President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday met with Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of social networking website, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, commending him for sharing his wealth of knowledge with Nigerian youths, and inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs.
The co-founder of Facebook had left Lagos on Thursday for Kenya. While in Lagos, no government official was present at the interactive sessions
he had with the youths .
But Zuckerberg returned from Kenya and was ushered into the president’s office for a meeting that also attended by ministers including Adebayo Shittu, Ogbonnaya Onu, Okechukwu Enelamah and Lai Mohammed.
President Buhari described Zuckerberg’s meetings with Nigerian youths as timely “as the country was already exploring opportunities to spur development through entrepreneurship.
“Nigeria has always been identified as a country with great potentials for growth, especially with our youthful population, but now we are moving beyond the potentials to reality.
“I am impressed by your simplicity in sharing your knowledge and wealth with those with less income,” he said.
The President noted the Facebook CEO’s simplicity and magnanimity, which was not common among Nigerian elite.
“In our culture, we are not used to seeing successful people appear like you. We are not used to seeing successful people jogging and sweating on the streets.
“We are more used to seeing successful people in air-conditioned places. We are happy you are well-off and simple enough to always share,” he added.
Zuckerberg told Buhari he was impressed by the interest, energy and entrepreneurial spirit displayed by young Nigerians in all the ICT camps that he had visited.
“I was highly impressed by the talent of the youths in the Co-creation Hub in Yaba. I was blown away by their talent and the level of energy that I saw,’’ he said.
Zuckerberg said he was in the country to promote the penetration of “fast and cheap” internet connectivity, Express-wifi, that would help people create online businesses and reduce poverty.
Zuckerberg, who was dressed in black suit and neck tie, later attended Aso Villa Demo Day, a federal government programme organized to pick winners of innovative ideas in start-up businesses organized at the old Banquet Hall of the presidential villa.
Thirty winners emerged from the over 4,000 that entered the competition but the three outstanding winners – Emmanuel Okena of Tracology, Allison Ukonu of Recycle Point and Damilola Olokesusi of Mass Shuttle got cash grants of N3 million and N500,000 each from Airtel and Sahara Energy respectively.
The American entrepreneur, who spoke at the event held at the State House Conference Centre, Presidential Villa, described as inspiring all what he has seen on his trip to Nigeria.
He said: “It’s so inspiring to see what you have built here. This trip has really blown me away by the talents of young entrepreneurs and developers in this country, and making a difference and making a change.
“It reminds me of when I wanted to start Facebook. I wasn’t starting a company at the time but wanted to build something to see if it will work.
“And that is what I see people here do, pushing through challenges, building things that you want to see in the world, if it will help the company great, if it will help the country great. You are not just going to shape Nigeria and the whole of Africa but the whole world.
“So, what I will say to the winners today and all the people that participated is that I’m blown away by what you are doing. I believe in you and I look forward to seeing what you do and congratulations.”
In his remarks, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, noted that Zuckerberg had demonstrated that it was possible to live your dream, influence the environment and the world.
He said, ”Your coming to Nigeria has been especially energizing not just for the young people but for everyone else,” he said.
He commended the 30 persons who made the shortlist of the Aso Villa Demo Day and the three eventual winners who went home with various sums of money.
Osinbajo told Zugerberg that “I think one of the great things you have demonstrated is that it is possible to live your dream, it is possible to make your dreams not just come true but come true so fabulously that it will not only influence your environment but you will influence the whole world.
“One of the the things you have done is really to create connectivity across the world so that people are really able to interact across tribe, race, countries and feel as part of one family and one faith. So I think that is one of great things that you have done.
“And your coming to Nigeria has been especially energizing not just for the young people but for everyone else. As you can see am on Facebook and the president is also on Facebook so we are one of the 17 million”.
“This is the first Aso Villa Demo Day but the next year will be bigger and better. I don’t know if we will be able to get Mark to show up for that but somehow or the other, we are going to keep him in the loop and let him know what we are up to and how much progress we are making”.
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