By Victor Alewo Adoji
As of January 2021, Ghana registered approximately eight million active social media users, up from six million in 2019.
In 2020, the number of social media users in Nigeria reached around 30 million (about the entire population of Ghana).
Nigeris has a population of over 200 Million and the largest GDP ($445 Billion) in Africa but Twitter choose Ghana with a population of 31 Million and a GDP of $60 Billion (about the combined GDP of Lagos and Rivers States alone) to be its regional headquarters. NOT A BIG DEAL.
Anyone blaming the profit-oriented incorporation is only being emotionally sentimental; sentiments have no place in the boardroom of any serious organization. Recall that in 2019, Michelin and Dunlop moved to Ghana from Nigeria. NOT A BIG DEAL.
Also in 2019 Toyota elected to build its assembly plant despite the fact that Nigeria is arguably its largest market on the continent. NOT A BIG DEAL.
Nigerian manufacturing companies in their hundreds have folded up over the years while the seemingly surviving ones are on ventilators. Many companies in Nigeria have reached advanced stages in their relocation plans to Ghana, a country recently described as ‘the new world’s factory’ by Deutsche Welle, a German media firm. NOT A BIG DEAL.
A World Bank Enterprise survey reported 322 private firms closed down in Nigeria between 2009 and 2014 due to stifling business regulations, corruption, and political environment.
Bloomberg Business on March 27, was categorical in stating the terrible impact(s) of all these avoidable hemorrhages when it said “Nigeria is to emerge as the nation with the highest unemployment rate on Earth”. NOT A BIG DEAL
If these things are not regarded as BIG DEALS, I wonder what is/are: 2023?
-Dr. Victor Alewo Adoji is a public relations consultant and public affairs analyst