Google For Nigeria – Another Wake Up Call To Sleeping Youth by Alabi Anjolaolorun

What is this thing about Silicon Valley big boys and surprises? So much that the recent visits of 2 of its most respected CEOs to Nigeria, were reported as surprise visits.


Last August, Facebook‘s Mark Zuckerberg walked and jogged the streets of Lagos. It was recorded somewhere that he ate jollof rice and pounded yam. Whether Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google jogged or ate anything when he visited this July, we don’t know. However, there are reports of his sightings in Ikeja, computer village, of His pronouncing o da bo, (meaning goodbye in Yoruba), and dancing to small doctor’s penalty.

During these visits, there were meetings and there were discoveries. Business deals were made. Partnerships consolidated. And all of these catering to young Nigerian entrepreneurs in the digital space. This was one of those few instances when young, denim donning Nigerians, had access to the proverbial pot of gold, without the unfair intrusion of bellied Agbada men from Abuja.

Mark Zuckerberg during his visit admitted that “[during] this trip, I have been really blown away by the talents of young entrepreneurs and developers in this country.”  Then he gushed nostalgically about how everything he saw reminded him of when he wanted to start Facebook. How he had only wanted to build something to see if it would work. What he saw here was the recreation of those early Facebook days of pushing through challenges. He also noticed developer Temi Giwa at the Co Creation Hub, who runs the life bank platform that creates ease of access to life-saving blood around Nigeria. He expressed his readiness to work with local internet providers to increase internet access around Nigeria. He also revealed other tidbits like the recent work on the Hausa language feature on Facebook and plans to expand to other Nigerian languages. Among Mark’s interests in the African tech scene is a well-known startup, Andela, where He invested 24 million dollars. Andela creates an internship space where Africans are trained into world-class developers.

From Sundar Pichai’s visit alone this July, there have been impressive announcements made, such as digital training for ten million Africans, 3 million dollars in funding for startups, and 20 million dollars to non-profit organizations in Africa. Also, the newly developed Nigerian specific features like the YouTube Go, the Lagos street view on Google imageries, and the PostsWithGoogle. But of all these announcements, the one which fills the non-tech savvy man with joy is the announcement by Ceaser Sengupta, Google’s vice president of product management.  This announcement states Google’s collaboration with MTN to introduce the Freetel ICE 2 android phones into the Nigerian market. It will come with freebies like double data bonuses and will retail for just 13,000 naira.

It is a fact that these visits always spur the creation of various partnerships and interests in the Nigerian digital creative sector. However, in all of this, there’s something that worries me as a Nigerian youth.

And it is how quickly the hype fades and with it the attention of many young Nigerians. It seems to me that we get all excited after these announcements and don’t seem to think of how we could grasp the opportunities they produce. All these funds and technologies will most certainly find willing hands to go into, most of all the 13,000 Naira data phones.

Now that the millions are here now, myriads of questions begin to pop up in my mind. Into whose hands will these funds come? Who directs its managements? And when it’s exhausted, how do we create an organic system where we can access digital tech trust without reliance or dependent on foreign aids? But then the one question that weighs most heavily is, are Nigerians ready and available to make the best of this opportunity?

Fine, it goes without mentioning that Nigerians have for a long time being tech-enlightened and the streets of its major cities burst at the seams with internet savvy young guys. But when we look down through the years, we cannot but wonder what has really become of us from all of these tech energies. Give the troubling matter of internet fraud. A matter so troubling it is generally agreed to be at the head of all the ills of young Nigerians. If we allow our minds a flight of fancy and imagine how all this energy expended on internet fraud were spent differently- on more honourable and dignified ventures in digital creativity and entrepreneurship (over the long years internet fraud became a thing), we might probably be the ones traveling up around the world to offer handouts to encourage the opening up of digital space in choice places.

So now, what campaigns do we run to help enlighten and direct the attention of the already internet enlightened Nigerian youth to the proper and more profitable ways of digital creations. Or do we just accept that lot are a lost cause and direct our efforts and attention to the still very impressionable young minds coming behind? We should take campaigns and enlightenment to secondary and even primary schools.  We can start by doing extra mural classes for first-year university students. We can only imagine the creative boom in years to come.

It took the agency I work for months to get a website developer, to show the death of developers out here, which is saddening. Given the numerous free resources and opportunities in which we can educate ourselves with, these days, one would not expect such scenario.

My fellow youth, let us seize these great opportunities like others have done and not wait for another Silicon Valley surprise visit to get all excited and then do nothing about it.