It’s the weekend and many tech bros are probably doing a mental dance of victory in their heads.
If I had to work like them and face the struggles of working in Africa, I would rejoice when I get my day off too.
Wait, I’m one of them…
You’d expect that tech bros in Africa would have it easy like their colleagues in other parts of the world but it’s not the case.
Despite Africa’s burgeoning tech ecosystem, several factors still constitute hurdles for the average techies here.
You’re curious now, so you might ask?
What Are These Challenges?
I have a lot to unpack so this is going to be a long or short rant, as the spirit leads. The first and obvious one is
The Lack of Regular Power Supply
As I write this, my laptop is about to run out of power juice but there’s no light. Sometimes, I wonder why I ended up here.
As an African, life as a techie can be quite frustrating.
No really, why do I have to monitor Nepa’s power supply schedule to know when I can be more productive?
If the transformer doesn’t blow, then it’s rain that has made the wires wet and it needs to dry before you have light.
This is an open shade to Lagos, catch your sub with your chest!
To buttress my point, research shows that sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 75 percent of the world’s population without access to electricity.
According to Washington Post:
“At least 50 percent of the entire population in 38 of the 49 sub-Saharan countries live without electricity — worse off, 51.4 million of 54.3 million people (94.7 percent) living in Liberia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Chad, Sierra Leone and Malawi do not have electricity”.
Good to see that Nigeria has partners in crime but it’s still ridiculous!
Bad Roads and Traffic
You can relate to this one if you don’t work from home and you live in Lagos.
Your eyes will see shege in all its varieties.
Has your car ever entered into a pothole that makes your music player stop? Christ!
You’d see potholes that you could as well convert into mini ponds right in the middle of the road!
Why?
If it’s not a pothole, then it’s your government that has decided to repair the roads during work hours, and now you are stuck in traffic.
It might even be a regular citizen like you that has decided to switch lanes and ended up causing confusion.
Now you are seated in your car, head against the steering wheel wondering if this is what life really has to offer you.
CNN Travels documented the life of an average worker in Lagos. The report shows that on-site workers in Lagos live quite a hellish and stress-filled life and it’s very true.
Let’s always keep our brethren in Lagos in our prayers. They are really going through it.
Fraud Accusations
If you’re in your 20s or 30s and your neighbours always see you with a laptop, they automatically assume you’re a fraudster.
This sort of profiling doesn’t stop with your neighbours, the police try to incriminate you and force you to give them money because you look like a “yahoo boy.”
It was one of the factors that necessitated the #EndSars movement in Nigeria. It’s even worse if you don’t fit into their description of a perfect gentleman.
You must appear saintly or at least fit their description of a responsible youth (trust me, you don’t want to look like that). No rings, no locs, no ripped jeans or unnecessary jewellery. Even women are not spared in this craze.
Trust me, you don’t want to be on the receiving end of the sort of treatment that comes with getting profiled as a fraudster in Nigeria or a seemingly rich person they can take advantage of.
Techies had to resort to Twitter for help since the only people that are should protect them are the ones harassing them.
Did this strategy help? Yes!
It was a perfect strategy until the government decided to ban Twitter which brings me to my next point.
Unfavourable Government Policies
One of the major challenges that the tech community in Africa is the harsh government policies that cause great harm to their workflow, financial transactions, the growth of startups and many more.
The international community has placed Africa under scrutiny with regard to issues concerning how technology can promote growth in Africa.
I’ll stop talking about Nigeria for a while.
Havard Business Review explicitly studied six key countries selected from different sub-regions of Africa representing distinct archetypes of size (of economy and population), economic growth, median age, quality of governance, and digital momentum.
These countries were Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa.
In South Africa, they concluded that President Ramaphosa “needed to follow through and prioritize his commitment to a “skills revolution” – including creative and multimedia skills — must be prioritized.
In Kenya, it was concluded that policies to promote education, digital skills and healthcare must be prioritized. While recommendations for Rwanda’s growth were for the implementation of policies that prioritize the following:
“Bridging the urban-rural digital divide, and reducing electricity, water, and transport infrastructure disruptions. They also need to implement policies that solve the issues of highly fragmented markets, poor document management and payment tracking methods, and the interoperability between USACCOs and mobile money operators.”
I don’t want to bore you with all the details, you’ll learn more about this in the full article.
Epileptic Internet Access
If you’ve ever been in a meeting where your colleague has said a hundred and one things but you only heard the first word before you were cut off, you can relate to this.
It’s even more embarrassing when the meeting is with your colleagues with a stronger internet speed. They will be sat in confusion wondering what must have gone wrong.
As a developer, I bet you’ve experienced one of those long torturous periods where you need to upload a software and the internet keeps slowing down or disappearing altogether.
You get the picture, I’ll leave you with it.
Welcome to the End
Well, this is where I bring my rant to a close. I’ll add more to this list or make it into a series if you let me know you enjoyed reading this post in the comment section below.
Also, turn on your notifications so you’ll know when I have more to say (Trust me, we say a lot here).
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2 Responses
Hilarious but very true
Good read, the pothole part had me in knots.😂