Disclaimer: I am not an Economist. I am just a normal guy adding my 1 kobo to this dollar rise crisis in my country.

TLDR; When the month is rounding up, and it is time to pay for our monthly servers and different service subscriptions, I start to ask the question of “where do we start, oh lord” again. The burden of converting naira to dollar is not enough compared to the availability of the dollar.

I remembered a few months back that one of our services was suspended because we had not made our payment. We needed to pay about $4,000 to the service provider. I have been begging them to be patient because sourcing dollars from the black market is not just a matter of having the money but also about availability. I ran out of possible excuses, and the service was suspended. I called my usual “Aboki” to ask for a rate and how to get the transaction out of the way. Could you believe that he said he doesn’t have dollars? Maybe you don’t understand what I am saying? I meant, this is the guy’s livelihood; it is the only thing I have known him to be doing ever since I knew him. I likened this to a woman selling food to survive, and when you get to her shop, you find her sitting down with no activity. You then tell her you want to buy food, and she says, “there is no food” 😂. Won’t you ask, “…are you playing? 😀”. In fact, my business's biggest pain point is not even to pay salaries; “na sourcing dollars be our biggest issue”. The dollar availability is the king.

A lot of you people who read my articles will say “Bodun has come again o”. Yes, I have come o. I need to put this somewhere so I am no more moving around with the burden this dollar crisis is creating and the possible ways I feel we can fix it using my tech solving skills. I intentionally will not tag anybody because I don’t know anybody; I will rely on you to help me share it with those you know. This means the solution to the Nigeria dollar crisis from a “tech” is resting on your shoulders😂😂😂😂. Save Nigeria by sharing this with the appropriate quarters 🙏🙏🙏🙏.

I was really confused about this dollar sourcing thing, so I asked one of our partners that do heavy dollar transactions monthly on how they cope and survive…the answer was not even far-fetched. He said, “we too buy from the black market ni o”...ahhh the answer shocked me o. So we are all in this same market that is “black”? “Wahala for who no dey earn in dollars o.”

I know of different times I have reached out to some of the boys I have mentored and trained that now do remote work to help us sort out our dollar issue. The entirety of this dollar thing looks like an extreme sport now. It is the battle of the fittest.

Another interesting angle is the daily subscription that happens on different apps that people are using via smartphones. I remember a time when my wife was desperate to use one of the apps I use for music and podcasts because of some unique features the app has. She was then met with the challenge of payment, which I directed her to go use some of the dollar virtual wallet services available. I know the number of people I have directed to do the same thing when they are met with this same problem. I mean something as simple as listening to music, you have the money in naira but the Nigeria dollar crisis will turn you into “James Bond” who is looking for dollars so your day can be great. Wait o…why have I not developed a game about people looking for dollars sef 😂😂😂…let me make fun of myself small.

For people who want to know how the story of the $4,000 subscription ended, I called, I tire. The best option was to buy in bits and pieces to reduce the cost, but the risk is too high so we settled on buying the whole thing from a guy at a ridiculously high price. “We thank God, we found the guy”. I can’t imagine customers tagging us on social platforms because they can’t use our service, and I try to avoid plenty of “salaye” - explanation.

I can’t forget how few computer programmers there were when I first started coding in 2000. I can count the very few that are outstanding. Things are much better then 😒. I know you will say we should live forward, but “boss” can you give me back those days? The new era has opened up so many opportunities in Tech such that everyone wants to make “Tech money o”. The emergence of “Tech Bro” and “Tech Sis”. You will even read about how a security guy found his way to tech. This is a good thing, though, but is our economy prepared for this, or are we prepared for this as a nation? I will say “NO”. I remember reading one of the books about Awolowo “Awo Unfinished Greatness by (Olufemi Ogunsanwo)”. I doff my hat for that legend of a man. When he started free primary education, he already knew the problem he would be creating for the few secondary schools in existence then, so he started building secondary schools before the pupils in “Form 5” would graduate to secondary school and the same for University.

The problem we see today did not start today; it is a build-up from the past, and so also the solution that will fix it will not just work today, we would have to wait for it to manifest. That is why we must plan and strategize for a solution in the right direction. Think about it like this, If you hit the gym today, you can never have those abs or endurance today; it will show up as much as you have a target and you are consistent.

Now let’s talk about how tech is gulping and putting pressure on the dollars in the Nigeria economy.

