The only major road through Lekki is clogged, even on a Saturday afternoon. The expressway through the swampy peninsula that expands the city of Lagos in an easterly direction is riddled with street hawkers peddling red grapes, shoe racks and phone chargers to the cars caught in the hold up.
“Selling imported fruit and Chinese rubbish. Such a waste of initiative,” mutters Funke Opeke from the backseat of the SUV. The driver steers past a junction where a swarm of okada drivers on motorbikes are waiting by the roadside for anyone looking for a ride. “Look, there’s 50 young men right there. Imagine you’d give all of them a six-month course in building affordable housing,” she says.
Everywhere she looks in Nigeria, Opeke notices missed opportunities. But the founder and CEO of Main One Cable Company also sees ways to address them.
When the 54-year-old returned to Nigeria in 2005, after 20 years and a successful telecoms career in the US, she was shocked by the low level of internet connectivity in her country of birth…
To read more on this exposé, by Aljazeera, which highlights how Funke established MainOne as a solution to the internet challenge of Africa, her background, among others, click here