So you are a Nigerian? Or perhaps you are not? Either way, you are a citizen of some country somewhere and there comes a time in your life when you feel like you really love your country and would want the very best for your country. I cannot fathom a better way to be patriotic, aside your statutory civic responsibilities, than patronizing locally-made products and services. I am recommending some made-in-Nigeria products/services with this blog post, as a means of encouraging Nigerians to patronize indigenous companies.
If you are a Nigerian, you are permitted to retort: “…but most Nigerian products/services are inferior!”. Well, I am proud to say you are not exactly correct. Over the years, several companies have despite the titanic challenges they experience doing business in Nigeria, still been able to provide products/services that are of high quality. They might not be the best in the world today but I need you to remember that Asian companies also started weakly. Look at Japan, South Korea, China and to some extent, India today. They are forces to reckon with in product manufacturing and service delivery. When Nigerians will insist on Made-in-Nigeria, then the future of our industries will be secured. More patronage = more revenue = faster expansion = better products/services.
Banking: This is one sector that makes me proud of Nigeria. Thanks to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s strict monitoring and control, Nigerian banks have now emerged to take their rightful place as the best in West Africa, and among the best in Africa. Report in recent years have consistently been listing UBA, Zenith Bank, GT Bank, Intercontinental Bank, First Bank of Nigeria, Oceanic Bank as leading banks in various areas. The CBN sees to it that all banks in Nigerians have a majority Nigerian stake so you can bank with any of the 25 banks that meet your specific needs and be rest assured you are patronizing a Nigerian bank.
Aviation: This is a grey area in Nigeria. I am not about to delve into the poor practices in that industry but if you need to fly outside Nigeria or into Nigeria, whenever possible, fly Virgin Nigeria as against British Airways, KLM, Air France and the likes. Others are Bellview Airlines and Aero Contractors.
Satellite broadcast: HiTV actually broke the monopoly in Nigeria’s pay television industry enjoyed until now by DSTV. It is now challenging the dominance of its South African owned competitor and has put all its will and energy to achieve this goal. HiTV has high quality, high capacity digital infrastructure that allows them to offer premium content at surprisingly low costs to every nook-and-cranny of Nigeria using Direct to Home (DTH) satellite technology on the NigComSat platform. NigComSat is the entity established by the Federal Government of Nigeria to operate and manage the first Nigerian Communications Satellite.
Mobile telephony: glo is the clear choice in this market segment. Globacom has established itself as the preferred telecommunications company in Nigeria by its provision of world class telecommunication services and affordable product packages. It currently has over 15 million subscribers in Nigeria and has successfully launched its services in the Republic of Benin. Glo was also recently awarded a licence to operate in Ghana, and is currently laying an undersea optic fibre cable to link West Africa with Europe, to enable it provide even better telecom and Internet services. This space will not be enough to preach the virtues of glo. It is a fact that glo brought about a revolution into the digital mobile telephony market in Nigeria with its loud entry in 2003.
Mobile Internet: Visafone is another wholly-owned Nigerian telecommunications company. It utilizes EVDO technology to deliver real mobile broadband Internet services within its coverage area. Visafone has a universal licence and is rapidly expanding its network across Nigeria.
Web hosting: Why do business with European or American websites when you can buy your web hosting and domain services from Web4Africa? Indeed, Web4Africa is a leader in its market segment and is currently ranked 2nd in the entire West African sub-region by WebHosting.info
Web4Africa offers world-class web hosting at affordable prices plus great customer support.
Computer hardware: Zinox Technologies Limited manufactures desktop & laptop computers, as well as UPS units. The Zinox brand was created as an initiative to promote an international Information Technology identity for Africa.
What are you thoughts? Post your comments here and now!
Thanks for that lovely post. It’s high time we started recognizing our indigenous organizations that are striving to bring world class service close to our doorstep.
And the only way we can go about them is patronizing them. I hope that people would realize we will be doing ourselves more benefits by patronizing our indigenous companies.
Look at the Chinese, anywhere you find them, they go along with their restaurants and you hardly see them patronizing other restaurant.
The time to start is now!
I’m glad that I am familiar with most of the businesses you mentioned. Nice post.
I am proudly Nigerian and I love Nigerian Indegineous Businesses. However, we need our entrepreneurs to improve on the Quality of the products and services being offered. That way, nobody will be thinking of going out to source for products or services. Nice compilation. A good job well done. Cheers.
T o be proudly Nigerian is recognising the ineherent potentail and collosal strides made since the amalgamation. The founding fathers of Nigeria knew from incxeption that the strength of Nigeria came from its diversity , every attempt to deny this fact by any means has been futile. It is a previlage to be a nigerian, Africas most populous blacknation, giant of africa, the trigger of Africa various superlatives have been used in the past and present all to show case our power. Most recently i read an article that confirmed aliko dangote as the richest african ( BLACK) in the world .
