When Uju Uzo-Ojinnaka, CEO and founder of Traders of Africa (TOFA), was informed about the need for groundnuts in India by her friend in Ghana, she had no idea that her online trading platform would stem from this demand. She discovered that there was no platform to locate groundnut producers, resulting in the loss of the deal.

She woke up in the middle of the night, puzzled. She shouldn’t let this opportunity slip by. Having studied Jack Ma and being able to relate to his frustration of not seeing Chinese beer online, she decided to create TOFA that very evening. This way, she reasoned, Africans will have access to more than just Nigerian peanuts. 

Today, the platform includes food, beverages, apparel, houseware, furniture, beauty and personal care products, packaging and supplies, minerals as well as agricultural supplies and produce. TOFA allows you to search for products and to see their availability anywhere in Africa.

A Pan-African platform

Uzo-Ojinnaka’s aim was to create an online marketplace for products grown, produced and manufactured in Africa and to facilitate trade with and within the continent.

One of the reasons this hasn’t been happening is detailed on the UN Africa Renewal website: “African countries are grappling to undo a legacy dominated by trade with their former colonial rulers rather than with each other.”

This is further unpacked in an article on the same website explaining how to boost trade within Africa. She says that within a month, she launched her platform in five African countries. By September 2017, she had connected with 9,000 suppliers. 

Building trust

But there was a hiccup. Although people were on TOFA, trade was not happening mostly because of distrust. Buyers and sellers didn’t trust each other, and nobody was willing to make the first move. 

This is not surprising. Emeka Ajene, the co-founder of Gozem, defines African markets as low-trust environments and stresses the importance of character, reputation and integrity. 

“It’s easier for someone who is selling something online for $1 because you can risk losing that. But nobody is going to risk losing $20,000,” explains Uzo-Ojinnaka.   

“What we did then was to create an offline part of the platform, which is accessible to buyers and sellers. Through this, we were able to facilitate the building of trust between them.”

It extends to company culture

She adds, “I need to settle my home first, and I tell my staff the same thing. Before they come to work, they must settle their homes first. If their home is not settled, there’s nothing they can do at work. 

“I want TOFA to be so successful that it outgrows me and to the point that I can’t handle it anymore. If, when that point comes that I have to leave and I’ve sacrificed my family, where will I go?” 

And according to Sarah Rice, Chief People Officer at Skynamo, culture isn’t just a set of values. It’s a set of behaviours linked to values. 

Six tricks of the trade

The TOFA founder eagerly shares a few of her biggest lessons but admits that being an entrepreneur means that you will always be a student: 

1. What works today may not work tomorrow
2. Never give up
3. Don’t waste any time. Just start. Now
4. You will always need to pivot and re-strategise, and
5. It is not going to be easy. 

Uzo-Ojinnaka concludes, “I realised that having a dream is not enough. The difficult part is getting people who already have their own dreams to buy into yours. That is what makes companies succeed. The dream is yours and nobody can interpret it better than you.” 

Inc

Let Trade Run Free. Tie your currency to the US dollar. Align your foreign policy with America’s. The US and its Western partners wrote these economic rules, a cornerstone of the world order prevailing since World War II. Now developing countries, often called the Global South, are quietly revising them.

The Global South sees a chance to chart its own future. Nirupama Menon Rao, a former Indian foreign secretary, points to her country’s spreading of digital payments to developing nations. “India’s outreach to countries in the Global South has been ­successful,” the one-time ambassador to the US told Bloomberg Television in June.

Developing nations are demanding control of their resources, reordering a relationship from colonial times, in part by insisting on factories in their own countries. Joining Namibia and Zimbabwe, Ghana is preparing to ban exports of lithium—essential for electric vehicles. Indonesia prohibited the export of nickel ores.

Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Indonesia are welcoming investments in EV battery plants from China rather than the US. “We can’t keep begging and begging from you,” Luhut Panjaitan, an Indonesian investment minister, said in May. “You may be angry at us for trading with other countries, but we have to survive.”