The boom of tech industry and the low entry barrier

The only barrier to becoming a “Tech Bro or Sis” is a laptop and an internet (either stable or not). In fact, sometimes the internet is not even needed. Learning web design and computer programming in those days was my saving grace out of crime and penury. This birthed my first tech startup ThinkFirstSMS in 2007, which was a bulk SMS platform. I wrote the code all from scratch, and I got my first startup funding from my lovely sister, Aunty Folake. The startup failed, though, but God bless you for me “ma,” for believing in me. She gave me N50,000 even without understanding what the startup was all about. I still owe you and will return the gesture. I want to thank Aunty Funmi too for your startup fund into “Think First Technologies” when I needed it most. Chai, how can I ever forget your love and commitment to see me grow. My sisters are the real heroes. I got to see computers for the very first time through my good friend Bolaji Egberongbe and got introduced to programming through Anicetus. You can read about this story on my blog here https://blog.akinyeleolubodun.com/my-appreciation.html.

This is my story and almost the same with so many tech boys and girls. I started coding from a cyber cafe; a lot of other boys started a tech company from their rooms. After a few weeks and months of coding. They launch the startup by hosting their project. Many of us do not even have a registered company provided the domain name is available; we are good.

The increased news about “all these small tech boys” getting funding has also increased the enthusiasm of people joining tech, and it has increased the numbers of tech businesses from just ordinary blogs, website design companies, different app developments, digital marketers, DevOps to mention a few. Guess what this will increase? Dollar monthly subscriptions for server and development tools because we don’t “manufacture” any.

Our company’s Gmail account is paid with a dollar card, the server is paid with dollars, and all our tools are paid in dollars. Where do you think we source this dollar from? You are right; it is the same black market. “Aboki sef don tire for my staff calls”.

Wait…hope we are aware that the 3MT (https://www.thecable.ng/apply-fg-launches-tech-initiative-to-empower-3m-nigerians-seeks-training-firms) drive by the honourable Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy will also push the traffic into this tech more, hope we are prepared for the surge, and our dollar market/economy is ready for it too.

The high penetration of smartphones and the push for more coverage

The high penetration of smartphones is another factor I want us to consider. For every smartphone in the hand of an individual, there is an app store attached to it. It is either you install the app you need from the Apple store, Play Store, Samsung store, or Any store.

My wife could not pay through her Apple store for the longest time I can remember because she needed a dollar card; no Nigerian bank card could come to her rescue. You might be curious about what she needed this card for? She needed to pay for her picture storage. How much is this? Just $1. Ahhh…yes o…it is $1. Nigerian cards will not do the magic. She was so frustrated until I made her know that it is at the point of the Apple store trying to convert the naira value she is seeing to dollars and charge her that the transaction is failing. This is so that she understands the mess this dollar thing is making for us. Do you all remember when CBN made the policy that stops our Naira cards from being charged a dollar value in naira?

The virtual dollar cards came to the rescue again, and their rate even “passed” the black market…I will live to tell the story of this era.

So you can now also imagine our “tech bro and sis” who have learned how to develop apps and they would want to monetize it on different stores. Don’t forget s/he will, for obvious reasons, solve a local problem with this app which means his/her customers will be local users. How will the users pay? Through the same store that will charge in dollars, of course. Wait 😡, you mean you don’t want our tech bro and sis to make money in dollars? “I beg, allow them.” Now think about the viral effect of all these “minor” dollars…we will look more into Mathematics later.

Now let’s talk about repairs that eventually happen on “tech bro and sis” gadgets. I have needed to repair three of my MacBook screens, and I can tell you that it is not funny. The screens are not manufactured here now, so they are bought in dollars to be shipped here. Think about all the smartphones too; when they need repair, where will the replacement come from? It is “obodo oyinbo.” A lot of businessmen are into the replacement chip business. They are all smiling “to” the banks o. The new problem of smartphones brings with it the challenges of repair that have to be imported in. Now you can argue that this is not a big deal; we will look into the maths soon. Wait before you crucify me.

For the “tech bros and sis,” our daily grind is with laptops, smartphones, and “iEverything”...plenty of tech devices. For some, we repair, and for many, we discard and buy another. The repair is the crux of the matter here…”it is dollar o.

Digital Economy

Now let’s talk about the digital economy, and I will refer to this as the daily adverts that go on on social platforms. I know how much I suffered to get some of my adverts up on Instagram. All thanks to the wallet top solution that was later introduced. Think about paying for an advert on LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, and even Google Ad; you must have your dollar card ready. I am not sure about how Twitter collects their money, but I am sure you get the drift.

