The co-founder and CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, has just landed in Nigeria on his first visit to Africa’s largest country and economy powerhouse. He announced his arrival via the social media platform.
While his itinerary in Nigeria has not been revealed, TechCity gathered that he will be visiting the Lagos-based Co-Creation Hub. An invitation that was sent to journalists to cover the CcHub event revealed Dorsey is in Nigeria “as part of a listening and learning tour”.
Nigeria is one of the four African countries that the CEO will be visiting during his tour of Africa that he said will last the entire month of November. Other countries he will be visiting are Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa.
Before embarking on his Nigeria trip, Dorsey discussed with the country’s minister for the economy, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Iweala could be regarded as Dorsey’s point of reference for information regarding Nigeria considering the ex-minister is also a board member of the microblogging site. Their most recent publicly known discussions centered on efforts aimed at preventing the upload of terrorist and violent extremist content on the platform.
Dorsey is not the first CEO of a major tech platform that will be visiting Nigeria. The CcHub he will be visiting tomorrow had previously hosted the CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg who is also regarded as a rival for Dorsey.
Twitter’s history dates back to March 21, 2006 when Dorsey posted the world’s first tweet: “just setting up my twttr.”
Since then, the platform has grown to become one of the most influential social media platforms that is described as influential in the victory of Donald Trump in the United States’ 2016 presidential elections.
Twitter recently got itself in the news recently when it announced it was banning political ads.
Brad Parscale, who is running Trump’s re-election campaign, described Twitter’s move as an “attempt to silence conservatives” and “a very dumb decision” for the company’s shareholders.
In Nigeria and across Africa, Twitter has become an effective means of sharing views and rallying individuals around a social cause. The #BringBackOurGirls campaign started on Twitter and resonated globally.
But unlike Facebook which has local presence in Nigeria and actively engages local innovators, Twitter is struggling to catch up and the CEO’s visit is expected to give the company an idea on how to engage, or not.
