By Tony Ogunlowo
According to CNN Mark
Zuckerberg has just made his first visit to ‘Sub-Sahara-Africa’ to witness the
impact of his Facebook social media enterprise and to promote his Express WIFI
internet service.
One should point it out to
the CNN journalists and researchers, probably graduates from fourth-grade
American universities, that there really isn’t a place called
‘Sub-Sahara-Africa’ anymore as it’s populated with countries that have names
like ‘Nigeria’.
So Billionaire Mark
Zuckerberg arrives in Nigeria, incognito, wearing his trademark low-key T-shirt
and jeans and casually strolls into the Yaba offices of Co-creation Hub and
Andela.
For future reference
someone ought to tell him that if you’re 54 billion dollar Golden Goose you
don’t go walk about in Yaba. The area boys there will jump you, mug you and
kidnap you – bodyguards or not! But yet again nobody probably told him that if
you’re a Tech Giant in Nigeria ( - do we have any?) you’re supposed to arrive
in an entourage comprising of gun-toting policemen, bullet-proof 4X4s, a bevy
of hanger-ons – and of course the full red carpet treatment.
But yet again our
mentalities are different. When a Black Man has mega-money he suddenly thinks
he’s the King of the Universe, struts around like a peacock on heat, reeking of
ostentatious luxury and expects everyone to bow down and kiss his feet. Whereas
the White Man thinks ‘well I’m stupendously rich but I still want to live my
simple life’. Big difference. Money doesn’t make a person!
Whilst we might be
‘fantastically corrupt’ as ex-PM British Cameron once referred to us, the world
– and tech giants – are watching us carefully, especially our youths who are a
dab hand at computers, coding and social media( - not forgetting the antics of
the yahoo yahoo 419 boys for which we’re infamously known worldwide!). Nigeria
has the largest online social media base and its growing, perpetuating every
aspect of lives. Growth is greater in Africa than it is in the rest of the
world. For marketers and developers this is paradise: a vast untapped market.
The Western world is
finally waking up to the fact that we’re not just a bunch of tree-climbing,
monkey-chasing, goat-herding imbeciles as previously thought. We have as much
raw talent as they do, hence his visit.
Zuckerberg wants to get
the whole world on to social media. To do this he is interested in sponsoring
the next generation of developers and start-ups. Andela recently received
funding to the tune of $24 million from the Zuckerberg foundation. To get
everyone online poorer nations need a reliable internet service. His
organisation, Internet.org, intends to get 4.5 billion unconnected people,
worldwide, as soon as possible. To achieve this he has funded research into
solar-powered high-altitude mobile relay platforms and a new breed of
satellites. Unfortunately his flagship satellite, Amos-6, was destroyed in the
Space-X rocket explosion a couple of days ago when he was in Nigeria ( - abi
you naija people don curse am?)
Kenya, Zuckerbergs next
port of call, is a world leader in mobile payments and he was keen to learn all
about it. Just like in Nigeria Kenya has its own silicon valley called iHub and
many of the developers and start-ups are working on apps geared towards the
local populace.
While we have a government
and private investors who are blind to the advances being made by our tech
savvy youths (- until they hack their bank accounts!) others are watching
carefully and ready to invest in them. As Zuckerberg himself admits that Africa
will build the future.
This is the third foreign
billionaire to visit Nigeria in recent times: one,Gates, came to donate cash
towards our ailing and failing health service, another, Bono of U2, came to
highlight the plight of people living in deplorable IDP camps and now
Zuckerberg. Isn’t it time our own home-grown ‘billionaires’ follow suit, or
haven’t they been shamed enough?
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