If you still don’t get it, don’t forget about it. Come, let me explain. Adverts and some of these subscriptions are more like a way of life. I know how much my wife spends on advertisements in a month on different social platforms to sell her shoes. Think about millions of different unstructured businesses that are fighting out “poverty” every day and willing to sell more. They realised that advertising is their best way to put their products in front of different customers, and I can assure you that you can’t imagine the different platforms they advertise on.

You will be shocked to know different funny platforms that do different simple tasks that all these people with smartphones visit to pay as little as $1 on to help them solve dead simple tasks. We will see how this adds up monthly and puts the pressure I am talking about on the dollar market.

Let’s do some maths.

Let’s do some maths

Look at the image below; I got it by just randomly searching for fintechs in Nigeria on Google.

How many companies can you count there? Let me help you; there are 235 companies in that image, and guess what? My own company (www.ogaranya.com) is not there, so it means that the $4,000 transaction I wrote about earlier will not be captured in our maths. It is also good to note that the image shows “2022”; we are in 2023. This implies that more startups have risen since then. In fact, I know of one of them. One of the undergraduates I taught coding launched an app (www.highschoolking.com) for secondary school just a few days ago. The web app gamifies their questions in a form of “Who wants to be a millionaire” that will make them better prepared for WAEC and JAMB. I used my dollar card to pay for his domain name and server.

I intentionally chose these businesses because they are the kind of business that can’t use a shared server for their business (I will be surprised if any of them is running on a shared host). This is because I don’t want you to start bringing local hosting companies into the mix that are collecting Naira…and guess what? Those local hosting companies too are running reseller packages from companies abroad (paying in dollars) because there is no infrastructure to help them do this locally. They are just helping people who can’t pay in dollars to convert their naira to dollars. I stand to be corrected though…”make I no go put my mouth for what I no know” 😂. I know though because I have once and I still have a reseller package I sell on a low key to people who drive small traffic.

Let’s get into our calculation; let’s assume these companies pay $100 per month for their server's payment monthly, which you can agree with me that they do way more…even me as a company that is not listed, I do way…way more o. Let’s also assume their email service for an average of 10 users gulps $7 per user. I am using Google email as a yardstick…

The total is $39,950. “Shebi it is not too much abi”?

I want to be modest, so I want to use something we can easily follow. Let’s do the maths for the app stores. We will use the picture storage payment on both Android and iOS to drive the numbers because a lot of people will push for the narrative that not everyone pays for an app. But wait…you will understand why you need to pay when you can't even save a pixel on your beloved phone anymore.

To help us get the number to use, we will get our figure from the NCC website. I think it can only be fair to use internet subscribers' data for our calculation here (https://ncc.gov.ng/statistics-reports/industry-overview#market-share-gsm-4). This will help me shut the mouths of people who are ready to jump to conclusions, just like this man.

Let’s consider the internet subscribers from September 2022 to August 2023.

Now, we will assume that everyone using internet data is not paying on any store. So, let’s take 10% of the maximum number of subscribers we ever reached.

10% of 159,038,031 = 15,903,803.1 👍

Don’t forget we are just being modest here… So, let’s apply our $1 subscription to this number. That is a whopping $15,903,803.1 monthly. Is that not a wonderful number? Let’s keep that somewhere. We still have a long way to go.

Now let’s talk about the advertisement that goes on in the digital economy, as I highlighted earlier. Getting a number to use here will be a bit tough because I am not even talking about the spending by the big players. I want to talk about sellers like my wife who imports from China on a small scale. These are your regular Instagram sellers. Many of the sellers I am talking about are not even registered as a business with CAC. So, how do we get a number to use for this calculation? 🤔 Let’s find out how many users are on Instagram in Nigeria to start with.

So, according to Statista.com (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028396/nigeria-instagram-user-age-distribution/#:~:text=As%20of%20May%202023%2C%20there,from%2018%20to%2024%20years.) , as of May 2023, there are 12 million Instagram users in Nigeria. Let’s assume that the majority of these users are just there to watch pictures, so we will be modest and use just 1% of the users for our calculation… how modest can that be? Will you say it is fair?

So let’s go. We will assume these users have to spend at least $10 on advertisement monthly on a platform that will mandate them to pay in dollars. Ahh, I can hear someone shouting, “Nooo now”… oya, let’s use 0.5%.

