Dangote’s (and the Nigerian political establishment) behavior is actually not that different from that of their forefathers. The whites came and traded guns with West Africans as early as 1600s…. Two hundred years, there was absolutely no significant technology transfer, and those same guns — that African kings and princes had been trading for over a century — were used to subdue them. Even the Dane guns that were produced locally were made from salvaged parts of other imported guns. The superiority of European firepower stared them in the face for over two hundred years, and instead of rapidly adapting to it, they decided to use it to pursue their own narrow goals. As they say, many such cases.
I must concede to this man's extraordinary fecundity in churning out thought-provoking material, on a regular basis.
It is so good that I am re-reading it for the fourth time.
The problem with the educated class is that they are caught up in the business of survival and paying scant attention to the extraordinarily extreme wealth transfer happening under their noses.
I was in Ibadan for the entirety of last week and I was profoundly depressed by the level of human capital flight.
This piece captures a painful truth: Nigeria’s cement story proves that capacity without capability is a dead end.
Government policies created billionaires, not builders, because they failed to demand innovation, skills transfer, and true knowledge ownership.
Good policies only work when driven by the right people…selfless champions like Tan, who can turn protectionism into progress, prioritise capability over capacity, and value process knowledge over profit margins.
Until then, Nigeria will keep producing commodities instead of competencies, and billionaires instead of builders.
A sobering read. I must commend the author on his depth of research and fluency. This piece is "unputdownable" and should be shared widely. I have come across the same gremlins in other industries while working in Nigeria but nobody wants to listen.
When I reflect on many Nigerian billionaires, those deeply invested in wealth accumulation yet seemingly detached from societal transformation, I’m reminded of how the slave trade thrived, with wealth and comfort breeding indifference. It’s not a question of race or culture, but rather the corrosive effect of security and luxury: once an individual and his family are well-fed and shielded from hardship, empathy for the larger society often fades.
This was a somber piece, but I learned a lot and enjoyed every bit of it. One particular part I enjoyed was the reference to South Korea. For the longest time, I've been looking for examples of countries that had similar challenges to Nigeria but have since overcome them. For example: Singapore and how it solved its cultural issues (it was so bad people would defecate and urinate on buses in defiance of government policies); El Salvador and how it curbed insecurity; and now, South Korea, with its model for ensuring knowledge transfer.
Mangal, hmm. Now that's a name that hasn't been featured in an FF article in a *literal* generation.
To the topic at hand, I think that the cause is limited ambition and a surfeit of damaging 'solidarity'. Copilot-fu tells me that our big three pulled in $4bn in FY2023 versus the global industry of $492bn.
Grain of salt and all, but I expect the underlying idea that the domestic market accounts for less than 1% of the global market is true. But our titans have no ambitions to seize global market share. At best, they hope to be the 'X for Africa' and mostly tropical Africa. I don't see any of them with the cojones to go mano a mano with the North or South Africans.
So, respectfully, of course, I say: bleep Nigeria (and Africa)! If you aren't thinking about global market share, then you can never push your field forward. The Chinese, Koreans and Indians intuitively understand this because Asians don't have 'solidarity'. That pushes them towards mastery because China isn't going to give you the fellow Asian against 'the West' discount, and vice versa.
A local champion is a synonym for loser on the stage that really matters (shoutout to our grounded Eagles and Falcons). 'Your margin is my opportunity' is the mindset that breeds innovation.
I told myself, ‘I must read everything this guy writes’. The title was interesting, and I started reading ‘Tan, China, Cement ‘ and going slightly going over my head at some point, but I hung in there. I’m glad I stayed till the end. Such an insightful piece- sad but enjoyable.
Thanks for staying till the end :) The China bit was quite long but I wanted to humanise Tan so he doesnt remain an abstract figure in the minds of Nigerians
The fact that we don't even have that speaks volumes.
