In this challenging week on Nigeria’s global image, Western Union has done something commendable. After Chinedu, a content creator for companies around the world, was “banned” by WU because WU suspected that the small money his clients pay him may be illicit, he wrote a piece on my blog. In that piece, he explained that he creates contents for companies, and they pay him $100, $300, etc depending on the agreement. But because Paypal has terminated Nigerian node, his key option for payment has been WU.
Western Union Money Transfer has been a blessing to many Africans. Especially for those who have relatives or do businesses overseas. They have made it easier to send and receive money from many parts of the country. But the fact that they have been a blessing to many people and businesses doesn’t make me shy away from my awful experience with them.
Nothing is perfect but as a customer, I will voice my dissatisfaction with their policy. Perhaps it would be a good way to review their policies since customers feedback is essential.
Today, he just informed me that WU had reached out to him to resolve the issue. While we wait for WU to lift the ban in the coming hours, I use this opportunity to tell global entities to be fair on Nigerians as they deploy their sledge hammers. Sure, we have bad people but you cannot disconnect a nation from global commerce because of a few bad eggs. The disconnection of Nigeria by Fiverr, a freelance marketplace, remains evergreen.
Nigerian young people need help – and the world needs to support. I call on EFCC, Nigeria’s financial crime fighter, and the Nigerian Justice system to redouble efforts to clean the nation of fraudsters – the world is isolating us on basic digital commerce for a cause. The companies have reasons – and we need to demonstrate we are working to fix our demons to justify our pleas. If not, our young people will be spectators in the modern digital economy.
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The power of internet and social: just shout louder, you never know who’s listening, you could be heard. To run a sprint here, you aren’t starting from zero like your counterparts elsewhere, rather you begin from -20m, and must still cover your own hundred metres.
But the institutions that can help us clean the mess are still operating on Industry 2.0 model, from the Executive to Judiciary. What’s the average age of men and women we nominate and send up there as Supreme Court justices and lower courts? It’s largely about seniority and quota system, you will never get the finest and digital savvy people to occupy those slots, using our current setup.
We created artificial difficulties and super bureaucratic bottlenecks, just to ensure that the best brains will never lead our key institutions, and we believe we are smart…
We have been singing youth empowerment and job creation, the only problem is that we do not know what we are saying. If the understanding of the political class on job creation still revolves around civil service and palliative interventions, then the walk to freedom could be eternal.
Nigeria does not have a lot of time in its hands. It needs to fix the image, fast!