I worked with a great Nigerian dev some years ago. He contracted for us to do our frontend work. The stories this dude told were insane. He lived in Lagos, notorious for traffic jams. He would frequently get stuck in multi-hour long traffic jams just trying to get fuel for his electric generator. He had to do this to keep his power on during the routine black/brown outs that plagued the city, so that he could continue to work. He eventually, thanks to his work, was able to move to a nicer part of the city where the electricity was more reliable.

Last I heard he and his GF/wife (I don't recall which) were able to immigrate to Dubai, where he's continuing to work as a contractor for western clients, with an eye to eventually immigrating to Europe or the US.

I wish him well, but it is a damn shame that the best option for Nigerians who wish to engage in this type of work is to...leave.

I once sat through a “Pending Regulation of Cryptocurrency” CLE and one of the panelists was a real crypto-fanatic. He put up a slide about how quickly bitcoin was being adopted around the world and he kept excitedly saying how Nigeria was the fastest-growing crypto market in Africa! Another of the panelists was an FBI agent who investigates crypto-related crimes and when it was his turn he was quick to point out that rapid adoption of crypto in a country famous for internet scams isn’t exactly a selling point...

Looks like Dare@MSFT does have an account on HN, altho unused for many years. He's a genuine Nigerian Prince! Well, at least he's the son of a genuine Nigerian warlord/dictator.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Carnage4Life

Nigerian here. At some point it gets old and you just get used to it.

I went to a Nigerian wedding a few years back. Met a lot of techies who lived in the bay area. One was a PM at Microsoft even.

If you get the chance to go to a Nigerian wedding, you definitely should because it is an awesome time.