While visiting China in April, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asked “who decided that the dollar” should be all-­powerful. The Bank of Thailand is talking up fresh plans to diversify its basket of currencies, which it uses to establish the value of the baht, so it’s less tied to the dollar. Indonesia is shoring up local currency markets, as regional neighbors set up digital payment systems, reducing the need for the dollar in day-to-day purchases. Africa is discussing a common currency.

Adding a geopolitical component, countries are no longer picking sides in fights between the West and Russia or the US and China. Thirty-two countries abstained from a United Nations resolution in ­February demanding that Russia withdraw from Ukraine.

Leaders such as Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Philippine Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno sound like they’re reading from a script when they explain their neutrality with variations of the words “we’re a friend to all.” In June, when a Chinese vessel antagonized an American warship in the Taiwan Strait, Asian defense ministers at a summit in Singapore just emphasized avoiding conflict.

South Africa is denying a US ambassador’s claim that it’s supplying arms to Russia for its war against Ukraine. Vietnam has kept quiet about Ukraine. The reason: its onetime security partnership with Russia, which dates to the Vietnam War. India is buying Russian oil in defiance of US-led sanctions. “Energy is not about altruism or philanthropy,” oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri told Bloomberg TV in February.

The great powers’ behavior has soured many in the Global South: the debt-ceiling debacle and further political disarray in the US, China’s saber-rattling and Brexit in the UK. Pew Research Center survey results show unfavorable views of China reaching historical highs. But the US has failed to capitalize on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s declining popularity. “Xi Jinping has been God’s gift to US alliance-building in Asia,” says Ashley Tellis, a former senior State Department official now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The US has hardly offered a compelling alternative, according to former US Trade Representative Michael Froman. “They haven’t yet seen what our vision is for the future,” he told Bloomberg’s Stephanomics podcast in June. In response, the Global South has decided to come up with a vision of its own.

President Bola Tinubu has filed a motion seeking to prevent a federal court in the United States from releasing his university academic records to Atiku Abubakar, his principal opponent during Nigeria’s February 2023 presidential election.

Documents obtained by our correspondent showed Abubakar, on August 2, approached the States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to issue a subpoena for Chicago State University to release Tinubu’s school records, citing longstanding 

controversies around the Nigerian president’s background.

A Nigerian journalist, David Hundeyin, obtained records that showed a Bola Tinubu that attended Chicago State University in the 1970s was a female. 

The CSU registrar’s office had said that it graduated a Bola Tinubu on June 22, 1979, but did not elaborate when pressed on whether the student was a male or female, much less if it is the same person now occupying Nigeria’s presidency. 

Abubakar told the court he was seeking the documents as part of discovery to strengthen his legal challenge against the declaration of Tinubu as Nigeria’s president on March 1, 2023, following the hotly-contested February 23 election. 

But Tinubu quickly gathered his team of attorneys and asked to be added as an interested party in the suit, alleging that Chicago State University might be unable to fully protect his interest as the owner of the records being sought. 

“Tinubu should be allowed to join or intervene because he has a direct personal interest in records sought, his interests are not fully represented or

protected by Respondent Chicago State University, and his interests will be affected if he is not permitted to join or intervene,” the Nigerian leader argued in his motion to join the suit filed on August 3 and submitted by his Chicago attorney Christopher Carmichael.

“Chicago State University stated that its obligation is satisfied by providing notice of the application and attempt to access the records. Chicago State’s position is that it does not have an obligation to oppose the application and, therefore, CSU does not adequately represent Tinubu’s interests,” the filing said. 

Consequently, Tinubu argued that the records should not be released because they fell under a 1974 privacy law for American students. 

Abubakar’s lawsuit “indirectly seeks relief against Tinubu by seeking his records that the federal and state governments have determined should be confidential. See 20 U.S.C. § 1232(g) (describing the purpose of the Federal Educational Records and Privacy Act of 1974 as to protect students from a school’s unauthorized release of a student’s records); 105 ILCS 10/6(a) (prohibiting the release, transfer, disclosure and dissemination of school student records),” the attorneys argued. 

