Author: Adedeji Olowe

Adedeji / a bunch of bananas ate a monkey /

Nothing Good Lasts Forever

When I moved to the Android world the first thing I kicked off was the inglorious Samsung keyboard for Swiftkey. It felt so good.

Like everything that looks too good to be true it didn’t allow me to enjoy it too long. It started dragging my phone badly with typed messages taking seconds to appear. Sometimes as long as 5 seconds.
 
I haven’t been known for patience so I promptly kicked its butt out for something more in use but less popular. Google Keyboard.
So far its working like charm but let’s see how long that lasts before I hit the divorce courts.
 
 

Enough said

I recently bumped into this article which got me thinking: http://qz.com/254477/its-time-to-accept-this-fact-a-really-great-marriage-is-rare/

I know quite a lot of people would eagerly love to use me for target practice but then taking the risk, I could just ask – is marriage an evolutionary con that’s gonna bottom out some day?

For all we know, I could be very wrong. After all, I have been wrong about so many things.

MTN and Etisalat vs Me

I ported from MTN to Etisalat about a month ago. That isn’t news.

I’m naturally a loyal person – I could have broken a few hearts but it’s nothing personal just business. After all I have been using same drycleaner all my professional life and the thought of dumping them, even when I moved to the other side of town, is painful.

But MTN had it coming – the data service doesn’t work well. Voice is trashy; and then they started stealing my money. It got so bad they could have done better if they robbed me at gunpoint in daylight or nighttime depending on what’s convenient, not for me, but for them.

So on a bright Saturday afternoon, my daughter playing the dutiful sidekick, we marched down to Etisalat and got the freaking phone ported.

It felt good.
Only for a while.

You see, Etisalat works but they are darn expensive. How I managed to go through double what I used to pay monthly at MTN (less the robbery) still baffles me. Also the data varnishes so fast I turned my phone bottom up to see if it’s leaking data. At least that should have formed a puddle, somewhere.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, an evil thought is forming though. I could get a dual SIM phone and use an Etisalat for the data and MTN for the voice but the thought of porting back isn’t pleasant. You see, I have some little imps working in my office who are going to jeer on toadstools if I dare port back to MTN. I’m sure those guys are getting paid to make my life miserable. That’s an aside.

Electronic Payment Gets Interesting

Somewhere in the news, PayPal finally admitted Nigeria into its elite club as you can now use your Naija issued cards to register. But come to think of it, was it because of the pressure? Or because Nigeria is less fraudulent? Probably not. My experience with PayPal has been shitty at best so I’m sure it wasn’t done for some altruistic reasons.

My take? They probably started seeing numbers showing that Nigerians not only travel too much (Lagos – London is one of the most lucrative routes in the world and Emirates flies 3 times into Nigeria on any day. Kenya Airways practically hovers over Lagos) but also spend just too much, including what they haven’t earned yet.

In my previous life hawking cards like omo alata all over Africa I witnessed the gradual build out of card transactions on Amazon, Alibaba, Asos, etc. and any half brained nitwit can imagine where the trajectory is heading. Now the dudes in PayPal are not dumb (not sure ignoring Nigeria before was a smart move) and are jumping into the fray.

Or could it be connected to the fact that Amazon has launched a competing payment service that works better (Amazon is simply amazing) and has over a hundred million users to start with?

In other news, I could see the gradual loss of influence on card business in Nigeria. Get me right, the card business is booming but the other non-card payment sector is growing at a fast greater clip. POS is finally looking like a decent investment. ATMs have become invisible – you just expect them to be there. Internet banking is still the black sheep of the family, it hardly works and you just tolerate it like a bad mother-in-law but this one isn’t going to keel over yet. I would give a pass mark to Cashless Nigeria – it hasn’t been easy but I think we will finally get there. In 5 years time, mark my word, we electronic payment will own this town.

I don’t know what issues Nigeria has with Mobile Money – it isn’t just happening. I believe that sweating to replicate what happened in Kenya is just a frustrating cul de sac. Of recent I have been having some beautiful thoughts on what I feel we could do to make the Mobile Money corpse walk (I’m not morbid, Hardley Chase said that!).

Enough of the ranting for today.