0.5% of 12,200,000 = 61,000

The total figure stands at $16,513,803.1, recurring monthly payments. This is basically going for a service that individuals and companies cannot afford to go offline with. Remember, all the figures we used are modest and conservative.

Now let's explore why news like this might not be such great news: “Naira gains as CBN pays banks $6.7bn forex backlog” (https://punchng.com/naira-gains-as-cbn-pays-banks-6-7bn-forex-backlog/) and also look at this: “FG plans $10bn to stabilise naira, eyes NNPCL for forex” (https://punchng.com/fg-plans-10bn-to-stabilise-naira-eyes-nnpcl-for-forex/). Just do some mental mathematics of what a sector's recurring bill will gulp out of these figures. Can you now see the reason why the joy of the dollar coming down is not always “complete”? The pressure will make it rise again.

The next conversation you might want to have is about what is being consumed by health tourism, buying of equipment, school fees payment abroad, and other ways payments are being made for products abroad. The majority of these transactions are one-off, but I understand the effect when there are many of such. This article is not about those transactions. However, I know CBN has all the details. I will leave the trash for LAWMA.

How do we solve this?

Now that I have painted the problem as vividly as possible, I am sure your next question is, how do we then solve this problem? Don’t worry, I have some solutions that can ease the pressure tech is putting on the dollar. I have categorised them into 3 milestones: Short term, Midterm, and Long term. I don’t have any strings attached to this article; it is all about being a good citizen. One of my best quotes is “Achievement will be recorded if no one cares who takes the credit - Harry S Truman.”

Short-Term Solutions

In the short term, we want to drastically reduce the use of dollars for a lot of tech payments and basically address security challenges.

• All government parastatals must use software developed by Nigerians unless such is not available. Let’s start the crusade from the Government parastatals. Let all Government parastatals use software developed by indigenous companies. If such software is not available, let an expression of interest be made public to ignite the interest of well-meaning young minds. I can promise that they will surpass your imagination.

  I mean from word processors to all communication tools. This will even help the Government to have access to interoperate data within the parastatals without stress.

  You might ask why this? Why? The licence will be in local currency (Naira), and you will be making the economy strong because when such software is thoroughly developed and tested by the parastatals it can be exported in a matter of years.

  Look, there is no perfect software at the beginning; there will be bugs here and there and they will be fixed. The government will then be making another tech giant that can help the country earn in dollars. Even if we sell our software to Ghana, our neighbouring country here, it means we are earning in Cedis…”na something”.

  If the Government needs software or services, they should look inward first.
  
  

• All government parastatals should move their official social accounts to a Nigerian or local social platform. We can see the magic that the government can pull when they moved to an Indian app “Koo” during the Twitter ban on June 5, 2021 (https://qz.com/africa/2024107/nigerian-government-moves-to-indian-app-koo-after-twitter-ban). Within a few minutes, the account got over 49,000 followers.

  Imagine the Nigeria Government deciding to solely be on a social platform built and developed by one “Chinedu Ibrahim Adegoke”. At least the platform will get publicity. The platform will experience so much new learning, and they will adjust and get better. There will be attempts to hack them or even hacked 😆. They will surmount it and learn how not to be hacked. They will scale, grow, and become big. The platform will charge in Naira; people will get comfortable with it or even have the platform compete with their international counterparts.

  A lot of our boys are currently working with these foreign platforms. They are sound; they know the architecture inside out. If a policy like this is made, imagine the number of our boys that will team up to work on something superb for our people: For-us-by-us. They know the people, they understand the culture, and they will deliver the experience. This will quickly be a round peg in a round hole. This won’t be the case of “JIM JOHN” building the next social experience for Mrs. Yakubu.

  A platform like this will attract foreign investors, and more of such platforms will rise.
  
  

• Government should liaise with big hosting companies to accept payment in Naira; this will reduce the stress on the dollar. Transaction volume and population are used for negotiation and not otherwise. We see this happen during the Twitter ban. Who would imagine that Twitter will succumb to the Government? Why won’t they? They know what their revenue will remain when Nigeria's revenue is taken out of it. “Oga, N1 minus N1000 is N999 o 😂”.

  The Government should call on all the big hosting platforms to a meeting and compel them to accept Naira. CBN can work out how they get their money in dollars from the backend. I know the question you want to ask, “what if they say no?” abi? They can’t all say no… at least one of them will say “yes,” and that is the winner. Sizeable tech companies will sharply move their applications to them o; I will be the first person…I cannot come and die o.

