Agegelabs

What is it to you?
To me, it is the ants that crawl out after heavy rain,
It is the child that still laughs even though it is in pain.

It is the tangy taste of agbalumo,
It is my grandmother drying crayfish on the floor.

It is the crinkly sound of my mother folding a gélé,
It is the sound of boys playing football – all thinking they are the next Pélé.

It is church songs, sung so sweetly and full of faith,
It is the way, we are always late,

It is the frying of akara on Saturday,
It is the sound of tuwo being pounded on Fridays.

It is the heady smell in the air – a strong mix of
sweat, hope and fear,
It is two school children having to share one chair.

It is the way everyone shouts to make people hear us,
It is the way we all stand together when things are disastrous.

It is the way we all have political opinions,
It is the way we are more layered than any onion.

More than anything, it is home and where I am from. It is not perfect, but it will have to suffice.

Happy Independence day people.

© Kingsley A, 2009

Dear Mr President,

I hope this letter finds you in good health.

A new film called “District 9” by Neill Blomkamp (and Sony), has caused a bit of stir amongst our people around the world due to the way Nigerians were depicted in the film. I won’t focus too much on the film itself as various commentators with authority have talked at length and reviewed in depth. For your reference, I have attached copies for your reading pleasure.

The purpose of my letter is to explain what I believe your government can do to help. It was refreshing to see how our Minister of Information and Communications, Dora Akunyili was able to apply enough pressure on Sony to pull its PS3 ad. Unfortunately, we can’t always do that. We must improve how we communicate with the world and how we showcase our diverse culture. I have 4 proposals with details below.

Modernise the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA)
Have you seen any NTA stations recently? It looks like we are back in 50/60s when analogue colour television just arrived and improved sound quality had not yet been invented. I understand that Sony (Yes, that same Sony) has been engaged to upgrade NTA’s equipment. This is good news. I hope the upgrade brings same kind of quality one enjoys when watching BBC.

Promote high quality local talent
NTA should be at the forefront of supporting and promoting local talents. This goes beyond showing Nollywood movies on its 47 main stations. NTA should engage local producers/directors to produce documentaries & programmes to educate Nigerians (home & aboard) and the world about our rich history.

Please fix the NTA website
NTA’s website was re-launched in May 2009. It looked like a great upgrade; the only issue is it was last updated in June 2009. Again look at the NEXT to understand what we need.

Everyone else will follow if NTA steps up
If NTA steps up, this should raise the standard across the industry–AIT, HiTV, BEN and rest will all have to step up as well. Currently they are all “just” better than NTA.

Of course, some people will call it propaganda – my advice is supply the necessary capital and try not to interfere with the news reporting to favour one party or one group of people.

Thanks for taking time to read this letter.

Sincerely,

AL

enc.
Further Reading on District 9
Nigeria’s portrayal & need to be proactive
Becoming the alien: apartheid, racism and district 9
The Aliens are coming
Why District 9 isn’t racist against Nigerians
Nigerians as the new Russians
District 9 – internal dialogue and reaction

In the last few days, the #lightupnigeria campaign has gathered a huge following in the Nigerian blogosphere. The current momentum has centred around using the hashtag #lightupnigeria on Twitter. The idea is to get #lightupnigeria to be a trending topics on Twitter.

edundayo: @agegelabs Looks like you haven’t join #lightupnigeria. Join and let’s all make a change in Nigeria..#lightupnigeria

As I read Nneoma’s review on NigeriansTalk, I couldn’t help but think this was Phase I: getting #lightupNigeria on the agenda and making the Nigerian government realise how frustrated the youths are with all the empty manifesto promises on power generation.

What next? Phase II: The Youths making a difference through constructive collaboration. Essentially creating a forum/platform to bring people and ideas together. Here are my initial thoughts:

• Form a small working group to brainstorm on how to move the project forward
• Collect information on technologies available in Nigeria for power generation (focusing on alternative energy sources). I’m sure some individuals will have come up with innovative solutions out of frustration.
• Currently lightupnigeria.com redirects to twitter search page for hashtag #lightupNigeria. Add a blog to showcase innovative solutions coming out of Nigeria or solutions that can be tailored to the country.
• Attend the 2009 Maker Faire Africa in Ghana next month.
• As Emeka Okafor suggested, organise local events to educate people about alternative technologies and showcase what other communities are using “light up”. Focus on DIY energy sources which can be implemented easily and at low cost to the communities.
• Solar energy seems like the obvious one to chase and Barefoot College is a great community example to follow. I will blog about Barefoot College some other day.