I've always wondered why long-serving teachers and doctors aren't immediately handed CFRs and a parade on retirement. Our leaders treat us like slaves. Worse is that we implicitly accept their logic.
Take NYSC. Invented to solve skilled labour issues in poor regions. Instead of thinking deeply about how to make those regions more attractive (I dunno, start with higher pay?), they rely on the flow of conscripted, underpaid and unskilled labour. What can that truly solve?
"Take NYSC. Invented to solve skilled labor issues in poor regions. Instead of thinking deeply about how to make those regions more attractive"
About this, one policy i look forward to implement as part of a Subnational team in the future "IF POSSIBLE" ... is to attract the Best Doctors, Teachers & Co. within Nigeria with a VERY INVITING restructured "Salary & Welfare package"
this will be asides efficient implementation of school feeding & student transportation program.
The core elite interest is consumption and whatever form of production they embark on is one focused on consuming, and not necessarily producing anything beyond their personal interests.
Nigeria's trajectory is a sad proof of this, as expertly articulated here.
And I must thank you for stirring these conversations.
Thank you, Feyi. I’m glad I deliberately didn’t rush through this at the office, otherwise, I wouldn’t have fully grasped the underlying lesson. Reading it almost brought tears to my eyes. This seminal work, much like your earlier piece on Medium around 2012 on the same subject, is both sad and mind-boggling. I would suggest attaching a link to that earlier article at the end of this piece for context.
Another excellent piece. I salute your ability to find and weave these valuable narratives.
On the subject of technology transfers, I walked in off the street to pay a random visit to the state entity responsible for them. They all looked at me like I had two heads when I walked into their Abuja office asking questions. After interacting with four different departments where people in them were either busy playing games on the office PC or conducting personal business, coincidentally around transporting personal cement blocks, I concluded that no progress is ever coming out of that office.
I particularly worry when I see foreigners at road construction sites, how can we not be fully responsible for this basic task decades post independence. My visit to this office demonstrated why the status quo will not be changing anytime soon and why Dangote and co will continue to conduct business as usual.
Hey Feyi, nice write up on the cement manufacturing industry and lack of innovation as usual. Lots more detail here. The piece I feel is missing from this story (and in your essays) is what the prior companies in this space did. They just sat around and did nothing during these years? Lafarge is a French multinational and had (with WAPCO) all the Nigerian manufacturing capacity even during the importation years. How did they not compete this whole time? There’s got to be a business failure story there somewhere too….
There is no difference between what they did then and what is happening now. The only difference is the scale of output and the fact that it is Nigerians now doing it and not foreigners. If you clicked through this link I included in the piece (https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=03d63cd2bbca0482f4ff4a37c06c0cbd2c1a6c27#:~:text=,only%20to%20importers%20who) you will see that domestic production met 85% of local demand as recently as 1989. The big drop (down to 26%) only happened in 2001, coincidentally a year before the cement policy came in.
So it's hardly the case that there was no cement being produced in Nigeria before the likes of Dangote came on the scene. Nigeria has been producing cement domestically since the 1950s or so.
Oh no, I wasn’t making that case. I was pointing out that the policy changes to the advantage of the cement oligarchs should have elicited changes to their business to allow them protect their market share, expand their plants and bring prices down. Especially since they had years of experience in the business, already had plants in place and had management with global exposure. How did these multinationals miss the play here? The innovations the Chinese companies had developed could have given them a competitive edge over the newcomers. That’s a big failure on their part, no? I’d like to learn how they responded (if at all) in those years and what may have stymied them if they did.
Dangote’s (and the Nigerian political establishment) behavior is actually not that different from that of their forefathers. The whites came and traded guns with West Africans as early as 1600s…. Two hundred years, there was absolutely no significant technology transfer, and those same guns — that African kings and princes had been trading for over a century — were used to subdue them. Even the Dane guns that were produced locally were made from salvaged parts of other imported guns. The superiority of European firepower stared them in the face for over two hundred years, and instead of rapidly adapting to it, they decided to use it to pursue their own narrow goals. As they say, many such cases.
