Politics is unpredictable in Africa --- Leo Stan Ekeh

Leo-Stan Ekeh

By Prince Osuagwu

Chairman Zinox Technologies Limited, Mr Leo Stan Ekeh, last week told a gathering of business moguls at the 13th Annual Africa Business Conference in the Harvard Business School, that Politics is often unpredictable in Africa and the polity is neither guided by ideologies or time tested traditions.
He also described African politics as a game where opportunism and mediocrity take the place of merit and the jungle justice of survival of the fittest becomes the benchmark for running society. He linked all these to reasons why African ICT has had very low growth, saying that “what affects politics affects all the sectors of the economy including the stock exchange and ICT”Speaking on the “Building of a True Indigenous African Institution – The Zinox Experience”, Ekeh, listed volatile politics, irregular power supply, policy somersaults or inconsistency by Governments, shortages of trained and experienced manpower, and skepticism at the government, corporate and individual levels as some of the problems facing the building of institutions in Africa.
Other challenges according to him, included keen international competition, low purchasing power, a lack of a credit culture, lack of a credible database and low ICT capacities among the leaders of Africa.
For him, in spite of these odds a good number of indigenous brands are doing very well in Africa as a result of the vision and doggedness of a new crop of educated and disciplined entrepreneurs. Mr. Ekeh said that the new crop of entrepreneurs are driven by patriotism, passion to build a global brand that is ready to compete and beat the world’s best in different sectors, they are often humble and have an enhanced digital mind.
Zeroing in on Zinox Computers, Mr. Leo Stan Ekeh revealed that from the launch date on the 12th of October, 2001, Zinox was designed to be a source of national identity for Nigeria just as HP is for the U.S.A, Lenovo for China, Acer for Taiwan, and Mercer for South Africa. He observed that leadership came with its responsibilities and Zinox has had to salvage the Nigeria voters’ registration exercise in Nigeria by supplying 11,500 DDC Machines in 2 weeks in 2006; and 80,000 in 35 days in 2011. Mr. Ekeh stressed the point that the Zinox intervention in 2006 was at the instance of a foreign firm that failed on its contract to deliver data machines. That display of capacity and competence earned Zinox 60% of the supply of the DDC Machines in 2011. Zinox again out performed her foreign competitors by delivering on time and in addition provided a total of 74 support engineers free of charge to INEC as Zinox executed this project with very strong patriotic considerations. In addition, Zinox has been socially responsible helping the nation to host large events like the All Africa Games, COJA, in 2003 and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting,CHOGM, in 2004.
Recommendations: Ekeh however made recommendations to guide Africa into development. 1. Governments at all levels must support local industries through policy and preferential patronage; 2.Governments must keep energy at the top of their priority table if Africans are to get used to IT products;  reduce the cost of the internet; 3.indigenous companies must take capacity building seriously; 4.entrepreneurs must encourage partnerships, certifications and trends from outside the country to ensure that the local firms are focused on world-class quality; 5. A deliberate scheme ought to be put in place to extend IT training programmes to the main crust of leadership in Africa. Finally, he charged all African youths at Harvard to rise to the challenges of African development and ‘they cannot afford to fail having had access to the best’.