I told a friend once on an SAP project that it is difficult to do change management when the people you want to change are actively working towards eliminating you. You have to decide that it is a war and the only time they will see reason is when they also see your power.

This is the issue with public sector and governance in African countries. We protested June 12 and Abacha, we were killed. We protested SAP(monetary) policies and were also killed. Recently, young people in Nigeria protested against police brutality and got brutalized to eternity

We learned over time that power only understands power. The best way to get governments to see reason is when they are totally powerless. The internet has been the greatest catalyst of growth the human has ever created and it has transcended archaic human institutions.

Governments and religions who got on the good side of the internet have prospered while those who seek to control access to it have remained backward. It is the ultimate leveler and greatest source of aggregate economic power. Arab Spring was political, Wallstreetbets economic.

I have predicted the demise of traditional banking institutions in Africa for a while now until things accelerated during the pandemic and agent models became prominent. The cost structure of old banking Africa do not make sense. Community banking and cooperatives make more sense

What happened to Nigerian remittances during the pandemic was that people discovered more efficient channels to send money home as bank branches were closed. We now had multiple FX exchanges as people became aware that it was lucrative. Crypto is not the problem, it is banking.

Banks have not been serving the people, banks have served governments. Banks have been taking money from people at low-interest rates and giving it to the governments at high-interest rates to fund deficits. Once governments stopped being able to pay, everything is collapsing.

What happened during the pandemic was that people found economic power but didn't realize it yet as it was dispersed. People finally were forced to leave the rat race and save a little money. Putting lots of little money together became big money and it tilted things.

Power senses power shifts and it reacts. Sometimes these shifts are too rapid for it to react and that is what happened with Wallstreetbets. Unlike America, in Africa, power reacts with blunt force. It doesn't care what is damaged in the process. Like an animal in death throes.

The next few months are going to be critical. It is either African power reaches a truce or one side prevails. This is no longer a drill.

It is now the Internet and the users against African institutions. People are going to discover more efficiency and banking is going to decline at a faster rate unless it comes to the table to negotiate. Value stores will shift faster than the speed of regulation. It is now war.

Never underestimate the will of the African to survive and thrive.