I know I’m probably jumping ahead of the #lightupnigeria project. I wanted to get my thoughts down ;)

Other blogs and resources on #lightupnigeria
The Real Archiwiz – great illustrations. The blog is handwritten!
Global Voices – good summary of what is going on in the Blogsphere and twitter
Adebayo – Learn about how to join the campaign
DFID on Nigeria Power Sector – Interesting case study
Nigerian Curiosity – Detailed post on #lightupnigeria and how to move forward

Photo credit: Pyoo Wata

There has been a lot of buzz around the Nigerian web community over the last 12 months with great coverage from Loy Okezie (StartupsNigeria¹), OotheNigerian and StartupAfrica. I thought it might helpful to compile a list of the 10 Nigerian web start-ups to watch. I have included the name(s) of the individual(s)/company behind the start-up where possible. The list below is not in any particular order.

1spotsearch
Think Kayak, add domestic flights within Nigeria and you have 1spotsearch. The site is functional and has the potential to become huge. Do check out my full review from May.

Izogn Movies (Chidum Okwue)
Izogn Movies is an online movie streaming services focused on Nigerian movies. If you love Nollywood, you’ll love this site! Although this award winning site is not a new startup, still worth mentioning.

MapNTL (Ireti Ajala)
MapNTL is a tool that allows users to find street locations (currently only Lagos, Abuja coming soon!) and provides point-to-point driving directions across the country. Certainly ahead of Google maps in terms of street data but the visual design has some way to go. Read my full review here.

NaijaBorn (Franics Oghuma and Mambe Nanje)
NaijaBorn is a social network platform that connects Nigerians across the globe and launched earlier this month. Probably the most talked about web start-up in the Nigerian scene right now. Read my full review here.

Nairalist (Seun Osewa)
Nairalist is a classified adverts website modelled after Craiglist. The site faces fierce competition from other market participants (Nairalists, Whogobuy, Ariaria). However, Nairalist’s close association with Nigeria’s most popular forum, Nairaland should keep it on top.

NaijaLingo (Obilo Nwokogba and Adim Ofunne)
NaijaLingo is an online dictionary for all your pidgin/broken English needs. The site allows users to add new words and edit existing ones. I really like the implementation of pronunciations. With the NaijaLingo platform, I wonder if the team has considered creating an online dictionary for the 3 main languages (Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa) in Nigeria.

NaijaPulse (Naijand)
NaijaPulse is a microblogging service that lets you post text updates (140 characters) about yourself and what is happening around you. The site is based on Laconica microblogging open source platform. It is also helpful that you cross post to Twitter and Facebook.

RiRanWo! (Ademola Morebise)
RiRanWo! based on the Elgg open source platform, is a social media site which can be used to bookmark, blog and share Nigerian content online. The site also has an aggregator called xplore that gathers Nigerian content from news websites and blogs².

Sturvs (Temi Kolawole & Antigravity)
Sturvs (Nigerian slang for “stuff”) is a sharing and voting website similar to Digg. Users are given the ability to vote on stories, music and videos submitted by other users. Make sure you check out the Sturvs radio for the latest Nigerian music.

Turenchi (Nnanna Obuba)
Turenchi is a news aggregator which sources content from several Nigerian Newspapers as well as other sources covering the country. The site stirred up some minor controversy earlier in the year but this hasn’t stopped the team. I really like the concept and hope a business category will be created for my reading pleasure. Another site doing exactly the same thing is Nigeria 70.

Let me know if I missed a particular start-up or have comments on the list I have put together above.

Footnotes:

¹ Archives of Loy Okezie’s old blog can be found here

² Disclaimer: This blog is featured on Xplore News aggregator

I was beginning to get used to reading the Punch Nigeria online. I really liked the Best of Punch Today list which enabled me have a quick glance of major headlines without digging through the site. The mobile site is also very handy.

Last month, Loy featured an article questioning the mobile web strategy of Punch Nigeria. I didn’t pay too much attention to it for some reason. Last week, I was trying to read an article on my mobile and noticed a online subscription request. I thought “fair enough”. I went online and got the same message. It is not possible to view a single article on the site, not even a preview.

Free versus paid model
There is a serious debate going on about the merits of the free versus paid model, particularly given the current downturn. There is nothing wrong with charging for niche media content but not for general news, your readers will simply move elsewhere.

Some suggestions for Punch Nigeria

1. Restrict subscription to niche articles and not on general news. This will provide some free articles to your target audience. This will keep readers coming back to your site which increases the chance of them actually subscribing. It also helps if show preview of subscription articles and mark them clearly
2. Make it easier for readers outside Nigeria to be able to subscribe by using paypal. If you don’t plan to attract international readers, you can safely ignore this point. However, international readers are probably more likely to subscribe

If you follow these suggestions, you will get free readers and fee-paying subscribers. Punch Nigeria was the No.1 most visited site in May in Nigeria, let see what June brings.