A federal judge had been assigned to the case, and both parties anticipated its expedited hearing and disposal, especially after Abubakar argued that the Nigerian election petitions tribunal would deliver a verdict around September 21, 2023. 

Abubakar previously filed a suit before a county court in Chicago, Illinois, but withdrew it in order to file a more comprehensive case at the federal court, which prompted the county judge to dismiss the earlier case from the docket and cleared the path for Abubakar’s federal complaint. Even though the county court handed off the case without prejudice, some Nigerian media outlets erroneously reported that Abubakar’s substantive case was dismissed.

But the Nigerian opposition leader’s filing showed he withdrew the case voluntarily to avoid any perception he was abusing the court process.

Abubakar, of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), welcomed Tinubu’s motion to join the suit. His team of lawyers said their client did not oppose Tinubu’s intention to join the suit, saying he was, in fact, previously told he should feel free to join.

PG

The naira, on Monday, closed at N774.78 per US dollar at the investors and exporters (I&E) window.

The figure signifies a depreciation of N31.71 or 4.27 percent compared to the N743.07 it traded on Friday, according to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange, a platform that oversees foreign exchange (FX) trading in Nigeria.

The I&E FX window is the market trading segment for investors, exporters and end-users that allows for FX trades to be made at exchange rates determined based on prevailing market circumstances. It is the country’s official FX market.

Since the government unified the exchange rate windows, the naira has consistently experienced fluctuations at the official window.

At the parallel market where the dollar is traded unofficially, Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators who spoke to TheCable in the Victoria Island area of Lagos said there was high demand for foreign currency.

The traders put the buying price of the dollar at N890 and the selling price at N897, leaving a profit margin of N7.

“Dollar keeps going up. Only God knows why,” trader simply identified as Musa said.

With the depreciation, the gap between the official and parallel market exchange rates is widening once again.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the professional services firm, recently projected higher inflation and continued volatility in the FX market in August.

The firm warned that petrol subsidy removal and the adoption of a managed float exchange rate system is expected to mount additional pressure on inflation.

The Cable

Nigeria tops the list of countries with the highest rate of unemployment, according to the latest statistics released by the World of Statistics.

Nigeria led with 33.3 per cent, followed by another African country, South Africa 32.9 per cent, and Iran 15.55 per cent.

The lowest rate of unemployment, according to the report, were in countries like Qatar: 0.1 per cent, Cambodia: 0.36 per cent, and Niger 0.5 per cent.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate in Nigeria increased to 33.30 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020 from 27.10 per cent in the second quarter of 2020.

Meanwhile, in a more recent report, a multinational consulting firm, KPMG, stated that the Nigerian unemployment rate had increased to 37.7per cent in 2022, and would further rise to 40.6per cent, due to the continuing inflow of job seekers into the job market.

The multinational consulting firm said unemployment would continue to be a challenge due to the slower-than-required economic growth, and the inability of the economy to absorb the 4-5 million new entrants into the Nigerian job market every year.

Centre for Social Justice recently, urged the National Bureau of Statistics to compile, and release the current unemployment data for the country.

CSJ, an advocate for fiscal transparency, accountability, and evidence-driven policy making and implementation, stated that the last time Nigeria’s unemployment data was released by the NBS was in the fourth quarter of 2020.

It added that since then, updated information had been absent, an act it consider as negligence of duty.

NBS earlier said it would release new unemployment and employment figures for the country by May 2023.

Punch

Federal government says it will no longer pursue the contempt suit filed against the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC).

On July 26, NLC issued a seven-day ultimatum to the federal government to reverse all “anti-poor” and “insensitive” policies.

The policies, the union said, include the recent hike in the price of petrol, and the sudden increase in public school fees, among others.

The labour movements warned that they would go on strike and mass protests if the government failed to hearken to their demands.

However, the federal government said the unions were restrained by an order of the national industrial court from embarking on any industrial action regarding the removal of the petrol subsidy.

The government also said the order prohibited the NLC and affiliates from holding protests across the country.

Despite the government’s stance, organised labour led its members to nationwide protests last Wednesday.

