Thread by @asemota

I can't believe that we are openly comparing tech to Yahoo and some people are blatantly making a case for fraud because according to them, “it helps more people.”

Let me tell you a story again of the damage Yahoo has done to Nigerian tech but we still survived and thrived.

2002, I had my first cybersecurity gig in Nigeria with Econet and FirstBank. We partnered with a company called Sensepost in South Africa to come and do penetration tests and security assessments. What we uncovered was so important that I decided to go deeper and learn.

I was in America and there was the InfosecWorld security conference in Florida and I decided to attend. This was as far back as 2002 and I didn't realize we had the Yahoo stigma already. I carried my business cards proudly with my Lagos address. I was sharing it with everyone.

I started noticing that people were avoiding me but I thought it was my imagination until I met someone from RSA who was discussing security tokens in the earliest form. He liked my input and asked for my card. I gave it to him, he read it, quickly returned it, and walked away.

It was then that I finally realized that they were all avoiding me. He actually read the address out loud before returning the card. That was the first time I understood what national shame meant because of some miscreants who wanted to collect small $1k here and there.

It was a hard struggle to do anything beyond Nigeria in cybersecurity then because of Yahoo. I realized that I was on a doomed path. It became clearer when Sensepost got 200 more customers in six months globally but I was still struggling with two in Nigeria and begging them.

It was a consulting assignment with the IFC for @ChifeDr and his company Socketworks that made me start believing in the potential of African tech again. I saw someone like us do well in America and come back home to try to do even bigger and succeed. A positive role model.

@ChifeDr Socketworks was the first venture-funded startup in sub-Saharan Africa but there was no Techcrunch and @ulonnaya to tell the story to the world. We relied on the IFC to mention it in a press release that didn't go far and wide enough and many didn't hear of him and his work.

@ChifeDr @ulonnaya Doing that project made me realize that the services part of tech was also as important as building products. We decided to double down on it and that was where I got my next shocker. We were supposed to do an AML (anti money laundering) project for a telco across Africa.

@ChifeDr @ulonnaya It quickly became a regulatory requirement for payment companies and platforms. Compliance was a big deal. So we engaged a potential South African partner once again. They didn't respond to us even when introduced from the highest levels of the telco. I was confused.

@ChifeDr @ulonnaya It wasn't until a South African friend explained to me what was happening before I got it. The AML company in SA didn't want to ruin their reputation by working with Nigerians. It took a decade before we finally started working together on telco projects. Yahoo struck again.

@ChifeDr @ulonnaya We still persevered. The telco didn't see us as a threat because of our Nigerian origin and we helped them scale their payment products. Being Nigerian with the telco was even an advantage. Everything was well until I saw gaps in telco payments and decided to invest in startups.

@ChifeDr @ulonnaya I met this small Kenyan payments company in Dubai during a Mobile Money conference. They presented a product that filled the gap that I saw with card payments for online merchants. I engaged them and wanted them to work with my telco client across Africa. They were hesitant.

@ChifeDr @ulonnaya I visited Nairobi several times and found out that they didn't have enough resources to work in an Africa-wide project. A problem I once had that made us fail. I decided to invest $100k in them. We agreed terms but they finally reneged and killed the deal. Why? I was Nigerian.

@ChifeDr @ulonnaya The effort I made to get these guys to take money and make money is funny. I decided to spread and invest that money in West African startups. One of them is now the most valuable startup in Africa. The success of Andela, Flutterwave, Paystack, and others redeemed us once again.

@ChifeDr @ulonnaya Nigerian tech people struggled to get where we are today despite the stigma of Yahoo Boys.

Anyone comparing Yahoo Fraudsters with tech people needs their head examined because all Yahoo has done is drag us back. It should be eliminated and not encouraged.

@ChifeDr @ulonnaya In summary, just don’t put Nigerian tech and Yahoo fraud in the same sentence. Not in the same paragraph and not even in the same statement. It does more damage than you can think.

Compare it to something else like politics, please. Abeg 🙏🏿