 When an economy is troubled by the attendant lack of jobs, loss of existing ones, and rise in poverty, the question that gradually comes to mind is what to do to create wealth, to stave off hunger and piling bills. But most times the people, including the educated, aren't lost about what to do. Professionals and operators in the digital space say Nigerian youths need to embrace technological innovations to create wealth and prosperity for themselves. Also coming up on the show, as the incoming government prepares to take over by May 29, Oxfam, Nigeria, has set an agenda on how it could address some of the challenges confronting the country. It charged the new government on the needs to take urgent steps towards ending hunger, reducing inequality, and reducing the number of Nigerians living below the poverty line. A business insight starts now. I am Justin. Welcome back. Here are some roundup for business headlines to begin from the crude oil theft story. The House of Representatives at her committee has threatened to summon the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, and other tough government officials about the alleged loss of $2.4 billion from illegal sale of $48 million barrels of crude oil. Malami, the Minister of Finance, Zinab Ahmed, and others have failed to appear before the committee chaired by Mark Miller on Wednesday. They were invited to participate in the committee's group of inflows from recoveries from whistleblowers and expenditures. The committee, however, said it is given the appointees one last opportunity to appear before it and speak on inflows from recoveries from whistleblowers. We will make this program appeal to the economies of the Federation and all others who have not responded to the recommendation to do so. By 2014, there was a presidential committee to investigate crude oil theft in Nigeria. And I had the privilege to serve on that committee. But the terms of the committee was not about investigating $48 million of crude oil theft. Now, a PWC Nigeria's report released has disclosed that the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, paid a total sum of $69.92 billion in tax refunds in 2019, 2020, and 2021. Now, the report titled Tax Refonts in Nigeria meets our reality also stated that the FIRS received 321.34 billion naira, 862.612 million dollars, and 114,000 euros tax refund applications in 2019, 2020, and 2021. Now, the federal government says it will increase excise tax on tobacco products from 30% to 50% as part of measures to control tobacco smoking in the country, head tobacco control unit, non-communicable disease, division of the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. Mangaya Malau, disclosed this at the National Tobacco Control Bartlett Advocate Metin in Abuja. He said that presently the federal government imposed a 30% tax on tobacco product, but it is, or its target was to increase to 50% in order to meet the World Health Organization's standard. Obingey, the position of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria on that tomorrow on Business Insight. Well, moving on now, there is a knowledge gap on information in Africa, and as such, people need to understand what to do and apply information to create wealth. These form part of discourse are the Wealth Creation Summit organized by Knowledge Digest Africa, our speakers from Africa, and other parts of the world. Now the founder of Knowledge Digest Africa, Samson O'Lachendey, joins me now on this discuss. Many thanks for joining me, Samson, on Business Insights. All right, there is a knowledge gap and information in Africa in terms of digital learning and wealth creation. How can this be bridged? Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead, I can hear you, yeah. Okay, for me, I think we need to just start by looking at it from thinking around the curriculum from the primary school to secondary school to higher institution. I think that it would be nice for the government to begin to think about introducing technical and soft skills into all of these curriculum, because I mean, if you look at, for instance, in China, an average person out of secondary school or primary school have one or two technical skills. I mean, we have that in some of the polytechnics, but if we can integrate that from the primary, secondary, and high institution, I think it would be a good way to begin to look at a way of getting people to acquire certain skills. I mean, soft skills that would help them understand the critical aspect about becoming more relevant in terms of the career field, in terms of entrepreneurship or that necessary skills that they need to know, understanding skills, understanding the aspect of digital skills that is available. I mean, you look at what is happening all over the world now. There's a lot of skill gap currently in Africa, and if you look at different part of the world that is developed, that is being developed, you realize that the need for us to begin to have more people within that space to do a lot. So we're talking about an electrical car, we're talking about water car. I mean, the engines are still using petrol, diesel kind of car. That's a long way to go. We're talking about people learning on the go. I mean, there's a lot of hassle strikes that happen, and then people cannot learn on the go, unlike different online courses, different institutes, having where people can learn on different platforms. You know, when we look at it from there, I'm going to think about