Wait o. Weren’t you the one admonishing me for being mean the other day even though what I was saying is true? Now, to see you spewing this? wow. just wow. Okokobioko!!!
PS: I guess it’s human nature to be righteous when it suits us. Why the painment? Did a mallam break your heart? 
It’s not being mean if what you’re saying is true.
Religion and a penchant for keeping people developmentally backward has too strong a hold on northern states for them to be a viable location for any kind of progressive business endeavors
Religion no. Government yes. The Arabs are more advanced in science and engineering than both Muslim and Christian Nigeria. Hell every Arab country provides 99% of their population with water and electricity something Lagos state alone cannot even boast of.
The only reason the Arabs have all that is because if they didn’t maintain a welfare state and give their citizens all they currently do, they would revolt.
Go read the history of how the Sauds conquered half the Arab tribes and negotiated their rule with the other half.
If the Sauds lose control of the oil (and the money that comes with it that allows them to provide all those amenities), they’ll immediately lose control of the country.
So don’t think it has nothing to do with religion. It does. That’s why everything there is provided to men, and women just benefit as appendages to men not as people in their own right.
Does Morocco have oil? Does Tunisia? Egypt? Yet they provide 100% access to electricity and 80-90% to water. They subsidize food, electricity, fuel, shelter. Their leaders as bad as they are are still humane to their people by providing basics. African leaders are with few exceptions generally wicked.
You made a point though about accountability. The Arabs hold their leaders to account. African constituents are still too parochial and sentimental, giving unquestioned loyalties to tribesmen or ethnic allegiances rather than objectively questioning a candidate on his or her own merit.
Morocco is a fucking dictatorship. It is ruled by a man who put his concubine and her children inside an underground dungeon in the middle of the desert and left them there for YEARS to die 
Tunisia and Egypt are only slightly better.
They are ALL incredibly repressive societies and in societies with immense social repression you HAVE to provide some sort of infrastructural stability or you will have a revolt (cough* Arab Spring) on your hands.
How do you think the king of Morocco felt when the Arab Spring was going on? He was probably terrified of losing his own country and being overthrown so he probably spent some extra money on infrastructure.
The point is, Arab countries do not provide these things for their citizens out of the goodness of their hearts or even care or concern for their citizens.
Even tyrants and dictators have to balance repression with some measure of prosperity or they’re fucked
So how do you explain Zimbabwe, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Uganda, Burundi? Where is the prosperity in any of these repressive states run by tyrants?
I will tell you why. The Arabs are a nation. They are a people. They can coalesce around ideals. All the social repression you talk about is not repression to them. It is religion. In the same way that same religion tells them what to expect from their leaders. The Arab Spring came because the state could not live up to its obligations. In Egypt the government of Mubarak removed subsidies on bread. The resultant price increase mothballed into a take down the Mubarak government. Now if you have gone to Egypt you will see that the Egyptians are subsidized everywhere. Electricity, water, housing, petrol, food. They have a sophisticated subsidized subway system in Cairo. They give graduates loans to go farm. Yet despite all Mubarak did he was kicked out because of the price of bread and his hardline action on protesting students. Tunisia theirs started because someone selling vegetables illegally in their pristine downtown was manhandled by police and set himself on fire. The Tunisia of Ben Ali is five times richer than Nigeria, they have social services, great infrastructure but because of youth unemployment the protests started.
Now look at Nigeria. The youth are walking the streets without employment. They resort to selling out of containers, trading out of barrows, selling puff-puff and snacks on their heads. They go home. Pitiful electricity supply. No public water supply in any city in Nigeria. Broken down expressways, three quarters of Nigerian cities unpaved. They go to their dusty poverty-stricken hovels and possibly go for night vigil for a divine intervention. Not once have the youth attacked politicians or protested against the large scale theft that we call government. When its election time people are busy deciding to vote the candidate who belongs to their tribe or buys them a bag of rice. The same divide-and-rule tactics the British used on Nigerians, the Nigerian politicians are using to good effect on their fellow citizens. Again Nigeria is not a nation and it shows in everything we do. We can’t run government properly for the greater good. We cannot hold our leaders accountable for the greater good. Last year in the elections, the Igbos voted en-masse for Goodluck Jonathan because his middle name was “Azikiwe”. Now under Goodluck a large number of federal roads in the South-East collapsed into dust. Goodluck Jonathan did zilch also for his people in the Niger-Delta. But they voted for him en-masse. In the North, people were supporting Buhari for no other reason than he was from the North. Just how dumb is that? Others because of some wishy-washy anti-corruption agenda while neglecting to question his support of Abacha or his forceful power grab in 1983. We deserve what the crooks in government are doing to us.
The Arabs are a nation. They have shown they can hold their leaders accountable.
I couldnt have said it Better.
I don’t know this digression tackles (or answers) the question of the viability of startups in these areas though. You somewhat ended up making @sugabelly’s point for her in that the people hold their leaders accountable and ultimately look up to them, rather than make things happen for themselves - i.e. you find less people engaging in progressive business endeavors.