Now to find a replacement for Punch Nigeria – Nigeria Next and All Africa are looking like strong contenders. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

NaijaBorn officially launched to the world yesterday after a few months in private beta. NaijaBorn is a social network platform that connects Nigerians across the globe. The team behind the start-up is Qubestreet Media’s Franics Oghuma and the AfroVisioN’s Mambe Nanje. In recent months, the team has been joined by Ann Daramola, Ahmad Mukoshy and Adekunle Samuel Owolabi.

On registration, you get a short profile on NaijaBorn profile and can contribute to the public user-generated blog, upload music and showcase your artwork to other users. NaijaBorn has a status update tool similar to Facebook which keeps you updated on what people in your network are doing.

Initial thoughts
I like the public user-generated blog. I hope they will implement a way for users to add content to their user-generated blog without having to log in and pasting the text manually every time I update my blog.

I know new features are going to be introduced as the site develops. However, there is no way to change the privacy setting to prevent other users seeing your status updates. You can’t yet create a special interest groups.

Another trivial point is on links formatting, personally I found it difficult to differentiate between links and non-links – a different colour would do ;)

The NaijaBorn team hopes their platform “will be a valuable way to network for people looking to reach out to the Nigerian audience”. The site currently has just over 100 users and growing by the day. Like most social networks, path to generating revenues (apart from ads) is not clear. Whilst NaijaBorn has not defined its niche, I don’t think it’s your “classic” Nigerian social network skewed towards dating. It will be interesting to hear more about their plans in this respect.

Visit NaijaBorn, let me know what you think!

I was fortunate to have attended the talk by Babatunde Soyoye, co-founder of Helios Investment Partners today at Clifford Chance’s office in Canary Wharf. He spoke about the impact of the credit crisis on private equity activity in Africa. I have put together a summary of the talk based on my interpretation below. Hopefully someone will find it useful.

Impact of Credit Crunch

• Valuations appear to be more reasonable however execution is taking much longer. Sellers are hopeful that the markets will return and continue to delay sale processes
• Talent pool to recruit from is much bigger today. In the past, it was difficult to attract talent and even if you could attract them – you probably couldn’t afford to pay them. The credit crunch has changed that balance positively
• Post-Lehman, companies with balance sheet constraints are seeking asset sales – it seems logical assets for sale are usually those in Africa – significant opportunities to capture value
• Growth is still commodity-linked in most African countries. With price of most commodities taking a hit – GDP growth expected to slow across the continent
• Overall the credit crunch has had less of an impact on Africa as a whole compared to other regions [time will tell]

On Private equity model in Africa

• Private equity activity in Africa is less about “financial engineering” (i.e. using debt to generate huge returns like private equity houses in the US and Europe).
• The Private equity business model in Africa is about identifying unique opportunities, creating profitable companies and executing as quick as you can! Essentially first to market takes a big chunk!
• Relatively cheap financing is still available in Africa if aligned to infrastructure – IFC and AFD are standing by to finance the “right projects”
• Access to financing in Nigeria is harder today compared to 3 years ago given the issues that Nigerian banks are currently facing
• Banks in Francophone countries (e.g. Côte d’Ivoire) have tons of cash but the regulatory framework restricts how the cash can be deployed
• Challenging to depend on local weathy individuals for funds
• Pension funds remain small players in the Private equity in Africa. Only a number of countries (e.g Kenya, South Africa and Ghana) have pension funds which have asset allocation for private equity. In Nigeria, pension funds are banned from investing in private equity (really!)

On Exits

• Strategic buyers are “tight”. Currently focused on internal development and regaining financial flexibility – not buying assets
• Recapitalisation is harder to implement
• The IPO markets across continent remain open (particularly South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria) – obvious exit route for companies of scale and profitable growth

No I’m not running for President (not just yet!).

I have been thinking about the elections that will take place in Nigeria in 24 months. Imnakoya has a great post which looks towards 2011 elections and what needs to be done at the national level. He concluded:

When the people are well primed, they become empowered and will work to ensure their votes are counted. They will be ready to resist fraud at the polling stations.

Reading Imnakoya’s post helped me form my thoughts around what role the web could play in the next elections. I believe the web can play a major role in empowering people with information during the campaign and could prove to be very effective and powerful. For example, Ushahidi was used in India’s recent elections with the aim of increasing transparency and accountability.

