By Solomon OKPO | The Evangelist News Desk
There is something wonderfully entertaining about social media.
Give Nigerians one sentence from a speech, remove the beginning, remove the middle, remove the end, garnish it with outrage and suddenly, overnight, you have created a National Economic Summit.
That appears to be what has happened with the much-discussed Akara Burger story.
One sentence was lifted from the broader context of Governor Umo Eno’s speech, dropped on social media, and before the akara had even finished frying the country’s newest army of economists had reported for duty.
No appointment letter.
No office.
No business experience required.
Just a smartphone, data subscription and sufficient confidence.
Within minutes, Excel spreadsheets were allegedly opened.
Calculators were summoned. Financial models were constructed. Some people who have never sold one akara suddenly became professors of akara economics.
Others apparently conducted a feasibility study from their sitting rooms.
“₦10 million from akara?”
The question was asked with the confidence of someone who had personally audited every coffee shop in Nigeria.
But wait.
There is a tiny word that seems to have escaped the attention of our emergency social-media economists:
SALES.
Not profit.
Not net income.
Not what the owner carries home in a Ghana-Must-Go bag every evening.
SALES.
A business can record ₦10 million in monthly sales and still have substantial expenses, rent, salaries, electricity, ingredients, transportation, taxes, equipment, packaging, maintenance and other operating costs.
That is why business arithmetic is slightly more complicated than:
Akara × disbelief = lie.
Imagine a coffee shop selling akara burgers, bread, pastries, coffee and other products.
The serious questions are not:
“Can akara make ₦10 million?”
The serious questions are:
How many customers come in daily?.
How much does each customer spend?
How many products does each customer buy?
How many days does the business operate?
What is the product mix?
What is the selling price?
What is the turnover?
And, most importantly, what are the operating costs?.
That is how business people think.
But social media has its own accounting system.
In Social Media Economics 101, if you personally cannot make ₦10 million from akara, nobody else can.
If your roadside akara stand sells ₦5,000 a day, then apparently every coffee shop in Nigeria must also be selling ₦5,000 a day.
Case closed.
Certificate awarded.
Professor appointed.
The problem is not that people are asking questions. Questions are healthy. Public officials should be questioned, and public claims should be scrutinised.
The problem begins when questions become conclusions before facts arrive.
It is even more amusing when a statement is extracted from a larger speech and the truncated version becomes the evidence used to condemn the original speaker.
That is like reading the first chapter of a book, refusing to read the remaining chapters and then writing a review titled:
“The Author Has No Idea What He Is Doing.”
Social media has produced a new profession: instant expertise.
Today, you are a journalist.
Tomorrow, you are an agricultural economist.
Next week, you are an aviation expert.
By Friday, you have become a petroleum engineer.
And by Sunday morning, somebody will ask you to explain international monetary policy.
No certificate.
No experience.
Just vibes.
But beneath the comedy is a serious message for young Nigerians.
Please do not allow somebody else’s limited imagination to become the ceiling of your own ambition.
A small business can remain small.
But it can also grow.
The roadside akara seller can become a shop owner.
The shop owner can become a restaurant owner.
The restaurant owner can build a brand.
The brand can employ people.
And one day, somebody may sit in a conference room discussing the company’s monthly turnover and another social-media economist may shout:
“Impossible!”
The irony is that practically every large enterprise began somewhere small.
Every giant business once had a first customer.
Every major brand once made its first sale.
Every successful entrepreneur once looked inexperienced to somebody.
So, rather than mocking the possibility of success because we cannot personally see it, perhaps we should ask a more intelligent question:
“Show us the numbers.”
If the figures are wrong, prove them wrong.
If the figures are right, learn from them.
That is how serious discourse works.
Not by shouting louder.
Not by manufacturing outrage.
Not by turning one sentence into a national economic emergency.
And certainly not by assuming that because something is beyond our personal experience, it must therefore be impossible.
After all, akara is only the product. The business model is the business.
So let the akara fry.
Let the burger sell.
Let the customers decide.
And let the accountants calculate.
As for the emergency Ministry of Social Media Economists, please remember to renew your data subscription before the next national economic crisis arrives.
Because judging by social media, the next person who sells ₦10 million worth of akara may be required to defend himself before the Senate Committee on Beans, Burgers and Pastries.
One sentence.
A thousand experts.
And apparently, all of them have eaten the akara but nobody has seen the books. (Source: Dr Ebong Eno).