Unless of course you were only pointing out that it isn’t because of religion but agreeing that the Northern states aren’t viable places for progressive entrepreneurship.
LOL. E say “any attempt to point our their flaws is met with defensiveness”.
@sugabelly Yes the North does have its unique challenges. No doubt harder than the South/West. However, come back without prejudice and a little education and maybe they won’t be defensive.
@Suleman You’re a better man than I am.
LOL. The entitlement. Y’all don’t know shit about Arabs. And no, I’m not about to educate anyone on something they can easily figure out themselves if they were so inclined.
Now, let’s talk some solutions. @Suleman You seem to know these lands well, what do you propose?
EDIT
I tried to hold back. I really did. If you think it’s the religion, I think you’re stupid. You are very stupid.
See, just like that, I’ve given you more “proof” for your “it’s the religion” war. 
No need for insults. A close-minded person isn’t worth the time and effort
That said,
There are northerners in the Nigerian “tech” startup scene. Here are a few and I am sure there are more.
Sim Shagaya - Founder of Konga and Dealdey is a northerner from Plateau State if I am not mistaking.
Zubair Abubakar - Co-founder of Chopup.me. “ChopUp™, a division of Pledge51 Ltd, is a leading mobile gaming company in Nigeria developing locally relevant games that tell the African narrative”
Ahmad Mukoshy of Gigalayer who seems to be the well known “northerner” in the “startup community”
The “tech” startup scene in this country is very much in its infancy. We should give it time to mature before making any calls.
I am confident that there are lots of great offerings in the works from founders from all parts of the country.
Having said that…
A business exists to solve a market (customers) problem at a profit. A business naturally gravitates towards where its market is.
In Nigeria today, the market for online offerings is in Lagos (mainly) because of better internet connections, more technology savvy consumers, big business and closeness to diverse funding options. Abuja is coming up but it’s still way behind Lagos. If your market is government organizations, then Abuja it is.
So naturally, expect to see a lot of concentration of “tech” startups around Lagos and probably Abuja.
Business 101.
As regards northern issues (not startup related), I think the solution like for every other part of the country is reorientation.
Our people need to have a reorientation about
Such reorientation can be undertaken with the buy-in and help of influencers in communities and organizations. Such influencers will help ensure the messages get to those its suppose to get to without much resistance.
If done right, we should start seeing changes in attitude, behaviors and ultimately actions in the desired direction.
It will take time but with the will and dedication, it could produce some outstanding results.
My opinion.
This thread caught my eye on Twitter and uncharacteristically, I’m here…because on the average, you guys are too “military” for me. 
I personally identify more as a Nigerian, than as a Northerner or Southerner (I can legally claim both), so I’m posting this as a Nigerian who lives in Kaduna (mostly).
Part of the reason why you’ll notice that this thread is all over the place, is because the problem is a complex one. There’s the cultural problem, there’s the issue of education, or the lack of it, (the religion aspect is actually more an education and cultural problem, not a religious one), there’s the lack of infrastructure, there’s the lack of direction/mentorship etc I can go on.
In summary, you’re more likely to find startups in places where the conditions best favour their survival (conditions such as a viable market, talent, fast internet etc). It’s that simple.
That said, I’ve personally come across a few REALLY good individuals on that side of the country. I find that most of these kinds, really just pursue an interest as against a means of survival (which is more of what I see in Lagos), so they are able to get really good at what they do, even though the environment doesn’t support them.
For instance, I there’s someone I’m currently working with who’s built a chat app, social network, an EMS (only thing he took to market. It’s profitable) and now a complete (emphasis on complete), multi-platform OS using web tech only (Java, HTML, CSS). Before you ask, yes, even the kernel.)
To get context of how dude thinks, I asked him why he built an OS, when there are already a number of established OSes, and his reply in summary was that as a student, he and most other students couldn’t afford computers and he feels that every student should have one, so the cheapest, stressless way he could think of (to avoid licensing costs (for Windows) and the complexity managing a Linux fork) was to build something that would run on any hardware and get setup for cheap (hence the decision to use web tech. Think Rasberry pi + Tv at home + mouse and keyboard).
Not once did he mention “growth” or “funding” or “valuation.” I can’t remember ever bumping into similar people in Lagos and not hearing an overdose of buzz words and how I should invest so as not to miss out on the next Facebook or Google. Did I mention that dude was in his early 20s?
There’s some other young chap I’ve met that dabbles in robotics. He does stuff “to show his friends” and that’s all. Crazy.
I’ve digressed a lot (forgive me), but the point is, the few guys that actually (in my opinion) can start companies don’t even realise the potential of what they can do or the value of the products they have laying about on their computers.
It doesn’t help that thanks to culture, the society here pretty much doesn’t encourage entrepreneurship as an option for the educated. It shoves you into being a public servant of sorts, lecturer or politician.
As is common with Nigerians, we mostly know the problems and sometimes the solutions, but we do nothing about it (either because our hands are tied, or because it’s just easier to talk than to actually do), but nothing will get fixed, if all don’t wake up and start doing our little bits.
