A couple of weeks ago, one regular reader of this blog sent me an e-mail. He had been looking for commentaries about corruption in Africa, and he couldn’t find that many. “Why so?” was his question. And my answer: “You’re right in that I don’t talk much about corruption in my blog. The reason is […]
Changing for the better
This evening we’ll welcome a New Year. There are many local traditions related to New Year’s Eve. The custom in Hillbrow, South Africa used to be throwing furniture out of the window. This became really dangerous – you might even see a fridge flying out – and many people got hurt, so this custom has […]
Smart citizens for smart cities and countries
In my post of last week on urbanization and smart cities, I quoted my colleague at IESE Business School Prof. Ricart: “in order to have smarter cities, we need smarter citizens.” I read in the newspaper about a Nigerian immigrant who found an envelope containing more than €16,000 in cash and cash-equivalents, and handed it […]
Pan-African Banks: Turning Around a Bad Reputation
Unfortunately, when we think about Nigerian banks, what immediately comes to mind are those e-mails we’ve all received requesting a transfer to an obscure account. However, not all Nigerian banks are alike. Following a privatization and liberalization period, a process of industry consolidation started in 2005. A capital requirement was imposed of naira (N) 25 […]