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Nigeria has remained a country of potential for too long - Buhari tells Facebook CEO

Nigeria has remained a country of potential for too long - Buhari tells Facebook CEO

Nigeria

Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has told Facebook’s Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg that it is about time the potential of Nigeria’s youth be developed into a reality.

Buhari explained when the co-founder of the popular social networking site paid a call on him in Abuja on Friday.

“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,” the president said.

Today I told Mark Zuckerberg, founder/CEO of Facebook, that for too long Nigeria has remained a country of potential—and we must change that

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) September 2, 2016

He added that he is impressed by the simplicity of Zuckerberg in “sharing knowledge and wealth with those with less income” as well as challenging the culture of wealthy and lavish Nigerians.

“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,” Buhari commended Zuckerberg.

“In our culture people who're successful don't appear like you, they're big men,” MBuhari joked w/ Mark Zuckerberg pic.twitter.com/CdZXsQrocb

— Presidency Nigeria (NGRPresident) September 2, 2016

On the part of the Facebook CEO, he confirmed the rich potential of the youth of Nigeria citing the Co-creation Hub in Yaba. “I was blown away by their talent and the level of energy that I saw,” he said.

Mark Zuckerberg is on his first Africa trip which started in Lagos on Tuesday where he met tech developers and entrepreneurs as well as children studying information technology to have an insight on how Africa is embracing the sector.

He moved to Kenya’s capital Nairobi on Thursday where he met with entrepreneurs and developers to learn about mobile money which Kenya is the world leader.

Zuckerberg is looking forward to promoting the penetration of fast and cheap internet connectivity on the continent as well as Facebook’s Express Wifi that helps entrepreneurs set up a hot spot to help their community access apps and services built by local developers.

He presented President Buhari with a prototype of Facebook’s first drone, the Aquila, a solar-powered aircraft expected to bring internet access to people who don’t have it.

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