Consequently, the federal government initiated contempt proceedings against the unions for allegedly defying the order restraining them from embarking on industrial action.

The “notice of consequences of disobedience to order of the court” also called “form 48” was filed before the national industrial court in Abuja.

The protest was later suspended on Thursday after leaders of the unions met with President Bola Tinubu at the presidential villa, Abuja.

In a letter addressed to Femi Falana, NLC counsel, on Monday, Beatrice Jedy-Agba, solicitor-general of the federation, said the protests “led to disruption of work and the eventual pulling down of the gate of the national assembly”.

“The foregoing prompted the ministry to initiate contempt proceedings by filing Form 48 on the same 2nd August 2023 in accordance with section 72 of the Sheriffs and civil process act and order 9 rule 13 of the judgment (enforcement) rules.

“It is trite that issuance of Form 48 is just the starting point in contempt proceedings which will only crystalise upon the issuance of Form 49 and the consequential committal order.

“Upon the intervention of President Bola Tinubu and the decision of the labour unions to call off their industrial action after meetings with the president and leadership of the national assembly, this ministry did not proceed further with the contempt proceedings, which would have required the issuance of Form 49 within two days of the issuance of Form 48.

“It is self-evident that the non-issuance of Form 49 as of 4th August 2023, renders the contempt proceedings inchoate.”

The Cable

European carriers have reported disruptions and suspended flights across the African continent on Monday after Niger’s military government closed its airspace on Sunday.

The military government is bracing for a response from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) after ignoring its deadline to reinstate the country’s ousted President Mohamed Bazoum or face the threat of military intervention.

The disruption adds to a band of African airspace facing geopolitical disruptions including Libya and Sudan, with some flights facing up to 1,000km (620 miles) in detours.

“The closure of Niger’s airspace dramatically widens the area over which most commercial flights between Europe and southern Africa cannot fly,” tracking service Flightradar24 said in a blog post.

Air France has suspended flights to and from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and Bamako in Mali until August 11, the company said on Monday, with longer flight times expected in the West African region.

A spokesperson added that Air France expected longer flight times from sub-Saharan hub airports and that flights between Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Accra in Ghana were set to operate non-stop.

But aviation analyst James Halstead said that airlines would mostly have to find alternative routes and difficulties should be limited given the small number of African air connections.

“I’m not sure this is a huge disruption … it will affect routes from Europe to Nigeria and South Africa and probably from the Gulf to Ethiopia to West Africa,” he said.

Spokespeople for Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines said that flight times could be between one-and-a-half and three-and-a-half hours longer for rerouted flights.

In an emailed statement to Reuters news agency, British Airways said it “apologised to those customers affected for the disruption to their journeys”, and said it was working hard to get them on their way again as quickly as possible.

Aljazeera

Members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are not ready to stage a full-scale intervention in Niger, where a military junta has seized power, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing sources.

Last month, ECOWAS, a regional bloc comprising 15 countries, issued a seven-day ultimatum threatening military action against Niger’s plotters if they did not reinstate deposed President Mohamed Bazoum. The junta, however, refused to back down.

The deadline for the ultimatum passed on Sunday with no sign of any armed intervention or mobilization in countries bordering Niger.

Speaking to the WSJ, an unnamed senior commander from one of the ECOWAS countries signaled that the bloc was still unprepared for a full-scale operation. “For the moment, we need to build up the strength of our units before taking part in such a military action,” he said, adding that its success hinges on good preparation.

The delay also comes as Burkina Faso and Mali, two regional countries led by juntas, warned that any military intervention in Niger “would be tantamount to a declaration of war” against them.

Against this backdrop, the commander told the WSJ that ECOWAS would continue to squeeze the junta in Niger with economic sanctions while seeking to extend the trade embargo by asking other international bodies such as the African Union to get on board with the restrictions.

The coup in Niger took place on July 26 when the presidential guard detained Bazoum and his family, sparking international condemnation, including from the US, France, the EU, and Russia. Meanwhile, Colonel Amadou Abdramane, a spokesperson of the group that took power, said the coup had sought to “put an end to the regime that you know due to the deteriorating security situation and bad governance.” The junta’s transitional government is now headed by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, who has been the chief of the presidential guard since 2011.