That’s deep 😩
Absolutely spot on!
Replace they/them with we/us.
I must concede to this man's extraordinary fecundity in churning out thought-provoking material, on a regular basis.
It is so good that I am re-reading it for the fourth time.
The problem with the educated class is that they are caught up in the business of survival and paying scant attention to the extraordinarily extreme wealth transfer happening under their noses.
I was in Ibadan for the entirety of last week and I was profoundly depressed by the level of human capital flight.
This piece captures a painful truth: Nigeria’s cement story proves that capacity without capability is a dead end.
Government policies created billionaires, not builders, because they failed to demand innovation, skills transfer, and true knowledge ownership.
Good policies only work when driven by the right people…selfless champions like Tan, who can turn protectionism into progress, prioritise capability over capacity, and value process knowledge over profit margins.
Until then, Nigeria will keep producing commodities instead of competencies, and billionaires instead of builders.
PS: another thought provoking banger 💥 by Feyi.
A sobering read. I must commend the author on his depth of research and fluency. This piece is "unputdownable" and should be shared widely. I have come across the same gremlins in other industries while working in Nigeria but nobody wants to listen.
Thank you sir, far too kind
When I reflect on many Nigerian billionaires, those deeply invested in wealth accumulation yet seemingly detached from societal transformation, I’m reminded of how the slave trade thrived, with wealth and comfort breeding indifference. It’s not a question of race or culture, but rather the corrosive effect of security and luxury: once an individual and his family are well-fed and shielded from hardship, empathy for the larger society often fades.
This was a somber piece, but I learned a lot and enjoyed every bit of it. One particular part I enjoyed was the reference to South Korea. For the longest time, I've been looking for examples of countries that had similar challenges to Nigeria but have since overcome them. For example: Singapore and how it solved its cultural issues (it was so bad people would defecate and urinate on buses in defiance of government policies); El Salvador and how it curbed insecurity; and now, South Korea, with its model for ensuring knowledge transfer.
Thank you for sharing such an insightful piece.
Thank you for reading especially as it was a very long piece 😄
It was worth every minute! ✋😌🤚
Mangal, hmm. Now that's a name that hasn't been featured in an FF article in a *literal* generation.
To the topic at hand, I think that the cause is limited ambition and a surfeit of damaging 'solidarity'. Copilot-fu tells me that our big three pulled in $4bn in FY2023 versus the global industry of $492bn.
Grain of salt and all, but I expect the underlying idea that the domestic market accounts for less than 1% of the global market is true. But our titans have no ambitions to seize global market share. At best, they hope to be the 'X for Africa' and mostly tropical Africa. I don't see any of them with the cojones to go mano a mano with the North or South Africans.
So, respectfully, of course, I say: bleep Nigeria (and Africa)! If you aren't thinking about global market share, then you can never push your field forward. The Chinese, Koreans and Indians intuitively understand this because Asians don't have 'solidarity'. That pushes them towards mastery because China isn't going to give you the fellow Asian against 'the West' discount, and vice versa.
A local champion is a synonym for loser on the stage that really matters (shoutout to our grounded Eagles and Falcons). 'Your margin is my opportunity' is the mindset that breeds innovation.
I told myself, ‘I must read everything this guy writes’. The title was interesting, and I started reading ‘Tan, China, Cement ‘ and going slightly going over my head at some point, but I hung in there. I’m glad I stayed till the end. Such an insightful piece- sad but enjoyable.
Thank you!
Thanks for staying till the end :) The China bit was quite long but I wanted to humanise Tan so he doesnt remain an abstract figure in the minds of Nigerians
Thank you for this. Apart from Dora Ankuyili, I struggle to think of any Nigerian leader worthy of the Model Worker award.
The fact that we don't even have that speaks volumes.
I've always wondered why long-serving teachers and doctors aren't immediately handed CFRs and a parade on retirement. Our leaders treat us like slaves. Worse is that we implicitly accept their logic.
