The Implications of Zuckerberg's visit to Nigeria

 photo credit: techpoint

The co-founder of Facebook and 5^th richest man in the world sneaked into Nigeria to meet with developers and entrepreneurs and to discuss investments in Nigeria’s growing start-up ecosystem. And for two days, he went round the city of Lagos, visiting start-ups and interacting with young entrepreneurs.


More investors may well be encouraged to visit Nigeria too, seeing how confidently a whole $53.7 billion walked freely about in Nigeria, and he was not stolen or kidnapped.  

Zuckerberg’s visit also provided great publicity for Nigeria’s emerging Silicon Valley, and the young entrepreneurs to whom Zuckerberg paid compliments. He has already invested in a Nigerian start-up, Andela, and he has made friends with other young Nigerians, the guys behind Jobberman and C-Creation Hub (CcHUB) and so many others. Zuckerberg cut the picture throughout his visit of a true inspirational figure.

He is interested in peoples' intellect not where they come from.  One more thing: The Nigerian government snubbed him or did he snub our government? When he got to Kenya, he was received at the airport by the Cabinet Secretary of Information and Communications and later given a delicious lunch of fish, semo and soup no Nigerian government official offered him common sachet water and yet he was here to create jobs and markets! We shouldn’t frighten him away with our politics! 

The good news, though, is that he is a humanist even if a secular humanist: End of story. Thank you Marky, for the visit and for giving us a good story to tell.