The moral question and business in Nigeria

The Oxford English dictionary explains the term ‘moral’ to mean “concerned with the goodness or badness of human character or behaviour or with the distinction between right and wrong”. Moral is that part of human life that deals with doing good and bad and the motives for doing them. One could therefore assume that a moral question is a question that bothers on moral instructions. Moral instructions deal with character training, to mould people’s life, for everybody to be able to do good all the time. Moral instructions are distinct from laws of a land. While laws are written, enforceable rules governing the conduct of men in relations with each other, moral instructions are both written and oral and are, at times, not enforceable. Some moral instructions are based on superstitions and have been so crafted to help mankind to navigate life’s journey!

Whereas there are good deeds in life and there are bad deeds also, there are some deeds that cannot be categorised as good or bad. For example, whereas bathing and washing your teeth everyday are good for human beings and not washing your dishes after a meal is bad; it is difficult to determine whether greeting people you meet on the road is good or bad. While in some cultures greeting is at every contact with people, it is not so in some other cultures do not. It is also the culture of some people to respect and not call whoever is older than them by their first name, while some western cultures do not respect (but give privileges) based on age. In Nigeria, Yoruba children will kneel down (female) and prostrate (male) for elders. Culture has been developed based on people’s beliefs and not on global best practices. While it is legal to get super-profit on goods, products and services, it is ‘uncultured’ to leave your customers groaning while you are profiting!

Culture can be defined as the ways of life of a people, which they are used to and which work for them. It is a way of identifying a people and includes tribal marks, language, and ways of dressing, arts and beliefs of a people distinct from others. It is the customs, ideas and social behaviour of a particular people in the society. It is erroneous to think that only human beings have culture.

Any daily activity of animals that differentiate them from others is culture. It is now becoming the culture of Nigerian marketers to increase the price of old stock of goods which they bought at a lower price immediately the goods are being sold at higher prices by the manufacturers or suppliers. But when, after some time, the manufacturers or suppliers sell at lower prices, the marketers will not reduce their prices.

This is a moral question in business. Trust has always been a main driver of success in all of man’s endeavours. Research has found that trusted companies have more loyal customers, lower customers’ turnover, higher revenue and profitability, and higher market value. Building a culture of trusts is what makes a meaningful difference between successful and unsuccessful businesses. Businesses are not established for profit-making alone. Businesses are also established to satisfy human needs. When marketers of building products are not cooperative with the buyers and use every opportunity to ‘exploit’ customers by selling at higher prices than ‘normal’ because of the seemingly monopoly caused by collaboration between the manufacturers of the product, customers may be forced to look for alternatives.

In the past, I worked for a company which preferred to buy a Japanese car because of its popularity and alleged ‘cheaper’ maintenance cost in Nigeria. The company planned to buy four brand new cars of the ‘popular brand’ but the price of the car suddenly moved up considerably and the company could not afford to buy it any longer. The company then decided to try another brand of car as a “product of necessity”. It was then that the company discovered that the maintenance cost, and indeed, the operation cost of the newly purchased brand, was ‘not more than the more expensive brand it had forgone’. At times, products are expensive not because of their quality or benefits, but because of the perception of customers and their demand for the products. Cements are expensive in Nigeria because Nigerian builders believe there are no alternatives to cement in building.

Nigeria is one of the few countries that highly consume cement in their building process and products. In terms of volume, cement consumption reached 355.46 million tonnes in the financial year 2022 and is expected to reach 450.78 million tonnes by the end of 2027. The noticeable increase in demand for residential, commercial and industrial construction will cause the increase in consumption of cement. Nigeria’s cement manufacturers recorded profit of N710.03 billion in 2023 as significant upsurge in sales and considerably higher prices of products lessened pressures on operations. For companies in the sector which produce products that are used to provide basic needs like shelter, it may seem “immoral” but not illegal for so much profit to be declared, especially with the huge housing deficit in Nigeria.

Government must therefore encourage the use of alternative local building materials to deliver affordable shelters to the people. Though all businesses are out to maximise profit; and profit maximisation is the reason why businesses find the optimal price and output level. They achieve this by analysing costs, and using value-based and intelligent pricing strategies. Ultimately, businesses need to balance profitability with customer satisfaction and long-term sustainability. Wise business owners are sensitive to customers’ plight. If burnt bricks are used for walls, sawn timber logs are used for lintel, gum are  used to lay tiles, plaster of Paris (POP) are used for rendering of internal walls and timber are used for upper floors, cement consumption will greatly reduce and the prices of cement will considerably come down.

If truly the government is keen on providing affordable housing to the teeming populace of Nigeria, the time to answer the moral question on the higher margin on the price of cement, a raw material for the production of housing, is now. 

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