Mark Zuckerberg: Learning beyond the hysteria

I salute the strategic thinking that must have gone into Mark Zuckerberg’s visit and engagements work plan. Straight to the youths he went. Of course that’s his commercial constituency as Nigerian youths daily engage in fisticuffs over important and mundane things. On Facebook, we burn time well on Buhari and Jonathan, some youths and “post-graduate” and “over-graduate” “youths” also turn it into “PANCAKE” showcase. But of course, people have come into lifetime opportunities through this ubiquitous landmark medium.

The best picture Zuckerberg painted for me here though, is where he immersed himself in the ocean of fantastic, energetic and ever creative young Nigerians who under very stringent conditions still pull the chestnut out of fire to survive. Nigerian youths who create jokes out of everything and shall soon create one out of our biting recession with inflation at catapulting rates. Nigerian youths who run daily races in traffic to sell CDs, sell gala and sell ALL to survive…some of them to even take care of dependants!

Zuckerberg must have seen lot of these in Yaba. It gives him the picture of our zeal and a picture of our ills. I’ll love to see how this visit translates to Empowerment. I love how he jogged at Lekki but went into business at Yaba. Like some someone wrote on a social media wall, It’s Yaba one and Island ZERO!

For those of us saluting his strolling and “jogging without security”. Apparently, lot of people don’t understand how security works. There’s covert, overt and plain naked, brash brutality our bullion vans and politicians-escorts exhibit in their foolishness and overzealous sycophantic duty performance.

Zuckerberg would have been shown lot of these as he understudied Nigeria before coming in. His handlers would have told him lot of stories too. As a social media mogul who knows any wrong move no matter how subliminal suggestive of being a public aggressor would go globally viral and damage him, he OBVIOUSLY must have opted for covert monitoring which might even stretch as far as a collaboration between ours and his own nation’s “imports”. America does not joke with their citizens not to mention their icons!
Sucking in the tales of “He had no security” is as good as saying my mum had me without practical “biology”.

By the way, the public is dissipating too much energy on his Tee-shirt and his joggings rather than the opportunities and global attention his visit must be drawing to us at a time we require FDI badly.

And you Michael, Mukaila, Chinedu and Adolphus who hack people’s accounts for fraudulent purposes on Facebook ; and you who hide under Facebook to lie that you’re “stranded” on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and someone should send you recharge card to sell so you can “travel out of your stranded point”, I’m sure you must be so ashamed of yourself now seeing the young man who created Facebook causing commotion in Nigeria. You’re using his platform to defraud people. You’re a SHAME indeed.

And you who go about as a corporate begger telling the world “I dropped out of school and could not continue my education, Oga and Aunty please help me, God will help you”. Shame! Please ask Zuckerberg what he achieved with innovative thinking from his brain…without a Degree!

Finally, our government should also please DO ALL IT CAN to put power in place. The incumbent leadership must bare fangs against those who are bent on sabotaging any effort to put power in place. Successive governments in Nigeria have been lucky getting away with their wastefulness and looting. It shouldn’t get to a point the youths would start pestering the rich with stones or holding the nation hostage and ungovernable. We should drop all excuses now and rebuild this nation. 63% of Nigeria is made of youths. A lethal strike from this huge group will decimate us. I have seen efforts from the Vice President engaging with the youths, I have seen Google offering opportunities for 400,000 youths, good but we need to rev it up the more. Let’s not rest before they get restive.

Mark Zuckerberg is here to tap into the diverse opportunities our huge population offers. But we must back this population up with ingenious hi-tech resources and from a point of irrevocable commitment.  GENERATOR and DIESEL refilling are not good tools for creative thinking.  Not sure Zuckerberg must have succeeded in loading all Facebook Apps if he innovated the idea from Nigeria.

Fadeyi is the creator and producer of ‘Corruption, Not in My Country’