  This will then strengthen our local payment industries which will invariably strengthen the naira.

  Wait o…what happened to our currency swap deal with China? This is a story for another day.
  
  

• Force Apple store and Google store to accept payments in naira. Ahhhh, even when I was writing this I was asking if it was possible. Anyway, it is for me to strategize; it is for my boss to take “blockers” out of my way 😆.

  It is obvious from our analysis that these devices are the biggest culprits. The challenge is that the devices are targeting the consumer market, so the effect is geometrical. The Government should find a way to get us to pay in Naira o.
  
  

• Government should put up a policy for all cars to have a camera in their cars. Security is key, and it is now. I am sure the government will agree with me that the security of lives and property is a big factor for tech economic development.

  I am sure someone will be wondering why I am adding security here. Just imagine a fresh boy who just resigned from a tech company abroad and would love to have a startup that will address the Government and SME needs in Nigeria. Immediately as “Baba” landed, “kidnappers carry am”. Now, that is not the issue, what is the response time of the police, how soon can they solve the crime. Currently, it is like forever. No one wants to risk their lives for such an adventure.

  Crime happens everywhere in the world. It is then how the police react to it that matters.

  The Government should put up a policy for all cars to have a camera at the front of their cars (see picture below). This is mandatory. The camera must be on at all times either your car is moving or stationary. It is a crime to have the camera turned off. All the camera requires is a memory card. There is no need for it to be connected to the internet. The reason for using a car is that it has a battery already that will power the camera 24/7.

  Now here is the real gist; when there is a crime anywhere, the police will get the cars around the crime scene and pick footage from the cameras. This will help us resolve so many crime cases before the citizens get sophisticated with crime.

  If we can solve crime cases faster, tech bros and sis are easier to convince to come home.

Something like this.

Midterm Solutions

In the midterm, we will be laying the foundation for the biggest tech boom that will accommodate our technology needs as a nation.

• Engrain proper STEM, ethics, and mentorship into our curriculum from age 5 to university. In 2014, the UK introduced coding into the curriculum for children from 5 to 14 years in school. This is not computer information or a curriculum that will be describing the mouse and CPU. This is a nation that understands and is preparing for the future. This is 9 years after; think about how the children will start thinking about problems and solutions.

   

   

  I have been teaching coding for more than a decade now as my own contribution to society. No one can tell me the beauty and the advantages of introducing it to children early.
  
  I will cite an example of Tosin Akinfenwa, who was 12 years old when he joined my AYITI children program in 2022. He has written more than 10 fantastic applications now. He even wrote a social platform that he named “Toxic”...(https://toxic.byethost33.com). He hosted it on a free host. “Baba no get money 😂”. Just appreciate the effort; don’t start surfing the application like a “CIA.” He is just a 13-year-old boy. He has this to say
  
  
  Now let’s see the way he now thinks as a 13 years old boy
  
  
  
  We should also be careful with introducing only STEM to the children because of our history of sophisticated fraud activities. We should embellish knowledge with ethics so the children can differentiate what is right and wrong. There is a methodology to teaching ethics. I teach it to all the vulnerable children I teach because I know giving knowledge like this to vulnerable children living in poverty can easily go south. This is how they can choose for themselves if the decision they want to make is the right one or not.
  
  We should support the children with mentorship too. The mentorship program will solve a lot of moral issues. A lot of these children pick a mentor from the internet, street, or even someone they don’t know but feel s/he is doing great. We can change this narrative by being deliberate about mentorship for the next generation.
  
  This is what we have tried in AYITI and it works!
  
  Now guess what? These will be the people that will design, build, and produce the next set of sophisticated cameras described in our short-term solution in the nearest future.
  
  

• Give grants to university professors to have them mainstream their works. We have a lot of great academic work done in our Universities. We need these erudites to mainstream their work. The Government should support the private sector - university partnership. This is usually where the magic happens. This is where theories turn into commercial solutions.

  I understand a lot of these professors and lecturers are not business-oriented, but leave the business thinking to the private sector. The private sectors will help them turn their theories into usable products.

  I remembered reading a Brazil Professor’s paper about predicting lotto numbers years back. It was interesting how I experimented with it by turning it into an application that really works. The rest is a story.

  I also know of times I will go back to Dr. Akinfenwa in the department of Mathematics Unilag (my final year supervisor) to model some Mathematical equations for some challenges I am facing in my business. These are ways we solve problems and export solutions as a nation.
  