As we approach the elections, we don’t have much time. We need to start thinking about how the Nigerian web community can be an integral part of the election process by making the dissemination of information easier and transparent.

It is reassuring to see the INEC website had the full 2007 election results; however I still preferred to use this old tripod site. The navigation of the site proved to be much easier.

Looking forward to 2001, there is an obvious problem, Will INEC happily share data with the Nigerian public online during the election process? Particularly when the elections gets really heated up. As expected, I couldn’t find any info on the recent Ekiti (failed) elections on the website.

I don’t have answers to all the questions but we need to get the ball rolling.

Opportunities for Nigerian web community

1. Develop Interactive election maps with history: examples are available on CNN , BBC and Thinkghana
2. Political blogs: This is probably already well covered in Nigerian blogsphere. A good example is PoliticalWire
3. Online site with manifesto for each party in one place and comparison of political ideologies and policies. Examples are KenyaVote and Kenya Elections
4. Election news aggregator. A good example is SA elections

Let’s be clear, I’m not saying the above will be an indication of whether the elections will be successful or not. I’m not saying the opposition will make a better government. We need to vote for leaders who will deliver on their election manifesto. I believe we can help channel that message.

If you have other ideas, please feel able to add your comments below.

Stop Whinning and Collaborate. (ComputerWorld Kenya, via Hash)

Great profile of Appfrica Labs, a technology incubator based in Uganda. (Hash)

“When we start investing in our own, others will follow suit”. (OoTheNigerian)

“Rather than making the commitment of hiring new people, contract them to an assignment”. (Appfrica)

5 Things I love about GatorPeeps (David Ajao)

BarcampNigeria is over. Now what? (Grandiose Parlor)

“Asking for the connection of the dots is not calling for another forum to discuss, or the creation of a Task Force; it is an invitation to engage the active stakeholders”
(Gbenga Sesan)

1spotSearch is a price comparison site for finding flights within Nigeria (and Ghana). The site was created out of necessity – the need for one man to find the cheapest ticket price for any given journey in Nigeria.

The site is similar to Kayak.com, essentially search for a flight and click on a link to purchase the cheapest ticket matching your requirement at the airline/travel agency’s site. It is possible to search for flights from the some of the main cities in Nigeria (Lagos, Abuja, Calabar, Port Harcourt and Owerri)

Two things didn’t work well:

1. Inability to book flight more than 3weeks in advance
2. Multi-city search doesn’t let you book all the legs of the flights if you use different airlines

Overall, the site is simple to use and does what it says on paper (I have not used the service to book any flights). This has the potential to become bigger than it currently is. Definitely one to watch out for!

(Update/Correction: Multi-city does work as intended. It allows you to book different legs of the flight on different airlines!)

YouthBank is a microbusiness incubator programme targeting street youth in Lagos, Nigeria, allowing them to launch community businesses and pull themselves out of poverty. The idea was originally developed by Theodore Ogbonna along with Clara Chow and Joyce Meng. The YouthBank team has developed and tailored a model to address the issue of youth unemployment in Lagos. The programme’s mission statement summed up:

Our ‘community hub’ model trains and evaluates street youth as they work in a core business, then makes targeted investments in the most innovative ideas from the most promising young entrepreneurs. Successful entrepreneurs repay their in-kind loans and commit to hiring and investing in other YouthBank graduates.

YouthBank Model

© YouthBank

After carrying out an extensive survey of Lagos in 2007, YouthBank concluded that there was a need for a community youth centre with a recording and photography studio–this will act as its core operation on ground (I guess someone has to serve all the “Owanbe” parties!). The community centre will act as a platform to employ high potential street youth and the on-the-job training will help them develop fundamental business skills.

YouthBank will also grants small loans to proven employees who demonstrate an interest in starting their own business. This will promote sustainable and lasting self-employment opportunities

This programme is in many ways similar to Ajegunle.org. It’s great to see the organisations like this promoting sustainable self-employment opportunities for street youths in Lagos.

A couple of days ago, I tried accessing StartupsNigeria – got an error message saying the account had been suspended. Seems like conflict of interest with guy behind CareersNigeria. It’s shame that this resulted in site been shut down. I don’t really know the background to the full story, However I’m glad Loy has finally provided an update here.

Nigeria Displaces Germany on Opera Mini Top 10 Chart. (MobilityNigeria)

Symbiotic has launched Sembuse, East Africa’s First Mobile Social Network. You can send a 1000 character sms for 15% of the cost of a normal 160 character SMS message in Kenya. (via White African)

The UK Times profiles the guys behind Big Issue.
(via Social Capital)

Best tip: “What’s Your Online Agenda? If there’s a central secret to managing information overload, this must be it! Your online agenda cannot be divorced from your life’s agenda, so it helps to know what exactly you’re doing on earth so you can define better what you’ll be doing on the web.”
(Gbenga Sesan on Managing Information Overload)

Read recap notes from ICT4D.at, Cian and kikuyumoja from the Africa Gathering over the weekend. The next Africa Gathering conference is planned for September 2009 in Brussels.

