Much Ado About Mark's Visit

Bonjour tout le monde,

Hope you’ve been having a great week. To my old and new readers, I say welcome! As you must have known, I don’t do breaking news, rather I watch a news event play out, then analyse it here from my own corner and my perspective. It’s more fun that way, right?

So, by now the whole world knew Mark Zuckerberg visited Nigeria and since then there has been speculations upon speculations on what this entails for Nigeria. See, here, we always want to know what's in it for us, what do we stand to gain from this visit. It's not everyday that the 6th richest man in the world walks and runs on our streets, unsafe and dirty as they may be. 

Some people, Nigerians inclusive, thought we blew up the whole visit out of proportion. Well, you need to understand where we are coming from so you'd understand why his visit and the whole mystery surrounding it was a big deal for some of us.

Here, an ordinary Local Government Councillor representing one or two Wards will not drive on the street without sirens and all the accompanying inconvenience to other road users. His 'body guards', a.k.a 'Agberos' will push and shove people out of his path, caring less if you get hurt or your car gets scratched in the process. So, to have Mark walking on the dirty streets of Yaba without much fuss was a big deal, although I can bet that there were Satellites following him upandan, you know say Oyibo ppl na winch dem be. 

Also, in a country where every donation by our rich politicians, no matter how little, is announced and publicised for days, it was pleasant to hear that the Chan-Zuckerberg had earlier donated/invested  in Andela, and engineering organisation that is building the next generation of technical leaders in Africa. Some people might argue that he was just doing his business, yes, that's true. However, Nigerians will benefit from the investment too. If all the people who looted our resources could invest in Nigeria, do you know where we'd be? Rather, they are more comfortable to stash the funds in banks, or in soak-away pits in their houses, shameful.

One thing I love about Nigerians is our wicked sense of humour. In the midst of the depression/recession we're facing at the moment, we need to have some good laugh. We've seen the 'Zuckerberg in Lagos' movie, which though I know it's fake, but it just shows that we don't waste any opportunity to maximise the full potential of any given opportunity. I even saw the bread, Hahahahaha... I can't swear that is not real. We're too funny like that.

I pray we get through this recession soonest. I just love Nigeria so much and wish her the very best. Enjoy your day and the rest of your week.

Hugs...