I am actually at a loss here as to whether to respond or even how to respond to this problem we all know, but I’ll just write.

Africa is a hard place to build anything and a harder place for anything to be built for. Most of the times, we have refused to ask the deep question, WHY?

Facebook was built in the USA for a college in the USA, same as Google a few years back, and oh! microsoft too. These are all products that customers miles and seas away found usable irrespective of geography.

There are more than a million developers/founders in Africa. Most of them have not even had the opportunity to visit the borders of their countries talk less move out of Africa.

If I am going to Accra and I can’t afford to fly ( most developers in Nigeria can’t) I will have to spend a full day on the road. These barriers limit exposure and except we start to raise founders from the spiritual realm, how do you build a product for a problem you don’t have an experience of?

Philosophers will say you don’t have that scalia.

Because I am now in ranting mode, let’s talk about right of way for broadband penetration.

See ehn, let me just drop the links.

This here is in 2012. [Vanguard] Headline reads Right of Way Guidelines by the Nigerian Government. Telecoms operators will pay different charges to Federal, State and Local Governments before they can lay fibre cables.

This here is in 2014. Two years later. [Nigerian Communications Week] Headline reads Right of Way frustrates broadband penetration.

This here is in 2018. Four years later later. [Business Day] Headline reads Right of Way bureaucracies impede broadband penetration.

Is anyone surprised why konga [and more or less every e-commerce platform] is finding it hard to expand base beyond Lagos, Abuja and PH?

By the way, this here profiles more than 10 companies that didn’t exist in 2012 that are now valued at more than $1billion [including Udacity and Lyft]. Surprising that they all come from the US of A? Nope!

Technology is largely an enabler! In Africa, there is simply nothing to enable. I now agree with Uncle Emeka that any thinking about leapfrogging is ‘balderdash’

We don’t have a continent. What we have is a geographical space that exists without any strategic direction. The opportunities that exist are for building institutions and industries and systems that technology can enable.

While the unicorn founders that can stay afloat building for everywhere but Africa, we need people who can focus on these opportunities too.

Selah!