Also catch up on BarCamp Nigeria with notes from Loy at Startups Nigeria and on Twitter using the #bcnigeria tag.

MapNTL is a tool that allows users to find street locations (currently only Lagos, Abuja coming soon!) and claims to provide point-to-point driving directions across the country. You only need to look at the map detail Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have on Nigeria to understand how useful this tool is. MapNTL is led by Ireti Ajala and is a subsidary of Spatial Technologies.

The main source of reveune will be through an advertising platform which allow companies (like banks, restuarants, hotels etc) to show users their branch locations on the map. MapNTL also plans to use ads on its site to generate addtional reveunes. Earlier this year, the company signed an agreement with StartupsNigeria to form Nigerian Online Ads Network (NOAN) to provide targeted ads to Nigerian internet users.

The technology behind MapNTL is impressive. The site does seem to work although it still feels a bit buggy. For example, I got directions from Surulere to Ilupeju just fine. I proceeded to try to get directions for Tastee Fried Chicken in Agege to another outlet in Ikoyi and kept getting the result from my previous search. I started another browser (Firefox), the same search gave me the map of lagos – no directions. I also tried to go from Zenith Bank in Yaba to one of their branches in Victoria Island. I eventually gave up.

What would I like to see improved?
The MapNTL site could do with a better layout which focuses more on the map tools available, which will ensure that the user gets a better experience using the site. The way the ads are currently arranged makes the site feel somewhat confusing. Bradysmaps (based in South Africa) has a much cleaner layout which is easier to follow. Although Bradysmaps doesn’t have ads – there is scope to integrate it easily.

Rather than having to click on service locations (e.g UBA Branch in Ikoyi), it would be preferable if this could automatically appear when the mouse hovers around that particular branch/location or have a marker which is bigger (like Google maps). Sometimes clicking on certain parts of the maps produced a HTTP 500 error.

Make it easier to send the map of location to friends and for webmasters to easily embed the MapNTL on their websites. Take for example – BarCampNigeria used google maps to give directions and was able to add a marker.

Overall MapNTL definitely has the technological capabilities to deliver this platform across Nigeria, however the company has to focus on enhancing user experience to ensure that Nigerians get the best out of its service.

Will Connors has a 5-part series on Lagos featured in Slate. I thought it was a rather balanced piece. I recommend reading it for yourself. 10 keys points I took away:

1. Where some see chaos, others see opportunities. Welcome to Lagos, Africa’s Mega-city
   
   

   Depending on how you see the world or what kind of mood you're in on a particular day, you can look out of your window and see the unstructured chaos of a Third World city on speed or the vibrancy and sense of hope that continues to attract thousands of newcomers every day.

2. The governor of Lagos state, Babatunde Fashola is admired by Lagosians. His plans for the state are ambitious, will he succeed?
3. Houses remain expensive in certain parts of Lagos (Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki). It seems there is still money to be made in the property market.
4. Makoko really needs to be cleaned up. Yet the area seems to attract folks from Benin, Togo and other parts of Nigeria searching for a better life.
5. Lagosians love fish. The local fisherman can’t keep up – as a result frozen fish continues to be imported from Europe to satisfy demand.
6. Lagosians don’t have time for religious conflicts (which is somewhat common in other regions of the Nigeria). To some extent, the can be explained by government intervention and a strong inter-religious council. They are “too busy trying to make money”.
   
   

   In the search for work, money, and advancement, there seems to be no time for religious violence in Lagos. Churches and mosques espouse a healthy desire for wealth in most of the country, but Lagos is the physical embodiment of that desire, and people have far too much to do.

7. Lagosians strive to look good all the time despite rolling in danfos (mini-buses) or okada (motorcycle). Vanity!
   
   

   I once headed out the door unshaven, wearing a T-shirt with a small hole in it. My Nigerian friends refused to be seen in public with me, and they weren't joking. A few days later, a friend saw my outdated, beat-up cell phone and offered his BlackBerry so that the people we were going to meet wouldn't shun us. Grunge will never be in style here.

8. A British-Nigerian couple recently set up two finishing schools in Lagos (Lagos Finishing School and the Lagos Etiquette Bank).
9. Alaba market is West Africa’s biggest electronics market.
10. Plantain chips are still taste good.