With regional tensions rising, the Nigerien junta vowed “to stand and fight”against any possible intervention while closing the country’s airspace “until further notice,” and vowing that any violation would be met with a “vigorous and instantaneous response.”

Russia Today

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine says Russian missiles hit apartment, kill eight, survivors describe fiery blasts

Russian missiles struck the centre of Ukraine's Pokrovsk twice on Monday night killing eight people, including five civilians, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a statement.

The second missile hit the Ukraine-controlled town near the frontline 40 minutes after the first, the governor said. It killed and injured first responders, witnesses of the strikes told a Reuters cameraman at the scene.

Two rescuers and one military person were among the dead. Nine policemen and one military person were wounded, but most of the 31 injured were civilians, including a member of the local city council, Ukrainian officials said.

Kateryna, a 58-year-old resident of Pokrovsk, was at home when she heard the first blast and thought that the attack spared her. She even told someone who called to check on her that she was alright but at this moment the place was hit for the second time.

"That’s it, bang – and that’s all. A flame filled up my eyes. I fell down on the floor, on the ground. My eyes (hurt) a lot…," Kateryna told Reuters in an interview pointing at multiple scratches around her eyes. She had bandages on her forehead.

The footage from the town showed rescuers going through the rubble, a wreckage of a car and an apartment building with torn down balconies.

Another resident, 75-year-old Lidia, said she was also on the phone at the moment of the second blast. She had picked up from the floor a torn white curtain covered with broken glass.

"Suddenly this flew out and wrapped me up. Then the window fell on me," she said sitting on her sofa.

"My back has cuts. I just got back from the hospital… My knee and my thigh have cuts. I had glass here," she said pointing at her head.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine's presidential administration, reported two more civilian victims of Russian strikes in Kruhliakivka village in the Kharkiv region.

Killed were a 45-year-old woman and a man around 60 and five people were injured, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov said.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

‘No compromise’ with Moscow, Kiev vows

The government in Kiev has not given up on its “peace formula” and rejects all compromise positions, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s adviser Mikhail Podoliak announced on Monday. His comments came after the Wall Street Journal suggested Ukraine had softened its stance during the peace conference in Saudi Arabia.

“The only basic ‘foundation for negotiations’ is President Zelensky’s Peace Formula,” Podoliak tweeted. “There can be no compromise positions such as ‘immediate ceasefires’ and ‘negotiations here and now’ that give Russia time to stay in the occupied territories. Only the withdrawal of Russian troops to the 1991 border.”

Ukraine accuses Russia of “occupying” not just Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson – four regions that chose to join Moscow last year – but also Crimea, which voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia after the 2014 US-backed coup in Kiev. 

“Any scenario of a ceasefire and freezing of the war in Ukraine in the current disposition will mean only one thing – Russia’s actual victory and [President Vladimir] Putin’s personal triumph,” Podoliak added several hours later. “This would be a great defeat for the Western world and the end of the current global security order.”

He also claimed that Moscow would use a “Minsk 3” to rearm and prepare for the “next round” of war, which would return “bigger, bloodier, and better prepared” as soon as “political leaders in key Western countries change.”

Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 were ceasefires mediated by Paris and Berlin in 2014 and 2015, after Kiev failed to crush the rebellion in Donetsk and Lugansk by force. The German and French leaders involved in the talks admitted last year that they were buying time so NATO could arm Ukraine for a war against Russia.

Podoliak did not specify what prompted his tweets. However, a Wall Street Journal article about the weekend’s talks in Jeddah – which suggested Ukraine had given up on its hardline position – circulated widely on Russian-language social media on Monday. 

The talks, to which Russia was not invited, did not appear to accomplish anything. However, the Journal quoted “a senior European official” and two diplomats to report that Ukraine “didn’t push again for its peace plan to be accepted” and “didn’t press the point” about the demand for Russian withdrawal.

Moscow has rejected Zelensky’s “peace formula,” a set of ten demands amounting to Russia’s unconditional surrender, as “a useless ultimatum”that only serves to prolong the hostilities. 

