Should Paystack have sold to Stripe for $200 million?

“For Nigeria to get the level of China, we must protect every indigenous (home-grown) digital company and eliminate foreign ones. Yes Prof, you read that right. Our government must kill(or ban) Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Twitter, Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Whatsapp and every other big tech firm and start encouraging home grown companies. I can tell you for a fact, Nigeria has some the best developers / entrepreneurs that pull this off, but we been stifled by big search engines, poor access to Venture capitalist both in the country and abroad and other social media companies that try to suppress our contents. It all sounds cliché but this is just the plain reality.

Take a look at Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba, Didi-chauxing, Weibo etc. to name a few. This companies are protected by government entity in Nigeria. In order words, to become a billionaire in Nigeria, Nigeria government must build a firewall like Rep. of China to prevent Nigeria users from accessing these Tech companies in America, Government should even go as far as putting a sanctions on users trying to access these companies too. Now, they also have to put polices in place that enforces users use our locally used platform. I’m very much aware that you’re an American citizen, but you have Nigeria blood running in your vein and you can see the impact this will bring in the long run.

Heck, why I’m I even going far. Just take a look at Russia digital behemoths like VK(Social media) and Yandex(Search engine), these are application created by Russians entrepreneurs and with Government interest in them. This is especially for Digital products whose services has been unbounded and unconstrained on the internet.

A typical example is Paystack, why should the Nigerian government even allow such acquisition to occur? Paystack, has one the biggest potential to pull a real threat to PayPal & Stripe themselves. Honestly, it’s really sad.

Especially, with recent happening in the country. It simply just shows that our government couldn’t care less about what is happening in the country. I’m going to try to my best to put this proposition to our Government. But the earlier people realize this, the better for us all.

I’m willing to bet you that with such strategies in place Nigeria, Nigeria will print more millionaires and even billionaire within the next 10 years digitally. .” Stanley*.

That was a comment on a piece where I was challenging Nigerians for us to rise, and find a path, just as Chinese have done. Interestingly, in Tekedia Live sessions (check last week videos), many of our members have asked that same question in different ways: “why must Paystack sell?”

My answer has remained: allow adults to make their best decisions, and then analyze based on their decisions. Telling adults how to run their businesses or affairs may not be evidently fair. Sure, we do it all the time, though!

Now, since it has become a big question: what do you think? Should Paystack have sold to Stripe for $200 million?

Nigeria, There Is A Promise; Lesson from China

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