Tekedia accurately predicted the OPay paralysis when we wrote that it had “no future” unless it changed its growth hypothesis. I concluded that piece with this quote, “If you [OPay] think you can achieve what took Paga about ten years in 18 months, Lagos Lagoons will welcome your ideas and OLX, Efritin, etc may be like peers in the swimming rivers.”
OPay has hit Nigeria’s legendary “long” gestation period before a business can turn a profit. Because you are your own electricity board (via your generator), your own waterboard (via your borehole), your own police (via your guards), etc, you have many inefficiencies in the utilization of your factors of production. Unlike in the U.S. or Europe, where your real challenge is growing the business, in Nigeria, you have to deal with orthogonal matters that may trip you the whole day. Yes, the generator man forgot to buy diesel and now there is no light to power the laptops!
People, Nigeria is different; throw away your London, Beijing and New York playbooks.
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