what are from COVID made us realize that people can work from home. I mean, instead of just staying nine to five in a work environment. So COVID introduced us to many things. So companies realized that they can reduce their cost. Many things can be done from where people are, and then that introduced a lot of tools that they were not using before, technical tools or technological tools rather than we're not using before to make things happen. So I feel that if we can, we work on a curriculum from the primary, secondary and high institution, it goes along with to give us a kind of results that we need, and that reduces what we call the knowledge gap that we have in Africa. All right, now quickly, at the recently concluded wealth creation summit which you convinced, expert helped on monetizing of expertise and experience. How can individuals and maybe startups key into this? So we thought of the fact that, yeah, knowledge has to go beyond the formal education. I mean, we have to begin to think about experiential learning, experiential learning by which people learn from people that are already doing it, not just people that have read from somewhere and trying to pass the information. And we thought of how can we even have this knowledge in a one stop digital knowledge bank, whereby I have access to login and I can have access to many, many futures that can help me. For instance, on a go, I can listen to broadcast of different aspects, showing me step by step guide of how to do stuff. I can begin to think about getting mentorship from the same people, wherever I may be, all over the world, especially in African country and beginning to think about looking at it from the aspect of taking a masterclass where there are many videos that I can have access to. And we feel that the only way we can do this is to begin to look for aspect in different African countries, have a collaboration with them, based on their content, their knowledge, their experiences, their results and give them access to our own platform and then begin to build a community of digital survey professionals. We felt in our own thinking pattern that if we can have a one stop digital knowledge bank, that gives access to people to one stop information platform, where you have access to learn on the go, you have access to futures, you have access to podcasts, you have access to mentorship, you have access to even sell some of the things you have package in terms of product, based on knowledge you have acquired within and outside the platform. And then that reduces the kind of knowledge that we're talking about. So it's not just talking about the problem, but we're thinking about the solution. Solution about me getting into another country and have someone who is a professional in that field that can work me through the process and look at what is happening. Many people are trying to migrate from one country to another, especially in Nigeria or in different part of Africa. Now, when you migrate to a new city, you want to understand the culture, certain things, what is happening in your industry. Now, if you have a platform that can work you through that process and what you need to know step by step guide of what you need to learn, opportunities in that region. I mean, you have all of that in one stop digital knowledge bank. It gives you access to be able to even have more confidence that you're not going to feel getting into that new city or that new environment. So what knowledge that just Africa out of platform is trying to do is to really be careful. So knowledge within the industry. All right, Samson, just before we go, because of our time's sake, let's just talk about the future of outsourcing and freelancing for productivity and profitability in workplace. Is it positive or negative in 30 seconds, please? Absolutely, it's positive. I mean, so people that are freelancers, who are freelancers, people that have skills that needed for individual organizations. I mean, you're talking about content writer, graphic designer, video editor, someone that is good in profiting. All of that skillset that is needed in the 21st century, those who know how to go about it, social media managers. I mean, we have a lot of them, web developer, web designer, programmers. They are freelancers and many people prefer to hire more of the freelancers. Right. You have less supervision. People can have access to work without you supervising them. They can deliver in prompt time for you. They can give you the best in terms of results. And that's what I think what has happened to many organizations that are doing well now. They have seen that they can decide to hire an expert without them resuming their office 9 to 5, then working where they are. But there's a timeline of their target and there's an MOU around that. So that's the future of work where I can get into the office, have one hour to get all of the brief and then from where I am, I can work to deliver a result. That reduces the cost for an organization, for instance, because you don't need to have your power to be on from morning to night. That helps in terms of the work that you get put in. We talk about the future of work. All right, Samson. And this is categorically that is a yes for me. All right, thank you so much. We have to let you go. We have to bring you back again to talk about all of these issues as they affect Nigeria and, of course, Africans in general. Would you appreciate your time? As Samson or Latin, knowledge digest Africa.