by Ugochukwu Nnamdi Ukamba

I don’t mean to be a kill joy!

This past week has been a social media roller coaster ride –let’s call it a Facebook storm.

The week was going ‘jejely’ with everyone minding their business and trying to adjust to the technical recession until Uncle Zucky decided to spice up the week.

To achieve this, Uncle Zucky left his lofty abode in faraway California and came to pay his subjects here in Nigeria an ‘unexpected’ visit. Quite naturally, and in our typical way of ‘famzing’ the white skin, we were over ourselves with exhilaration and excitement.

Some of the major headlines, from print and social media, can be summarized along these lines:

• “Zucky is so humble he wore only a tee-shirt and jeans to stroll in Yaba.”
• “Thank God Zucky did not tell government he was coming, his visit would have cost us billions.”
• “Zucky, as the international referee, has finally settled the perennial Jollof wars between Nigeria and Ghana by declaring Nigerian Jollof ‘King of Jollof’ (even though Zucky has not tried Ghana Jollof).”
• “Zucky is far too kind and has promised to support entrepreneurs (something Bubu refused to do).”
• “Zucky is richer than Basketmouth yet Basky wore designer suit to go and shake Zucky who wore house clothes. Linda Ikeji, who snaps herself 11 times before she gets to her house, was surprised that Zucky would just appear in Nigeria without giving Lin Lin an exclusive scoop and exclusive opportunity to make money from blog hits.”

There are several more inane headlines along these lines and I am sure you remember some of them. The excitement accompanying his visit was palpable -the number of times his picture- jogging at the popular hook-up Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge- was liked is one indication of the frenzy that accompanied the visit.

Away from the frenzy, there are some critical questions that we ought to ask ourselves and which I believe ought to form the fulcrum of the discussion around the ‘unannounced’ visit.

Firstly, according to Wikipedia, the net income of Facebook for the year 2015 was the sum of US$3.688b and its total assets as at that year was US$49.407b. These are staggering figures if you consider that Nigeria’s total budget for 2016 is about N6.077 trillion.

One is tempted to ask –

• “How did Zucky make this income since Facebook is basically free to use?”;
• “Of this profit made by Facebook in 2015, how much of it was a result of direct use of Facebook products by Nigerians?”;
• “How much of it was generated by mining data of unsuspecting Nigerians?”;
• “Of the amount that was made off Nigerians, how much did the Nigerian State get back in taxes?”

You see, I got curious and I went to the Corporate Affairs Commission website to conduct a search to ascertain if Facebook has any registered entity in Nigeria. My search showed 4 companies that had ‘Facebook’ as part of their registered names. Though I cannot speak authoritatively, I strongly suspect that none is linked to Facebook Inc.

If my assumptions are correct, it means that, of the US$3.688b declared by Facebook in 2015, the Nigerian State did not see shishi. Yet we are jumping upandan that Zucky ate Jollof and snail.

Secondly, what protection does Facebook offer to users’ data? What effort is government making to ensure stricter standards? As you are well aware, once you click on ‘I Agree’ at the point of opening your account, you have basically agreed that Facebook owns and can do whatever it likes with your information.

Tough luck mate, if you didn’t know before now. Despite the onerous user terms, I read some while back that the US government somehow managed to get Facebook to sign another agreement where the contents that are published on social media platforms that are owned by government are deemed government secret and property of the US government.

At least 2 Nigerian presidents, the immediate past and the present, are active on Facebook. We know they are not the ones actually operating those accounts but it is not improbable that classified government information may be passed, knowingly or unknowingly, through those channels.

Is there some measure to ensure that Facebook does not appropriate those information? When you consider the antecedent of Zucky and his proclivity to data breach, you would understand that this concern is not misplaced.

While Zucky’s effort to encourage tech entrepreneurs ought to be celebrated and not deprecated, we should not imagine that this is some altruistic messianic handouts. Quite the contrary, the more persons that have access to use Facebook, the more free data Zucky can mine to make money.

The more money he makes without an obligation to pay the Nigerian State a dime, the more he will celebrate your Jollof, Eforiro, Afang, Tuwo and any other one you bring.

P.S: This was written before the second and presidential coming of Zucky. One hopes that the closed door meeting held at Aso Villa touched on areas that the government can get some of Zucky’s pie to cushion the effect of the technical recession.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Ugochukwu Nnamdi Ukamba is a Legal Practitioner based in Lagos. He can be reached on twitter @NnamdiUkamba