While I can’t tell you what to do, I am can explain what I’m doing about it:
I’m starting a hub in Kaduna called CoLab (Work spaces, a Library, conference room, internet, meeting rooms etc). It’ll be open in a few weeks. It’s fully self funded, no investments, no grants, just hard earned savings.
We’ll try and put the brightest/most interested people in the same place to rub off each other and naturally create magic. Who knows, maybe a few startups will spring up from there?
Besides that, we’ll also try to train as many as are interested, and try to give them skills and guidance.
There aren’t many people they can look up to for guidance in these parts, so we intend to have mentors from across and outside the country give talks over Skype on weekends (we’ll probably stream this online for everyone as well).
We’ll also try to connect people there with opportunities (remote or physical) e.g if you’re good enough and we hear startup XYZ is hiring devs, we’ll point you that way)
I’m doing this because I think the best way to get people to take a different path from the norm, is to show them that there is a viable path to be taken in the first place. I also think Kaduna has everything for a tech community to thrive on (decent power (by Nigerian standards), talent, cheap real estate, decent infrastructure, fast internet among other things). It doesn’t have to be the Silicon Valley of Nigeria, but who knows, it may become what India is to the West…to Nigeria.
We’ll give it a push and see how far it goes. And if it fails, well hopefully, others will learn from our failure and pick up the pieces.
If you think of anyway you can help (besides money, e.g if you’ve got a skill you’d like to share over skype, or you have an old kindle you want to donate to our library or maybe just paper books or maybe you have hookups at an ISP that can give us free internet ) or have any ideas how we can make it better, please shoot me an email: hi@colab.com.ng.
You can follow the progress on Twitter @CoLab.
P.S: Sorry for the typos (if you found any, I was half asleep).
Oh Africans are generally cowards.
I thought everybody knew that.
Africans would rather accept all manner of tyranny than rise up and demand better.
Pretty self explanatory.
Oh I think I saw this on Twitter the other day!! Congratulations!!
I’m not prejudiced against northerners.
I just tell what I have personally observed in northern Nigeria as a Nigerian living in Nigeria.
If this thread was titled “Startups and the South” I could have told you a litany of things wrong with people in Southern states and why they’re contributing to the fuckup Nigeria is.
What I’ve seen is that northern Nigeria is lagging behind in literally every aspect of Nigerian life, and any allusions to this fact is met with fighting, anger, defensiveness and irrationality.
Frankly, it’s not my problem.
I’m not a northerner, I’m not really affected by the backwardness of your region. Slightly embarrassed, maybe, but that’s really as far as it goes.
At the end of the day, the only person northerners voltroning up and down on this thread are harming are… other northern entrepreneurs and techies.
Why do people keep confusing me for a Northerner? 
I’m not. Might as well be.
IMHO, sadly that’s true. 
This, not so much. There are people who are very much aware of the shortcomings(through no fault of their own) and are working their ass off to remedy the problem.
I did not say Africans are cowards nor do I agree. I said African nations have yet to rise above their cultural diversity when it comes to internal politics and that failure is reflected in uffer breakdowns in governance and civic responsibility. Big difference between the two statements.
I think in GENERAL ALL OF Nigeria suffers from bad government that affects business and that is a constant north and south. Electricity is a challenge. Education is a challenge. Transportation and logistics is a challenge. Finance is a challenge. Nigeria is not the best of places for anything sophisticated most especially internet startups. But of course Nigeria is a big place and one shouldn’t generalize.
If I was to generalize though I always thought that anything spectacular in the Nigerian computer field would come out from the university campuses and I am not talking the Lagos clones. I am talking original ideas. I think in that aspect neither the North nor the South has any distinct advantage. Unilag is not that much different from Ahmadu Bello University. University of Jos is not that much different from University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I frankly don’t think the universities are doing enough to nurture the ecosystem. There are around 1 million students spread across the various federal and state universities. Thats a pool of brainpower that has not really been harnessed.
@Supersanusi, i wrote this thread. It was originally posted on my blog www.thenortherner.com.ng I’m already interested in Colab, love the idea. Fortunately, i live in Kano and will be attending Kaduna Startup Hack Series 2016 next Saturday. Can we hook up, i’ll really like to meet.
I never thought people can be so self centered and myopic. I’ve followed all your posts and i found them very insulting and unfair. I’m more a Southerner than you can imagine and i’m also a Northerner in the same vein. I love both sides of the country, because i’m a product of both. There are thousands or probably millions like me out there. We can never choose sides because that will mean saying goodbye to our origin and ancestors.
My point is, i wrote this thread with an unbiased and unprejudiced mind, and because i truly believe every region needs to be actively involved in the development of this country. Bu here you are in the comfort of your domain (wherever that is) blabbing about what is and what not. Blaming and making selfish accusations and unfounded statements about the north. I wonder if you’ve ever visited that part of the country, because if you did and were there with an open mind. You will probably find out that beyond all the negativism you listed lies an untapped area of human resources. Youths who are working to change the status quo of the region. Like many comments on this thread, you should recognize that there is a lot going on which you may not have heard of because you choose to shut yourself to one side.