By RARZACK OLAEGBE
A unicorn in our land has many parts
We are products of a million eggs. A man can produce between 40 million and 30 million sperm per semen. The Open University said many features of human semen are familiar to most people. However, we do not appreciate the importance. For instance, the ejaculate lacks uniformity.
On the one hand
No two human beings are the same. That is because, let me quote The Open University verbatim, ‘’the quantity of sperm cells that men produce varies. Men may produce between two millimetres and five millimetres of semen each time they ejaculate, and each millimetre may contain from 20 million to 300 million sperm cells.’’
On the other hand
But sperm alone is not the only factor that determines fertility. Therefore, what makes a man is not money. It is more than nationality. What makes a unicorn is more than money or nationality. Other factors need to be available before a unicorn is born. One of these factors is not nationality.
In the long term
Speaking during his appearance on the C-Suite Café, a podcast presented by veteran journalist and brand strategist, Ikem Okuhu, Yele Okeremi – the former president of the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) and CEO of PFS, disagreed with the notion that some of the fintech firms labelled as unicorns are Nigerian companies. He opined that most of them had pivoted to foreign ownership because of their desire to scale and attract funding.
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“For instance, I am one of the founding fathers of Interswitch. Ordinarily, had the environment done what was needed, Interswitch would have blossomed. But the company recognised that the environment was not giving them the opportunity required. That was why the company took the easy way to get value by creating alliances and selling to foreign interests.”
That aligns with the analogy of a sperm cell. Likewise, a unicorn is not a product of one ‘egg.’ There are many eggs involved. Before a fintech firm can emerge as a unicorn, it must be a privately held firm with a valuation of 1 billion dollars. It must have experienced rapid growth and scalability, driven by sellable technology. It must have disrupted an existing industry with new business models, technologies, or approaches.
A unicorn is a unique case. To have five unicorns – Interswitch, Flutterwave, Opay, Moniepoint, and Andela – in Lagos-Nigeria is a phenomenon. The above fintech firms have foreign blood in their veins. They are not Nigerian brands. They are three quarter-caste. They are part Nigerians, part Americans, and part Europeans.
Well, you have noticed that nationality does not feature among the factors that define a unicorn. A unicorn cannot be made up of just one aspect. Instead, a unicorn in our land is a result of many parts—many nations, many individuals, many components. That is why the five unicorns and the ones waiting in the background cannot be fully Nigerian brands.
Okeremi wondered if they should continue on this trajectory as a people and requested that the country reverse it. ‘’We must realise that we can do anything that anybody, anywhere in the world can do, and even if we do not have the capacity now, we have more than enough capacity to learn and understudy and replicate what they do.”
In the short term
Are you a product of an egg?
