3 reasons why Buhari should do business with Malaysia (II)

As of this moment, Malaysia has no unemployment because the unemployment rate is less than 4 percent. According to the International LabourOrganisation (ILO), if you have less than 4 percent, you have none.We can also learn from their tourism sector. The last time I attended a talk by the head of Malaysia’s Tourism Corporation, the […]

As of this moment, Malaysia has no unemployment because the unemployment rate is less than 4 percent. According to the International LabourOrganisation (ILO), if you have less than 4 percent, you have none.
We can also learn from their tourism sector. The last time I attended a talk by the head of Malaysia’s Tourism Corporation, the country was recording roughly 20 million tourists per year.  For a country of 28 million people, that’s impressive.
Let’s examine agricultural contribution to the economy of Malaysia.  A country of 28 million people with GDP of $700 billion (also bigger than ours); the only country in Southeast Asia which produces its own car, and one of the best economies in the region having an economy with a consistent growth rate of 6.5 percent for 50 years. How did Malaysia do it?
At a point, the country reasoned that the industrial sector provided more jobs than agriculture.For example, a piece of land farmed by a couple of farmers could be used to build a factory to employ hundreds of workers. This realisation and other factors led to the resettlement of the farmers. Federal Land Development Authority or Felda, became the most successful resettlement programme in the world. Further, the farmers so resettled became millionaires due to how government facilitated their productions– so successful that when Felda went public in 2012, their IPO was the biggest in the world, second only to Facebook’s.
Today, Malaysia persists as one of the world’s largest producers of palm oil.  Between 2013 and 2014, Malaysia was listed as one of the best places to retire to in the world, with the country in third position on the Global Retirement Index. Further, the country has 13 GW of electrical generation capacity (while we battle with megawatts, they’re already counting gigawatts).
Multi-religious, yet friendly and peaceful
Malaysians are liked for their friendly, peaceful and honest mien.  Individuals with this kind of comportment are natural business partners. They also have an abiding love for the little man, Africa inclusive.What I like most however, is their childlike honesty.  As a student in Malaysia, I once complained to a laundry shopkeeper that the collars of my shirt were not clean. Instead of just throwing the clothes in the machine, I advised, they should manually wash the collars in addition.  
I was willing to pay more money for that extra effort, I told her. She quickly promised that she would wash the collars, but she genuinely didn’t understand the part where I said I was going to pay more money.  Which money, you’ve already paid for the service!  Thereafter, I was deeply sorry for causing her confusion.
I was used to the Nigerian situation where you have to pay for every additional effort or cost the service provider incurs. For example, when you go to make a photocopy, you’ll be told to pay more for the generator if electricity is not available from the national grid.  It’s the same thing when you go to the barber’s.
In Malaysia, when you tip someone or ask an attendant to keep the change, she may pointedly ask you to purify your intention in a local parlance. The first time I witnessed it I was amused. A friend bought a dress for his wife and asked the seller to keep the change on account of getting it for a very low price. And she declared that statement, fearing she shouldn’t take a bribe.  
It’s not that all Malaysians don’t take bribes, in fact, my friend told me that while he was driving his wife and mine to a mall for shopping, a couple of policemen took a bribe from him for the infraction he committed.  But still, it’s not the norm there as it is here.
On honesty, you can still see products being sold in Malaysia without an attendant of any kind.  Prices are written on the package, you pick what you want and drop the money in a box; and the owner comes back to find what is left of his wares and the daily turnover.
Dignity of labour is also one thing I cherish about them. During my master’s degree studies, I had a friend who was over 50 years old.  He retired as a senior executive. But instead of sitting at home and live off his savings and pension, he decided to do another degree.  That’s not all, he became a taxi driver. In my country a retired head of HR in NNPC will never drive a taxi!
I also had a classmate, a very pretty young lady, who told me that whenever I needed a taxi, I should call her father and offered to give me his contact. A pretty university student in Nigeria will hide that fact from her classmates.
Nigerians attribute the regular crises in the country to the multiple religions in the country.  But we only have three, namely, Islam, Christianity and the traditional religion. Malaysia has at least five major religions including Hinduism and Budhism.Yet, they’re far more peaceful than us in Nigeria. We can learn from that. For example, why do even Malaysian-born religious extremists don’t do their business in Malaysia but prefer to go to more bendable nations like Indonesia?  There were some Muslim religious leaders in Malaysia who once claimed divinity, who were only short of calling themselves prophets, when Muslims generally believe Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was the final prophet of Allah.  These heretics were quickly “solved.”  If Nigeria had solved Mohammed Yusuf likewise, Boko Haram wouldn’t have blossomed to the monster it is today.
Thus, as the President-elect General MuhammaduBuhari prepares to reform Nigeria and right many wrongs, it makes sense to partner and do business with a country that has achieved many ideals that we desire; a country which, in many ways used to look like us.
Concluded.