5 key ways Zuckerberg's visit will help Nigeria

Mark's Zuckerberg's visit to Nigeria, is more than a random visit by a billionaire to a country he is interested in. The visit will have far reaching positive implications for Nigerians, far more than can be seen right now.

From meeting with Andela, a company which the Zuckerberg-Chan initiative has invested about 24 million dollars in, to visiting with the kids at the coding camp, he has been up and about since he landed in Lagos and obviously loving it, as he himself said here.

Here are at least 5 ways his visit will change Nigeria forever:

1. Financial Boost

When the Zuckerberg-Chan initiative in June 2016 invested $24 million in the Nigerian company Andela, it caused quite a stir in the software and IT companies. Mark Zuckerberg was betting on something big, coming out of Nigeria.

Now the visit is buttressing that fact. he met with various others running small-scale businesses in connectivity, software development and other technologies and when one of them asked for a way to pitch, Mark said: "We need to get your email after this."

Nigeria is blessed with ideas and energetic entrepreneurs and if Mark invests more, we should expect that in the next few years, the tech and software companies in Nigeria will see positive growth.

2. Security Concerns

Recently, the Global liveability index ranked, Lagos, Nigeria as the 3rd worst city in the world to live in. The problem stated was not infrastructure, but security.

“Continued threats from groups like Boko Haram acts as a constraint to improving stability in Lagos,’’ the report stated.

However, pictures of Mark Zuckerberg jogging without a security detail on the Lekki bridge and walking down the road in Yaba, like any other person, is one way to say to the world, that Lagos is as safe as any other city in the world.

3. Morale Booster

While speaking at the developers workshop in Lagos, Mark Zuckerberg's speech was a huge morale booster to the entrepreneurs and developers gathered. Here was a man who had made something so huge for himself with little financial backing, out of nothing.

He urged them to make mistakes, and bounce back from them to keep learning and keep growing. He also said that there was something n Lagos, Nigeria, an energy that gets things done, that the entire continent should emulate.

The beaming faces, the applause, the body language of the audience as the Town Hall meeting came to a close, shows that they had all being re-energized to do better.

4. Putting Nigeria on the map

When the news of Mark Zuckerberg's arrival first came out, the CNN an international news body used the headline: "Mark Zuckerberg makes first-ever visit to Sub-Saharan Africa," Nigerians took to Twitter in reaction to the post.

Over time the conversation around international news media, lumping the entire Africa together as one destination as continued. Certainly, now that Mark Zuckerberg has visited Nigeria, it will be clearer that any news media that cannot locate Nigeria on the map, is doing that for reasons best known to them.

5. Nollywood

Nigeria's film industry is also a recipient of the good PR that came with Zuckerberg's visit. During his speech, he said that Nollywood was a great resource for local content, in fact, one of the best in the world.

He then visited with Nigeria's biggest stars at Afrinolly, pictures of him hanging out with them has flooded social media, a very good image booster for the Nigerian film industry.

Nigerians are grateful to Mark Zuckerberg for this visit and its many blessings.

Source: Legit.ng