“There can be no negotiation process in the current disposition. The status quo must be changed on the battlefield. This means... more weapons, missiles and aircraft,” Podoliak demanded on Monday afternoon.

The US and its allies have already supplied Ukraine with over $100 billion worth of weapons, ammunition and equipment, arguing that Russia “must lose” while insisting they are not actually involved in the conflict. 

Reuters/RT

What you can learn from Lorne Micheals to achieve lasting success in businesses.

During a recent talk at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, I had the privilege to watch a speaking session with Lorne Michaels as he approaches the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live. Michaels has spent years of his life developing and improving the magic sauce of a cultural phenomenon that has consistently found success. His talk was filled with incredible lessons that entrepreneurs can apply to thrive in their chosen industries. Let's take a look at embracing tight deadlines, open collaboration, and impactful presentations, and how they can fuel success.

It's truly inspiring that at 78 years old, Michaels still works full-time. He seems to have never lost his edge, and he remains heavily involved in the creative process. Many founders and creators feel they have to sell or retire to prove they've made it, but the reality is that if you love what you do, staying in the game can fuel your happiness for years to come. The key is to find that balance of determination and enjoyment. What can we learn from Michaels, and the uniqueness of SNL's structure, that can help us in our own career paths? 

1. Embrace tight deadlines

It's well known that SNL sticks to an incredibly tight schedule. A new show every seven days, complete with a constantly rotating lineup of musical guests and hosts. There are about 40 skits written, with only a dozen or so making it on air. Table reads, rehearsals, and costumes all happen at a speed incomprehensible to most of us in the business world. Can the terrifying idea of rushing through an imperfect idea actually be a secret to success? 

Pushing forward despite imperfections can lead to faster progress. Let's face it, is perfection attainable? Striving for it can stall ideas, products, and events, and eventually halt them from going anywhere. By sticking to a tight deadline, you are moving in the right direction by simply moving forward, learning and tweaking as you go. 

2. Foster open collaboration

Teamwork and collaboration are critical factors in reaching sustained success. While most of our businesses differ from live TV or the theatre industry, we too rely on a dedicated team. Our admin partners serve as the face of our company, representing our values and supporting our culture through every interaction. Similarly, our service partners become extensions of our brand, and our vendors play a crucial role in supporting our backstage success. Whether it's a major business win or an amazing company kickoff, we have to share information, solicit feedback, understand, acknowledge, and collaborate with everyone involved for a successful outcome.

SNL holds pitch meetings where everyone has the opportunity to present their ideas. Decision making isn't stalled as the best ideas are chosen quickly. If an idea is chosen, the creator of that idea follows it through and owns it -- for better or for worse. This provides everyone the opportunity to fail, grow, and appreciate the process. 

By engaging not only our internal teams in open collaborations and pitches, but also service providers, vendors, and other stakeholders, you open up the possibilities for new ideas, opportunities, and a wide variety of opinions and points of view. Everyone's ideas are considered, and everyone has a stake in the idea, product, or overall success of the company. This also results in less falling on your shoulders alone. You have opened up your business to include and recognize others' strengths, allowing them to flourish while you fan the flame instead of solely sustaining it. 

3. The power of impactful presentations

While we can't all be talented and charismatic comedians, we can all benefit from SNL's planning, rehearsing, and performing strategies for use in our careers. Elevating presentations and communication skills should be a priority for us all. 

Table reading individually or as a team is a power move that gets everyone on the same page.

It's one thing to accurately capture the right information and write it down, but we all know reading out loud and loving it is a different story. Table reads and rehearsals can ensure ideas are well-crafted, resonate effectively, and leave a lasting impact. No one wants to listen to someone read new content for the first time or painfully read a slide word by word. Blocking and rehearsing can fine-tune how you emphasize words, the body language you use, and how best to speak purposefully and genuinely to capture attention. 

Just as Lorne Micheals' dedication and passion have fuelled SNL's lasting success, we can apply these strategies to do the same in our businesses and careers. 

Inc