Guobadia, President’s Digital Transformation SSA, says new Nigerian Startup Act 2022 is ‘welcome initiative that will address japa 100%’

So when you say japa, we are no longer doing japa from Nigeria. We are even saying don’t japa from your state. Don’t japa from your village. That’s the level we are looking at. Just stay where you are and create value there. 

Mr Oswald Osaretin Guobadia.

Technology Times: Mr Guobadia, what’s your reaction to today’s news as communicated via Twitter by the Communications and Digital Economy Minister that the Nigeria Startup bill, which you have worked tirelessly with other stakeholders to see become law has finally been signed into law by President Buhari. What’s your initial reaction?

Guobadia: My reaction is “congratulations to the entire ecosystem and the youths of Nigeria.” I mean, this is a milestone initiative that is going to create an enabling environment for young Nigerians to grow fantastic ideas that are going to impact the world. Well, I’m quite excited.

Technology Times: The law broadly creates an enabling environment, if we don’t bother delving into the key specifics because we don’t know yet or we haven’t seen the copy signed into law by the President. But from your experts and inside knowledge thus far, when you say that this represents a major win for the Nigerian youth, in what key areas if you would like to dwell on the specifics? 

Guobadia: From what the Honorable Minister said today (yesterday), this was done as a bottom-up approach. We used an approach which we called the big tent approach, which means that there were no doors and everybody was welcome to contribute to developing the Nigerian Startup Act. So it basically covers a number of areas that issue. I’ll try to explain them with three words: collaboration, engagements and linkages. 

Now the bill made a  good effort in ensuring the collaboration between the practitioners and value creators in the ecosystem and government by establishing a Council. And this Council is being chaired by Mr President himself and it also has the Vice President and a number of key Ministers who also sit on this Council. 

In addition to that, we also have the private sector, also sitting on this Council that would enable issues can be tabled, policies can be reviewed at that level, and directives can be given that will be executed by the Council. 

I mean, this is a milestone initiative that is going to create an enabling environment for young Nigerians to grow fantastic ideas that are going to impact the world. Well, I’m quite excited.

Mr Oswald Osaretin Guobadia.

Also, there’s the idea of a portal which provides an opportunity for services to be provided by governments to the practitioners themselves. And when I say practitioners I mean the founders, the value creators themselves. So a number of different things like simple activities you think “CAC” is going to be brought closer to I’ll say the market, but really to the founders and practitioners. 

They also have a consultative forum, which is a group of people involved in the ecosystem. So think academia, think founders, think funders and it’s from that group of people that you will now get who goes to sit on the Council to bring the issues of the ecosystem to Mr President. 

So that’s collaboration and that also covers for engagements because what the bill intends to really do to continue to drive collaboration and engagement within the ecosystem. 

The ecosystem is actually made up of two parts. One part is the practitioners like we’ve said several times, and the policymakers. So this is going to continue to drive that engagement and collaboration between both parties. 

Then the bill goes ahead and has a number of incentives or I’ll just put them under linkages? Linkages are basically you know, looking at our education, looking at research, looking at even the Nigerian Stock Exchange providing incentives to ensure that all these different areas are able to tie into this ecosystem. 

So it does in two different ways for the Nigerian Stock Exchange to give incentives to help lift people onto the exchange. For research, It gives a number of incentives including tax benefits to do research. For education, it gives a lot of linkages to ensure that you get a pipeline of educated young people into the sector to continue to grow it. And it tries to support hubs and all the supporting organisations that help founders, incubators, funders, and some tax rebates for investors with the caveat of some form of performance mechanisms. It’s a tax rebate based on the delivery of certain things.

So the bill basically plants a lot of seeds to help increase collaboration between the government and the sector because the numbers that we’re seeing right now are low, and what is required is creating an enabling environment. So what this bill does is just in different areas planting seeds, get it growing, invigorated, and helps put it all together.

You know, one of the key beliefs that I have is that the next startup that will impact the world will start in a Nigerian village; will start in an African village. 

Mr Oswald Osaretin Guobadia.

Technology Times: There’s a part of your response that touched quite profoundly on a trend we’ve seen in the last few years and that’s the trend is couched in the street language called japa. Now, you said that this new law would have benefits, you spoke exactly about educated young youths and founders, which are also demographics that we’ve seen doing this emigration trend out of Nigeria. Do you think that this new law would, in a way, address that, and if you have a message to Nigerian youths that are embracing japa, what would be your message to them following the new law that’s coming into force?

I think 100% this is going to do that. One of the problems we have had is the linkages between the different areas that go into value creation. 

That is, when we look at education, what are the programmes that are offered in schools? How early are you learning Computer Science? You know, one of the key beliefs that I have is that the next startup that will impact the world will start in a Nigerian village; will start in an African village. 

So when you make such a bold statement, you now start to think about what are the different things we need to put in place to ensure that that happens, right? So those are areas that we have to work towards.

For japa, nobody really wants to leave home but once you make home comfortable and fruitful, right, which is what the bill is trying to do; to ensure that home is comfortable and fruitful. Nobody really wants to leave home. Right?  So ultimately, we do not only believe to make Nigeria comfortable and fruitful, but the Nigerian Startup Act in phase two is actually looking at how to have the bill adopted at state levels. 

So when you say japa, we are no longer doing japa from Nigeria. We are even saying don’t japa from your state. Don’t japa from your village. That’s the level we are looking at. Just stay where you are and create value there. 

So the fabric of innovation and the fabric of support will go across the entire country when you start doing state adoption.  In the very next step, Lagos has already announced, Kaduna has announced, I think Edo is looking into it, FCT is looking into it and a number of states are looking into it. I’m sure the election is what’s slowing them down. But states will start to adopt the Nigerian Startup Act and deploy it in their own strategic format. 

At the end of the day, states will be competing for companies and startups to come to their states based on infrastructure, resources, and policies, having the right policies will drive who and where you start your business.

So the japa phenomenon is not just leaving Lagos. I heard a very interesting person say recently that the japa phenomenon actually started with the japa into Lagos. So we’ve long had these things. So it is really about creating values where they currently are.

Editor’s Note: The article has been updated to reflect the correct day of Wednesday that the President signed the bill from the earlier-stated Monday. We apologise for the error.