Many times, I have sadly traveled in vehicles seeing the nation tearing apart in several areas and feeling so dejected and sad about this. I have complained bitterly and blogged on some of these issues. Then one day, I asked myself this question, “What will I have done differently?”
As simple as this question sounds, I almost could not find a coherent and convincing answer to it and at this point, I came to my consciousness that so much of complaining and cursing will never restore sanity into our nation. I do not concede to the fact that President Barrack Obama of the United States had all the answers to the issues facing their nation, but he certainly knew where the shoe was pinching and the issues were not strange to him nor the path to a solution to them.
At this juncture, I decided to begin to carefully and thoughtfully find answers to our predicament as a nation, not without the help of others whose thought processes, detailed studies and great exposure will afford them the opportunity to present truths with facts.
On this journey, I embark. When I will get there, I do not know but one thing I know is that on this journey, I will see things I have not seen until this moment and therefore stand on a platform I was never on track to find…Nigeria will flourish again!!!
I am the author of Scaling for Success: Empowering African SMEs. I am a Partner at Sahel Capital, a food and agriculture-focused private investment firm in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sahel Capital manages the Fund for Agriculture Financing in Nigeria (FAFIN) and the Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa (SEFAA).
I co-lead SEFAA, an impact-first fund investing in agribusinesses that provide direct or indirect benefits to smallholder farmers across 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. I also lead investments and portfolio management for SEFAA and manage FAFIN portfolios, two of which were recently exited. I am a director on the board of one of the portfolio companies and serve in advisory roles for several startups and SMEs.