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A Thin Line Between Enforcement, Extortion, and Robbery - The Harassment of Private Vehicle Owners in Bwari Area Council, Abuja

In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), particularly in Bwari Area Council, an unsettling pattern has emerged involving alleged task forces enforcing commercially owned vehicle registration laws under questionable circumstances. Private vehicle owners are being stopped and coerced into paying for local government documents that either do not apply to them or that they are entirely unaware of. These actions are not only exploitative but bear a striking resemblance to a robbery experience, as citizens are compelled to part with their money under duress, often to task force personnel. I write this to explore the thin line between legitimate law enforcement and outright extortion, exposing how government officials claiming to be from the Bwari Area Council, and other parts of the FCT exploit innocent car owners under the pretence of enforcing commercial vehicle regulations. The crux of the exploitation revolves around the enforcement of Local Government Area (LGA) vehicle registration re...
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Cognitive Shifts and the Crisis in Northwest Nigeria

  Image credits: Microsoft Copilot In a region increasingly consumed by insecurity, poverty, and disillusionment, the crisis in Northwestern Nigeria has exposed more than institutional weaknesses. It has revealed a failure of thought. While guns and policies have been deployed to manage banditry, communal violence, and economic decay, the deeper issue lies in how we think as individuals, as leaders, and as a society. The world development report (Worldbank, 2015) suggests three principles of human decision making which conforms to a very useful social science framework providing three cognitive lenses: automatic thinking, social thinking, and thinking in new mental boxes . These modes of thinking, if understood and applied, can transform how we approach the complex challenges facing the region. These are explained below with suggestions of how they can be applied to tackle these challenges. 1. Automatic Thinking Automatic thinking, also known as System 1 thinking (Kahneman,...
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PRODUCT DESIGN TIPS: DEPLOYMENT

Deployment in this context denotes launching your product – to set it in motion – like a ball rolling OR a common one like launching a rocket into space, it is constructed and released to commission into space for exploration of a planet. I hope this links to something close to understanding. Launching will be used being a more acceptable word. In product context, it means to bring a product/service to market for consumption. Some call it “go live”, some say “take/go to market” and many more terms in the business environment. Product Ideation and Validation are preparatory processes that lead to launching a product. The ultimate goal is to take your product to the final consumer. This originates from an idea you have validated to reduce flip-flops in launching the product. We have discussed that in the past episodes of this series. The following short tips might be helpful to launching your product/service when it is due for consumption by your target market. And lest I forget...
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PRODUCT DESIGN TIPS: VALIDATION

We looked at ideation in the last episode and need to look at validation in this episode. As simple as it sounds, it is a way you validate your idea. How will it be perceived by your target market/audience? Will it be accepted or rejected? Is there a thing that fits to only you? We may say it is about sharing it with people to know how they perceive it and get feedback to make it better or even drop it to spring up another idea. Sometimes, an idea may be entirely new   —   trying to introduce what does not exist in the market. It could be an effort to make a product or service better. It could be in a bid to make some processes easier for users. It could even be to prove possibility of an impossibility. What you need to have in mind always is -a solution and how to arrive at it. At validation stage of a product or service, you test and validate your idea prior to launching your product/service. Your idea at this stage is exposed to an audience before the final release. It may le...
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PRODUCT DESIGN TIPS: IDEATION

Product! Product! Product! It could actually be a service. But one may ask what the difference is between the two. Okay! Briefly, a product is that thing designed and developed as tangible, homogenous and can be stored for later and can be owned. Service can only be used for the time you want to use it, intangible, heterogeneous and not owned by its user. Okay let’s use a vehicle analogy to understand it better. Look at a car as product and taxying as a service. Hope you got that? This write up series is meant to guide to some little extent on some considerations when designing a product or a service for mass consumption. My advice before we go further is “always design to solve problem, money will come later”. You may not earn in the few early days which may run into months up to a year in some cases, rather you end up spending some resources during that period. However, designing the right product/service for the right consumer is the ultimate goal in designing a product. S...
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Nigerian StartUps, find your way to Crowfunding

For every startup, funding is a vital ingredient to growth. Although you may not need to have big cash to start well, your big idea is required. As your startup grows, you will definitely require cash at some point to fund some processes, procedures or anything catalyst that could speed up or fine tune growth. It could be logistics, acquisition of tools of trade, hiring a techie or some specialist(s), value addition to your products/service and many other reasons as may apply. Well, thanks to technology and creativity that surround us especially those instrumental strategic pushing of funding to end users. The major practices we’re used to are the business funding all the way to production and having to recoup their investment only when they are lucky to sell. The risk involved is higher in that model actually. For some startups, strategies have evolved where you find most of the investment come as labour and dedicated time developing the products and services. Cash...
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The Train Expedition, Abuja To Kaduna

It was on the 5th day of August, 2016 when I and some colleagues decided to test the train recently commissioned  by the President. While the train was scheduled to leave 14:20, at exactly 13:48 when we got in the departure terminal a little below 100 people were patiently waiting for the train. The number kept increasing with time. At the entrance were security agents (five in number) - two soldiers, a police, a man and a lady (not in uniform), all conducting physical search into luggages'. I was wondering why security equipment such as baggage scanners and walk through detectors were not taken into consideration for such an important place that will host a large crowd. A very neat environment is the hall, cleaning kept going on, especially for the toilets area. Provision is made for prayers to male and female passengers and another in the office area obviously for staffers. Although as the crowd kept increasing, the ventilation was becoming a bit uncomfortable for only s...
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