Take NYSC. Invented to solve skilled labour issues in poor regions. Instead of thinking deeply about how to make those regions more attractive (I dunno, start with higher pay?), they rely on the flow of conscripted, underpaid and unskilled labour. What can that truly solve?
Oya, japa dey hot.
Option A: Make Nigeria more attractive.
Option B: Bans.
Option C: Do Nothing.
We all know A won't happen.
"Take NYSC. Invented to solve skilled labor issues in poor regions. Instead of thinking deeply about how to make those regions more attractive"
About this, one policy i look forward to implement as part of a Subnational team in the future "IF POSSIBLE" ... is to attract the Best Doctors, Teachers & Co. within Nigeria with a VERY INVITING restructured "Salary & Welfare package"
this will be asides efficient implementation of school feeding & student transportation program.
The core elite interest is consumption and whatever form of production they embark on is one focused on consuming, and not necessarily producing anything beyond their personal interests.
Nigeria's trajectory is a sad proof of this, as expertly articulated here.
And I must thank you for stirring these conversations.
Thanks for reading!
Thank you, Feyi. I’m glad I deliberately didn’t rush through this at the office, otherwise, I wouldn’t have fully grasped the underlying lesson. Reading it almost brought tears to my eyes. This seminal work, much like your earlier piece on Medium around 2012 on the same subject, is both sad and mind-boggling. I would suggest attaching a link to that earlier article at the end of this piece for context.
Bravo!
I totally enjoyed reading this. Well done sir!
Thank you for your service.
Another excellent piece. I salute your ability to find and weave these valuable narratives.
On the subject of technology transfers, I walked in off the street to pay a random visit to the state entity responsible for them. They all looked at me like I had two heads when I walked into their Abuja office asking questions. After interacting with four different departments where people in them were either busy playing games on the office PC or conducting personal business, coincidentally around transporting personal cement blocks, I concluded that no progress is ever coming out of that office.
I particularly worry when I see foreigners at road construction sites, how can we not be fully responsible for this basic task decades post independence. My visit to this office demonstrated why the status quo will not be changing anytime soon and why Dangote and co will continue to conduct business as usual.
I’m even surprised they had an office PC. SMH
Hey Feyi, nice write up on the cement manufacturing industry and lack of innovation as usual. Lots more detail here. The piece I feel is missing from this story (and in your essays) is what the prior companies in this space did. They just sat around and did nothing during these years? Lafarge is a French multinational and had (with WAPCO) all the Nigerian manufacturing capacity even during the importation years. How did they not compete this whole time? There’s got to be a business failure story there somewhere too….
There is no difference between what they did then and what is happening now. The only difference is the scale of output and the fact that it is Nigerians now doing it and not foreigners. If you clicked through this link I included in the piece (https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=03d63cd2bbca0482f4ff4a37c06c0cbd2c1a6c27#:~:text=,only%20to%20importers%20who) you will see that domestic production met 85% of local demand as recently as 1989. The big drop (down to 26%) only happened in 2001, coincidentally a year before the cement policy came in.
So it's hardly the case that there was no cement being produced in Nigeria before the likes of Dangote came on the scene. Nigeria has been producing cement domestically since the 1950s or so.
Oh no, I wasn’t making that case. I was pointing out that the policy changes to the advantage of the cement oligarchs should have elicited changes to their business to allow them protect their market share, expand their plants and bring prices down. Especially since they had years of experience in the business, already had plants in place and had management with global exposure. How did these multinationals miss the play here? The innovations the Chinese companies had developed could have given them a competitive edge over the newcomers. That’s a big failure on their part, no? I’d like to learn how they responded (if at all) in those years and what may have stymied them if they did.
We have celebrated the same people that have enabled the nation to be in a constant state of stagnation.
Thank you so much for this enlightening piece. It's value packed.
You have also added more words to my vocabulary. Thank you😂