Nigerians are the best respondents I know -Long

NICK LONG is the founder of Grapevine Research, a Qualitative Market Research agency specializing in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Having worked extensively in Angola, Cameroun, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, Long has personally been involved with running training courses to enhance qualitative market research practice. In this interview , he shares his experience working in the Sub-Sahara region, among other issues.

Work in Nigeria
The first time I came to Nigeria was in 1990 and since then, I have been coming here frequently. Most of my works are done internationally and I have spent 14 years in the sub-Saharan region of Africa. I have worked for multinational companies who have interests in a number of countries and so quite frequently we look through to see if there are common themes or projects that may be run across countries. I did some work with Market Support Services Limited (MSSL) and training its members of staff on qualitative interviewing, skills, analysis and interpretation.

Market research practice
We do a lot of work over the years, purely in qualitative research, and most of that is about understanding consumers’ motivations, behaviours, attitudes so that we can assist companies in their marketing and advertising.

market research practice in
Nigeria and the UK
I think in the UK, qualitative research has been a well established industry for a great many years. I joined market research in 1986 which was already running for at least 40 -50 years and there are other companies that specialized in qualitative research. This has grown considerably, which means there are many people who have different approach to qualitative research from the marketing point of view, specialized advertising or perhaps, different intellectual frameworks that might cover research from the anthropology point of view to specialized photographic research.
Whereas in Nigeria, there is a very well established and good quantitative industry; the same is not seen in qualitative research. There simply has not been the level of supply of qualitative research in this country. From my perspective, there is a lot of opportunity for growth for Nigeria in qualitative research but equally, it is a difficult area to gain experience in unless you work with people continuously on projects, that way you would have a lot of experience.
In the UK, I was not allowed to work in a project until I had worked for two and half years, every single day interviewing, doing reports and presentation writing; I was being trained and I worked every single day on qualitative research. Now, that possibility doesn’t exist in Nigeria. There simply isn’t a quantity of quality research jobs available; you have to know the people who have the experience. So events like this where I can get the opportunity to work and train with the sets of MSSL is of great value. The better they are, the better they would be in service delivery.

Challenges faced in Nigeria in qualitative research
The quantitative research here in Nigeria is very good and it meets up with international standard. The major challenge in qualitative research is finding experienced qualitative researchers who would give their time, energy and efforts to train the next generation and would be fully equipped to deal with interests from local clients as well as international clients who have representations here and those who want to settle here in the future, that would be the big challenge. There are good practitioners here who already meet up to international standards and so Nigeria measures up with what is obtainable in other developed countries. The difficulty here is simply the quantity of work available for research so that people can build their skills on.

Your impression on people’s appreciation of research
It varies a lot. In the UK, people are very familiar with market research and having interviewers ask them questions but the big problem is trying to persuade them to find time for you. Many of them have a busy life and they don’t find it very interesting speaking to you about something they have done so many times. Here, that is not the case, and that is why it is so much fun and I enjoy working here so much.
Nigerians are the best respondents I know, they would always give you their opinion, they would always talk, and they are very hospitable and welcoming. They make it very easy for me to ask the questions I want to ask; I do not get the same willingness to work on projects and on topics in the UK. In Nigeria, I find the groups I work with very interesting and lively and people are very helpful.

Your experience in Nigeria
I have been coming to Nigeria for the past 20 years now and I have seen Lagos change a far bit and I have also traveled to many other sub-Saharan African countries and from the share scale of change; Nigeria is a much better place to be in.
I have seen what it is like in the dark days when it was very hard working here, what I see now is a much more dynamic positive Nigeria. All the same there are challenges but above all there is more confident, more vibrant, more optimistic and pleasant place to work.