kadiri Street, Alausa, Ikeja, said: “I woke up to prepare the doughnut for party agents early on Saturday, but was shocked to learn that the election had been postponed.”

One of the political parties had contracted Ogunleye to provide meal for its agents. She told our correspondent that she lost over N75,000 for not being able to make the doughnuts.

“I was only given 40 per cent of the fund to prepare the doughnuts for about 100 polling units. I had bought ingredients, some of them perishable. I could not keep them till next week. I cannot go ahead with the plan unless the party will be ready to pay more money,” she said.

Prior to the election day, vehicular traffic was high. Many Nigerians travelled from one location to another to cast their ballot. According to INEC rules, a voter can only vote where he registered.

Investigations revealed that some of the automobile and electronic spare parts sellers at Ladipo, Mushin and Alaba areas of Lagos, who are of Igbo ethnic stock, actually travelled to exercise their franchise in the south-eastern part of the country where they registered.

There was exodus across the southwest states before the election. But many were disappointed, following the postponement.

Except for government workers or private sector employees, many of those who travelled last week, mostly the artisans, may not return to Lagos until after the February 23 polls.

As at Monday, February 18, some shops and stores had not opened because the owners had not returned. 

Commenting, a bar and restaurant operator, Mr. Sunday Dominic, said he would have made good sales if the election had taken place. As he put it, “I have stocked my fridge with drinks, so that political party’s supporters could resume here after the polls to unwind. This never happened because the election was postponed.”

Dominic, who operates a bar at Yaya Abatan, Ogba area of Lagos, said he opened his shop on that Saturday evening but could not make tangible sales because many of his customers were politicians whose hope of getting some money was dashed due to the postponement.

To Mr. Femi Idowu, founder of Canopies, an event planning business, the postponement destabilised his operation. Idowu lives in Magboro, a suburb in Ogun State. He told our correspondent that he travelled to Sagamu on Friday to entertain some politicians, but ended the event abruptly.

“I organised one-man music show. The politicians were having nice time when we heard the news that the election had been postponed. The news destabilised everybody. I could not even ask for my imbursement,” he said.

Mathew Adewole, a tailor on Alhaja Tijani Street, Ojodu, told us that he could not deliver to his customers because his embroidery operator had travelled to the north for election.

He said, “I have gone to his shop. I have been calling his telephone numbers, but he would not pick. I pray he comes back this week to complete the job.”

However, in a statement signed by the deputy director of Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), Kolawole Oluwadare, the postponement of Nigeria’s elections since 2007 shows a systemic failure of leadership at the highest level of government, and suggests that the country’s electoral process is deliberately skewed in favour of politicians’ interests, who continue to profit from the corruption and impunity that have characterised the process since 1999, and against those of the citizens.”

While condemning the postponement, which of course will affect the economy for the next one or two weeks, SERAP urged Nigerians to take more active role in the fight against corruption, including putting pressure on the authorities at the federal and state levels to comprehensively reform, upgrade and modernise the electoral system and process. “Otherwise, citizens’ right to participate in the governance system will remain a ‘hollow right’.”

The organisation added: “It is time to push for revolutionary changes in how Nigeria conducts its elections. The changes should effectively deploy modern technology, which has been successfully used in the business and other sectors in the country. Such changes may include the introduction of a national system of Internet voting, to innovative ideas on how to adapt the election systems to facilitate participation by different sectors of the population, to conform with twenty-first century elections.”

A 25-year-old barber, Sani Hussaini, has advised unemployed youths to go into barbing business, as it is rewarding. 

Sani said the business could be learnt within months, if an apprentice is dedicated and ready to learn.

“I learnt barbing from one of my friends who is also a barber; I started with barbing children and later adults before I got my freedom to start on my own.

“I make N4,000 to N5,000 daily from barbing and I have trained three people who are now well-established barbers,” he said.

Hussaini, who is a secondary school leaver, said although the business had been paying his bills, he plans to diversify into laundry.

Young people, he advised, should avoid the tendency of staying idle waiting for non-existent white-collar jobs, instead should learn a trade and be self-reliant.

It is a widely accepted fact that no economy can survive without a flourishing Small and Medium-size Enterprise, or a Micro, Small and Medium-size Enterprise sector. This is because it is impossible for the government to employ everyone, and one of the best ways to solve the myriad of unemployment problems is to empower individuals to become employers themselves.

For many decades, several administrations in Nigeria have come up with plans and programmes aimed at growing the sector, but the issue of programme sustainability has stumped the growth of the sector. This has necessitated some corporate organisations to set up one SME forum or the other to assist the growth of the sector and offer some form of stability. This move, while strategic, is dependent on the availability of funding from the supporting company, and how well the said company’s business is faring in the marketplace.

According to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment in 2018, Nigeria’s over 37.07 million MSMEs account for more than 84 per cent of jobs in the country.

The onus then falls on the small businesses themselves to tough things out and survive as business orphans with no support from either the government or the private sector. SMEs and MSMEs in Nigeria today provide services for their businesses, which ideally they should not, than their counterparts in developed climes.

Among the number of alarming expenditure incurred by these small businesses, power stands out as their leading bane in Nigeria, and indeed most parts of Africa. SMEs purchase generators and other power generating mechanisms at exorbitant prices and constantly fuel it because the public power supply is not dependable for a growing business.

Multiple taxations is another headache that threatens the continued operations of many SMEs. Start-ups in Nigeria are, daily,  bombarded with bills from federal, state, and local government agencies; sometimes almost simultaneously with sanctions and place of business locked up for the delay in payment. Touts too cash in on the onslaught of these start-ups.

