In a nutshell, who is Mimshach?
When people ask me this very interesting question that who is Mimshach? I try to separate my identity from my work. First of all my name is Emmanuel Mimschach Obioha, a devoted Christian and a member of Christ embassy and am super proud of that. Mimshach is a fellow of the Mandela institute, a consultant, social Entrepreneur, program designer, partnership broker, youth development catalyst and the country manager at TeleSoftas technologies in Nigeria.
I believe that economically empowering the African youth is the way to truly liberate the continent. Mimshach is basically an easy going tech guy nothing really spectacular about me and if you want to know more about me you can check my bio on my Linkedin page at Emmanuel Mimschach Obioha.
As a multinational company, what is the staff strength of your company and how is the staff managed across different countries?
TeleSoftas is a multinational technology company with branches in several countries around the world like USA, UK, and Nigeria with headquarter in Lithuania.
Telesoftas has developed a lot of soft wares over the years and it boast of one of its apps being used by over one billion people around the world. The company is structured like a typical business with management department, procurement department, production department, marketing and sales department.
What is the future of the workspace in Nigeria and the world at large as a result of tech driven jobs? Do you think everybody has to be tech savvy to be relevant in the workspace in the coming future?
Nigeria has a very huge potential of becoming a tech giant globally because of the exponential speed the country has moved over the years in technology. For instance the country just recently moved or evolved from cable networks to wireless networks and since then the Nigerian technology sector moved so fast ahead of many European countries with a double digit growth rate when many countries are still crawling on a single digit.
Take a look at the Nigerian movie industry how it metamorphosed into becoming the third biggest movie industry in the world, what about the Nigerian music industry and the tsunami of progress it has witnessed in the last two decades.
Nigeria also has a pool of under tapped talents everywhere I mean this is very evident when we move out of Nigeria we become icons in various fields of endeavor that is to show that the problem is not lack of talents but the enabling environment.
Our leaders must change the narrative about how they portray Nigeria in the eye of the international community whenever they are invited to speak at international spaces.
They must stop the beggarly approach of always asking for aids and making Nigeria look like a dump yard, they must begin to sell the narrative of a very viable and robust Nigeria that has all the world needs for investments to attract foreign investments directly and indirectly.
As the country manager in your company, what are some of the challenges you have to battle with in regard to your work?
First of all doing business in Nigeria as the case may be is a very huge challenge. As a business entity especially a multinational company, we have to deal with unfavorable government policies like ambiguous tax laws, poor electricity supply, and lack of basic amenities and worst of all corruption.
Let me share one of the experiences I had. There was a certain period i and my team were supposed to travel to our headquarters in Lithuania then unfortunately, we were told that the embassy isn’t issuing dates for visa appointments at the moment then all of a sudden someone walked up to me and said I can get you appointment dates behind the cotton for a fee of one hundred and fifty thousand naira for each of your team member.
As a multinational company you have to maintain your integrity by doing everything legally and by the books and that’s a huge challenge for us dealing with corrupt government officials every now and then.
Secondly there is a mismatch between the skills required to carry out a task and the skills the average Nigerian graduate has because the Nigerian system of education only teaches you what to think and not how to think.
So most times when we recruit an average Nigerian graduate, we will have to train them for at least three months while paying them the standard equivalent of global pay rate scale because tech jobs are universal in nature without them generating any revenue within that three months training period and that’s a challenge as well.
What are the things you think should be put in place in order for things to become better in Nigeria?
Virtually everything needs to be overhauled completely from the mind control systems down to the educational system of teaching.
Years ago I use to think that when you kill all the Nigerian leaders and start that circle of leadership from the scratch Nigeria will automatically become better not until I had the opportunity of interacting with some secondary school students.
When I asked them about their future ambitions, most of them said they want to become governors, ministers, and politicians then I went further to ask them why that choice of career parts, my God! I was shocked when I heard their responses.
Some of them confidently said they wanted to become politicians so that they can amass wealth and their generation will never know poverty ever again.
Obviously I was wrong to think that killing all the leaders was the solution to Nigeria’s decay.
Now I know better that Nigeria’s problem is not the leaders but the people because when you cut the branches, what about the stems and the roots?
Off course the circle will continue. If Nigeria must get better, then there must be a paradigm shift in our thought patterns, morals and integrity which must be reinvented in the younger generation from kindergarten.
Our educational system of garbage in garbage out style of learning must be discarded and the system of allowing people to think on their own to solve problems be introduced in our schools. Finally, People who have what it takes should be given opportunities to make a difference in leadership.
What advice would you give to the average Nigerian especially with recent happenings in the economy and security sector?
Evolve or die. I mean everything evolves or die. I will give you an example with a very popular magazine called the Ovation magazine.
They were the foremost A-list Nija wedding magazine, I mean the trend then was that if your wedding was not covered by ovation magazine then it’s not an A-list wedding.
But they refused to evolve with changing times and trend then all of a sudden Bella Nija weddings capitalized on their ignorance and captured the market through technology and the internet while ovation magazine were still snail walking with hard copy magazines.
Today nobody is talking about ovation magazine anymore because Bella Nija has taken over that business space so every Nigerian who wants to remain relevant in any field must strive to unlearn, learn, and relearn and at the same time re-skill and up-skill.
Nobody pays you because of the ideas in your head but for the products your ideas was able to translate into tangible products.
Do you think technology can help with the fight against insecurity and corruption in Nigeria?
Off course technology can help with everything. Nigeria is still 100 years behind the world because of her under utilization of technology. In the United Kingdom for instance, you cannot steal and disappear, you will definitely be caught.
We see it in Hollywood films every day, they will employ several technologies like facial and finger prints recognition and pull you out from any hole or cave you are hiding.
I am convinced that African countries that leverage innovation and technology to create solutions to problems are the last frontiers for Africa’s development
If Nigeria must change for the better, then technology must be employed fully to combat crime, corruption, insecurity and terrorism.