The Reverse Pilgrimage... YES WE CAN!

When the Nigerian tech community experienced a reverse pilgrimage… All I see is the awakening of the "YES WE CAN" spirit among the young people in this side of the world, in times when many believe the economy is in recession.

#ThankYouMark, because #WeStillHaveADream and #ISeeOpportunities only. I have decided to see the opportunities, not because of the regular cliché of being positive, but based on facts and figure, it is definitely this facts and figures that attracted Mark to Nigeria. Of course, we can’t deny the fact that Nigeria been the largest market for Facebook in Africa with over 18 million accounts, it’s only natural that Facebook take Nigerian market serious.

Truly it was a reversed pilgrimage as the norm would have been that the tech community and entrepreneurs in Nigeria sought Mark and other key tech players in Silicon Valley, instead the reverse became the case, as Silicon Valley (with the presence of Facebook point man) came to Naija.

No doubt Mark’s coming has stirred the spirit of optimism among the young people in Nigeria, and birth a new conversation around the subject of a great nation.

In this brief thought dropping piece, let me quickly point out some highlights of his conversation with the tech community and entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Taking a couple of his thoughts during the town hall meeting he had in Lagos.

I’m not really interested in telling and going deeper into the outcome or highpoints of his coming. However, I will spell out some of his statements, and I trust you will be able to smell it and smoke the out the kill. This is deliberate, in order not to box you in my scope of thought, but to allow you to process it yourself and you come up with your own deduction from the many positive side of his visit. See some of his thoughts in verbatim below;  

 “I'm looking forward to doing more investing here, because I think there are a lot more stuff here and we're going to make sure that opportunities ends up being as equally distributed as talents are, around the world.”

- Mark Zuckerberg.

“Here in Lagos, and the entire continent, the economy is changing from a resource based economy to entrepreneurial and knowledge based economy, and you guys are the ones who are leading that change. And not only remaking Lagos and Nigeria, but shaping the whole continent and influencing the way things are going to work around the world for the next generation. And I think that’s a story that is under appreciated in a lots of parts of the world. I think that people often don’t really have a sense for how much energy there is and what the entrepreneurial spirit is here.”

 – Mark Zuckerberg.

“Well the thing that is striking is the energy, the entrepreneurial energy, you know… I think when you are trying to build something, what ends up mattering the most, is just who wants it the most, right a lot of the time, and who cares the most to build it. And you know you feel that here as soon as you get off the plane and lands, and starts talking to people, you feel that passion and that entrepreneurial energy. And I can tell you true stories just from last night while I talk to probably not more than hundred people, and we are just really blown away.”

– Mark Zuckerberg.

“I try not to think of things as missed opportunities, but as things we haven't done yet.”

- Mark Zuckerberg.

Truly for any nation of smart people like Nigeria, I can guarantee you this statement is a #HomeRun. Therefore, #HeWhoHaveEar let him hear ‘what is been said, but not said’, because the golden boy #JustRevealedTheSecret, a gold mine if you like.

While I give you the liberty to freely process your perspective and lessons from his thoughts, I must however, make it clear that whether we like it or not, a big wave is coming, people like Mark have seen it, and so they position themselves to ride on it, so don’t be carried away by any euphoria, rather take keen insight from the quote of Martin Luther King Jr. here;

“One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fails to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

If Mark, all the way from the US sees amazing possibilities and big shift in our backyard, then who gains from believing the contrary. It will be a big undoing, if anyone is blinded by the current economic situation of the country to give in to hopelessness, and throw away amazing opportunity to rewrite the script of both our individual and collective future. We cannot be laid back now. Now is the time to re-imagine, dream, reinvent, build capacity, sleeve up and work to ride on the glory of the big wave that is coming. Hence, the quote of one of my role model perfectly fits here again;

“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Now we have the momentum, now the spotlight is on us, let’s give the world unforgettable memory. Now we have the wave to our advantage, and like a skilled skier, lets ride on it and proof to ourselves first that truly, YES WE CAN, and show the world ones again that it is possible to attain greatness as a people, not necessarily based on tangible resources like oil, rather on the intangibles in terms of knowledge, capacity, technical know-how, competence, dreams, imagination, ideas, and skills. The sky is not the limit, we are our own limit. God bless Nigeria, God bless Africa, God bless the world.