People like emegwali , chinua achebe, soyinka, celebrated over the world are indeed Nigerians born and bred . i now reminisced on this and came to the conclusion that we are made of the right stuff . Doggedness , determination ,zeal and humor.
The Business terrain is so attractive that proxies from developed nations buy into our stock market!! the returns from their investments are astronomical , i wont be surprised if investors like warren buffet, george sorors and their like dont have a pie or maybe have not started setting their radars on our business terrain
The first step towards making you a proud Nigerian is to love Nigeria , to accept her as your heritage to inculcate the very essence of our diversity in strenght, To project it to the world as a place where the best minds and brains nest.
The world needs to recognize us because we make things happen in every sphere of human existence . As an engineer in the energy market i know the sleepless nights experienced by the so called super powers when any form of unrest is noticed in Nigeria.
My fellow brothers and sisters let us unite to sustain the effort at putting Nigeria on the map of development. My president!! our president is making concerted effort and i have faith in the Nigeria Project
this is great. As a PRIR manager (public relations, image and reputation manager),I want to say that this is commendable.
We need more of this.
My one comment would be in aviation. I would rate Arik Air as having done more for Nigeria’s aviation industry that Virgin Nigeria and hopefully in the next few years should be the standard by which the West African and possible African Aviation Industry is measured!
@Tito
I will love to visit your blog or website if you have any. I admire the force you put into your writing. Nice job you did in the comment above. The statement below really got me excited.
“The world needs to recognize us because we make things happen in every sphere of human existence.”
That’s it. 😆 They can deny it all they want, but Nigerians are too RELEVANT to be IGNORED!
We are like minds. The hope of this country is us. We aren’t going to remain the slave that our parents inherited. The time for change is now. As a professional business consultant, am educating the African mind on this already. I have packaged two clients who are selling Nigerian made shoes and suits already to the global market. Our target is to package at least 20 of such businesses before this year round up. Personally, I am an addict to Made in Nigeria.
@ nigerian enterpreneur, thank you very much , indeed i feel elated at your response.
Well , that statement is in all ramifications the truth. We make things happen!
My site would soon be up, be assured that i would let you know immeditely i start.
“It takes a great mind to acknowledge great sayings ”
Tito Akpo Akpeti(11th August 2008 , oluniyi daviajao website /blog/ how to be proudly african)
Best regards
Infact, i must say am very very proud to be an Africa, and a Nigerian for that matter.Obviouslt, this is Food for thought and an eye-opener for some Nigerian in their Greed and pride to know that Nigeria have alot to offer. Am proud to identify with the young lad that has initiated this bold concept of carrying out a thorough research of such a high profile write-up. And to all the contributors, isay “More power to your elbow”.It’s really a welcome development.Long live Nigeria. David, Keep up the good job.We are very proud of you.
Thanks for your kind words, Joseph.
Good, work , I only disagree with the issue about the Banks. Sorry U are a Ghanian Nigerian, life is easy and slow for u on that side…..we on the front lines know what is really going on. The Banks are the ones destroying Nigeria. They encourage corruption and their growth does not reflect the economy. While Communities are going under, banks are reporting growth….how is that possible. Could it be they are helping our Politicians Hide and use stolen money ???
Zinox should just keep assembling Computers….in China and stop fooling us.
I agree that we need to develop the Software industry and get the BIG guys away from it. Those BIG GUYS that are implementors for Foreign Software companies……they are selfishy not encouraging local developement of our Software companies.
Lastly inferiority complex is killing us.
God Bless Nigeria…..we are the best in what we do …..Good or Bad
😀 I assure you Sanmi Olade that I am not a “Ghanian Nigerian”. I do visit Nigeria regularly and follow the news from Nigeria. All the same, thanks for expressing your thoughts bluntly.
i was just looking around for proudly Nigerian companies and i ran into this post. Assuredly this post is great. We really do need more of this. My company too is proudly Nigerian and we are planning an event to showcase Proudly Nigerian Designers that makes corporate wears such as suits, shirts, ties, shoes e.t.c in an exhibition tagged NIGERIAN CORPORATE WARDROBE EXHIBITION come March 14 2009. i am particularly happy about this because some people believe that they have to import their suit when they want to get married or attend some special occasion. You will sure be amazed at the level of creativity Nigerian designers are endowed with.
GOD Bless Naija 4real 4ever. I love my country
wow! that was a lovely post, i have always been proudly Nigerian. we only need to believe in ourselves.
Coming to like your way of writing. We all need to realise Nigeria will get to its gigantic feet if we are willing to help it do so