By
Chukwudi Iwuchukwu


Seun(not his real name) founded a start-up that was focused on providing access to health care for millions of our poor citizens in 2010.

He bootstrapped the venture from his savings and also his parents assisted him with quick cash any time he needed to raise money for the start-up.

The start-up later gained traction and attracted interest from the global community.

Last year, Seun sold his start up for $30 million to a foreign investor.

Since he was tired and burnt, 9 years of running a start up in this part of the world without taking any holiday, he decided to buy a property in a quiet elitist estate in Ibadan while he figures out his next move in our technological ecosystem and that is where the problem started.

His neighbours noticed that he is always inside his house, hardly leaves the estate and he does not  socialize.

He was young in their mind to afford the house he lives in and the luxury cars in his garage.

The Neighbors were wondering how a 28 years old could bought a property worth over 50 million naira?

And he is a bachelor oooo.

So the landlord association of the estate where he lives had a meeting over his matter and agreed to invite EFCC Ibadan zonal office to come to arrest him since they were so sure he was into fraud and too young to afford his lifestyle.

The operatives from EFCC  invaded Seun's house one fine Saturday morning like that.

I was worried when he called me out of panic that men of EFFC  are surrounding his house.

He followed them to their office, his lawyer later joined him, he showed them how he made his money at a relatively young age and the start-up that he sold that today funds his lifestyle.

When the operatives that arrested him could not pin anything to him after their  forensic investigation, they allowed him to go after staying 7 days with them.

At the thick of End Sars protest, two young Nigerians who graduated from Babcock university who are also in their 20's that belong to the generation that press phone Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi sold their start-up Paystack founded in 2016 to Stripe for $200 million. 

Ezra and Shola founded Paystack because they were curious about how technology could be used to solve everyday problems of ordinary Nigerians and they were rewarded for that ambition and scale by Stripe.

Dear young Nigerians especially Millenials and Generation Z who are legitimately working in the technology space to create value and wealth for themselves in the process, don't allow the cynism of the older generation who don't understand how you make legitimate money from technology space to weigh you down or distract you from your mission.

For that generation, they were raised to see 9 to 5 traditional jobs as the only acceptable way to pay bills and make money so e shock them a lot to see you making more money than they could not make at your age, living a more comfortable life and driving a luxury car they can't afford even with all their years of hard work and savings, resentment and envy step in and in their mind, you are an Hushpuppi even when you explain to them that you are not one.

Don't pay attention to them, keep building and offering your value to the demography that can afford it.

In 2016, my former landlord reported me to the police.

He branded me a yahoo boy and I was detained by the police for no reason.

I was 29 then.

He even said I was too young to afford to rent his mini flat  because in his mind,  I don't have a day job.

My only offence was that I was running the generator all the time,  pressing laptop and phone all day, he did not understand so when we had issues, he went to the police  station and the report was that his tenant is  a yahoo boy.

So we have seen it all, the older generation has thrown a lot of dirt at us but for all that persecution and envy, we are focused on building the next ambitious project out of Africa on the technology space and they cant stop our shine.