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I just got some very interesting insights from a former colleague who now works in industry. Remember how @MTNNG announced that it would support the fight against COVID-19 by giving subscribers 300 free SMS messages per month? Remember how we clowned them for it?

Well get this..
According to my colleague, the #YelloHope thing has actually been a hit outside of urban Nigeria. While we clowned them for providing free texts instead of free internet access, apparently our compatriots have been using their 10 free daily texts like there's no tomorrow🤷🏽
Apparently, over 50% of their subscriber base is in rural/semi urban Nigeria and do NOT have smartphones or internet access. These guys still rely solely on SMS and voice calls to communicate.
Even more interestingly, she said the industry figures estimate the number of smartphone users in Nigeria at 25 - 40 million (total phone subscriber base is 96 million per NCC). So basically, our 4G-using urban reality is NOT Nigeria's reality at all, according to MTN's figures.
So basically the decision to make SMS the key pillar of their contribution was actually deliberate and based on numbers. We were dragging them based on our own urban needs, but statistically we are not actually the majority😏
Without the NCDC's daily SMS service, effectively half of Nigeria's phone users would have been out of the COVID-19 information loop.

Which only just goes to show...
We really don't know as much about Nigeria as we sometimes imagine we do🙈
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David Hundeyin
@DavidHundeyin
Soldiers had no business on the streets and the lockdown was a hare-brained copy-paste idea that was always going to fall flat on its face here.

Now at least 3 people have died avoidable deaths. That's more than the number of people who have died of COVID-19 in Nigeria.

🚶🏿
But please don't let these inconvenient facts get in the way of your emotionally cathartic "lockdown."

When your food and diesel run out so you have to come out, and then you catch the virus anyway, those "Nigeria Goes Into Lockdown" CNN headlines will keep you warm.
Reminder that the 2020 planting season starts this month, and farmers across Nigeria cannot access farm inputs. If this persists, Nigeria will start running out of food within the next two weeks.

Also, no dollars to import food because nobody is buying oil.

Una well done.
Read 3 tweets
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David Hundeyin
@DavidHundeyin
You people overrate yourselves and I normally won't dignify the likes of Ruona Agbroko with an answer because she's not worth it.

I will however say the following:

She has built a reputation here for being the female Japheth, while hiding behind the 1 career highlight she has.
It is on record that the night before the Emmys, she was here calling Elnathan a "dick refugee" and accusing him of falsifying his circumstances to enable him move to Germany.

It is also on record that Cheta and myself have also faced her vicious and unwarranted attacks.
Unfortunately yesterday, she chose to go down into the mud with someone who happens to be even more adept at hitting below the belt.

The murder of Godwin Agbroko is publicly accessible information only a Google search away. He decided to reference it.
Read 18 tweets
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David Hundeyin
@DavidHundeyin
I get tired of constantly being ahead of the Nigerian curve. First I said that the govt was lying about the COVID-19 spread rate, they said I was "spreading panic."

Now they've realised I was right, and they're going on about a "lockdown." I've already told you people what to do
Secondary and tertiary healthcare intervention = non starter because no capacity.

Lockdown = probable end of Nigerian civilisation as we know it.

The only workable solution is to ACCEPT OUR LIMITATIONS and prepare for widespread symptom management. It is not particularly fatal!
Put out a nationwide information campaign detailing how to deal with COVID-19 symptoms and limit the spread when sumptoms develop, emphasizing that its death rate for healthy under-60s is 0.8% and Nigeria's median age is 17.

We are not going to die.
Read 6 tweets

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