  

• Let’s open our border to African tech companies with good services. There are great tech businesses across Africa; let’s open our border to them. These businesses are all eyeing our population. They want to scale; let’s give them the chance.

  We should give a quota of how many Nigerians they should employ. Now, we are creating an economy that will have the best of the best tech minds.

  We need their money. Let’s have a residence program for them. Let’s make it juicy.

  We should create a “Tech City” for them. In another writeup, I planned to explain how Nigeria states can tap into this by increasing their IGR and becoming a tech city. Stay tuned!
  
  

• Instead of giving jobs to outstanding tech students from our university, give a contract. I remembered after my brother (Kolade Akinyele) and I won the “Most Innovative award” in the Microsoft Imagine Cup tertiary student premier coding competition in 2007. I envisioned starting a tech company with the idea - ThinkGP. I can't help but imagine what the type of application developed by Seun Ajayi would have turned into now. The likes of Tope Fatayo, these boys would have been the “Mark Zuckerberg” of today. Seun’s application implemented a neural network back then. Ahhh, I still doff my hat, bro.

  The dream died. I tried resurrecting ThinkGP again by putting the software in the NYSC competition for corpers during my service days, LOL! The winners are farmers o. I just “jejely” respect myself.

  I also remembered how my HOD pushed for me to serve in Lagos so I can complete the application I built for the department to manage student results. 😂😂😂😂this story is long; let me just respect myself.

  I will talk about how to use the NYSC scheme for economic growth in another write-up.
  
  

• Fix the Identity issue. I heard the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy talk about fixing Identity in one of his interviews, and I feel there is no better time to start planning that but now.

  A lot of duplicated data is everywhere; let’s consolidate it. I know the honourable Minister mentioned this too. If there is anything we need to get right, identity is a major one.

Long Term Solutions

Our long-term solutions should guarantee a sustainable tech economy.

• Fix Electricity. I know a lot of people are ready to bite me and ask on which infrastructure will all these be built. We need to fix infrastructure, especially electricity.

  I tell my friend Sobowale to imagine what we can do together. He is a superb networking and business process guru. Like I would tell him that what is the big deal in hosting services? Electricity will not just make us great in this country. It is the most basic stuff to do.

  I will personally commend President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for signing the Electricity Act 2023 (https://nairametrics.com/2023/06/09/president-bola-tinubu-signs-electricity-act-2023-into-law/). The people who know me know I have been a great advocate of this during my university days. I believe that it is the easiest way to fix our electricity issues.

  Let us fix electricity and see how the economy will erupt.
  
  

• Create an environment for tech to thrive on a large scale without being a player. I know someone is looking at me with side eyes. The government needs to create an environment that would make tech thrive on a large scale. We are talking about techs that are indigenous…Everything the government does should be solely focused on making us create our technology so the money stays here, and we would also be able to ship it to other countries.

  When I mean the government shouldn’t be a player, you can imagine the government building a football pitch and the Government officials will also be players in the tournaments 😂. Just be a spectator, watch how the game unfolds.
  
  

• Nigerian States should key into tech and create a safe environment for tech companies to develop their IGR. I won’t talk so much about this because it is a whole article on its own.

  When serving in Imo state, I saw what it means to call a state a “civil service state” as a Lagos boy. OMG! I believe our different states can do better.

  I will find time to put together a 5 point post on how Nigerian states can key into tech and improve their IGR.
  
  

• Create a roadmap to develop our technology and not just users of other people's technology. Lastly, let there be a roadmap that will lead the country to a country that will create technology for her people to use, and this will make such technology sellable to other nations.

  When we solve our internal problems with our indigenous technology, we will be able to solve other people’s problems. In fact, they will be willing to pay for it.

If you like, say I have not tried. “Me,” I have done my part in my nation-building. I just relieved myself of many years of burden. I pray Nigeria will get it right because there are some of us that are not willing to relocate anywhere. “We die here.” Before you attack me with your “may Nigeria never happen to us ye-ye-ye,” I have travelled to many continents and still find Nigeria as the best place to live. All we ask from the Government is a visionary that can solve our basic amenities issues.

I imagine the day I won’t have to call my “Aboki” for any dollar payment. The only reason I would like to call him is to possibly buy dollars I want to spend when I travel out of the country.

From The Emperor of Thought

Akinyele Olubodun

https://akinyeleolubodun.com