Start-ups that are into products or services that involve movement also experience a problem with the transportation of goods and service from one part of the state or country to other parts. Many internal roads are not motorable, and those that are, extort a high price from vehicles due to the poor state of the road. This leads to added cost for repairs and replacement of damaged vehicles and goods coupled with the extortions by ill-entitled touts and some corrupt uniformed personnel.

In the end, these extra costs and services add up as extra to the SMEs’ delivery, meaning that SMEs cannot sustain a competitive enough price to elicit sales and sustain the business at a break-even pricing policy. This stunts the growth of that business as it is focused more on surviving than thriving and competing favourably in the marketplace, thereby lending credence to the estimation that over 90 per cent of SMEs liquidate almost as fast as they set up business.

Some SMEs that manage to survive these issues die off because even though there is a market for their products and services, they cannot reach the market because they can’t afford the cost of advertising. To demand a product, you need to know it exists.

To advertise products in a newspaper cost averagely N200,000 for a quarter-page advert. If the start-ups aim to achieve ten major newspapers that would cost about N2m to promote the brand or its products in one advert campaign in the papers only.

With the addition of television, radio, digital media (online and social media), there is no way a regular start-up can afford these expenses without going bankrupt. The rising apathy towards adverts, which has seen readers and consumers continue to flip advert pages and tune their TV and radio stations to other stations when an advert comes on air, is not going to help SMEs out of their predicament.

Public Relations offers start-ups a better option to create awareness and expand brand visibility at an almost insignificant cost; with the 80 per cent probability that the content will be accessed and digested by most people who pick up the newspaper, watch the TV, listen to radio, and visit social media.

PR will also succeed in promoting small businesses where advert fails for these listed reasons –

*PR is more cost effective. The N200,000 to N250,000 for a quarter-page in just one newspaper advert can be used to achieve better mileage in 10 newspapers and online platforms when PR is deployed.

*PR is more efficient: unlike adverts, target readers don’t avoid PR content, rather they seek it because they can’t distinguish between news content and a PR content.

*Advert allows people to form opinions about the product/brand, while PR influences target readers to have a positive opinion towards the product.

*PR builds the reputation of the start-up, which will come handy in the future when the brand needs to rely on past good deeds. PR contents also serve as a reference point for potential customers to make research about the business.

*PR is more detailed and not a hurried product. Most viewers or readers miss the message of an advert because the copy was designed with the limitation of the timeline. When the reader doesn’t follow the message fast enough, then that potential lead has been lost.

*PR is entertaining and engaging: through the use of storytelling, PR is able to keep target customers captive as they enjoy reading the content about the brand or its products.

*Advert emphasises push promotion with conditional languages such as, “buy now while offer lasts,” with a disclaimer at the end which sometimes makes potential customers push back. But PR places emphasis on pull promotion by focusing on entertaining, informing and educating customers, leading them to seek the content voluntarily. Advert messages instruct potential customers to buy, but PR offers reasons why they should buy.

*PR provides the business other incentives that other promotions can’t such as interviews for the company’s chief executive officer, features, profile, and backgrounders.

*Aside these, PR offers advisory services to the business, which could save the brand from crisis situations.

Start-ups need business or brand visibility that can help position them in the comity of companies and package them as a larger than life brand even though they are start-ups. In business, perception is everything and if potential customers are not persuaded or subtly convinced to patronise a business, that customer might be lost for good.

Building favourable perception about business makes sale-goals easier to achieve. Customers tend to patronise familiar brands better than unknown brands, and when a narrative is used to promote the brand it makes recall-ability easier.

Organisations are not established for charity purposes. Over time, they must grow and make profit. As such, businesses are always searching for ways to boom. One of such ways organisations are yet to explore is the ecosystem model.

Jumia, Africa’s only e-commerce unicorn, has proven over the years that the ecosystem model works.
Starting out as an e-commerce platform where you can only order for household items, Jumia has gone beyond buying household items. Shoppers can now book hotels and flights, order food and even pay for orders within the Jumia ecosystem. In fact, it has gotten to the extent that there is now Jumia One where you can get almost every service you desire from paying for your subscription to recharging your phone and even reading the news. It is all about keeping the customers within the ecosystem.

Companies in the ecommerce sector that are not looking at adopting this model are either being sold off or liquidated. This said, we shall discuss some of the ways the ecosystem model can boost business growth.

Higher chances of attracting investments
Investors are interested in companies that have a solid lifespan. So, when it comes to attracting investment from investors, it has a higher chance of attracting them. Importantly, not just any kind of investor, but one that is ready to strive and dive with the business to ensure that it grows and becomes profitable.

Reduce costs
One of the ways to reduce cost is by adopting the ecosystem model. This is because when processes are efficient, they take less time to execute, can have fewer steps, and can make wasteful activities more obvious and therefore easier to eliminate. So, if you are offering products in different verticals, you will try as much as possible to guarantee quality and efficiency by preventing wastages and ensuring that the right number of people is doing the job.

Improve customer experience and revenue
Effective processes on the revenue side of the business drive sales success and improve pricing accuracy and product development. Structured processes mean you can measure and understand what customers want and create a consistently excellent customer experience that the salespeople can use to sell and retain customers. This allows sales managers to actively manage the sales process without clashing with other verticals, improve sell-through rates and control pricing and discounts.

Reduce risk
The risk of running a business ecosystem is reasonably low as long as you have the right people running the different verticals. Simply, ensure that there is a clear line of reporting as well as checks and balances. Since rigorous processes make it easier to identify causes, they reduce the risk of issues existing in your operations for very long.

Make the business easier to manage
Over time, an ecosystem model will become very easy to manage. This is because processes can be measured, and this means that you can put those processes into systems, measure them and know their outputs without needing to directly observe them. This means that good processes allow executives and managers to manage the business without needing to be involved with every operational detail.

Source: Adeniyi Ogunfowoke