Nigeria and the Promise of Blockchain
A journey to discover devastation and opportunity
Projects actually delivering on the promise of Blockchain in developing economies are still hard to come by. In early April 2019, a diverse group of people visited entrepreneurs and villages in Nigeria, where transparency and accountability is delivered through real projects in one of the environmentally most devastated regions of the world — the Niger Delta.
We in the blockchain community bubble, repeat religiously that this technology will enable radical change in financial inclusion, eliminate corruption and bring about many other dramatic improvements in society. However, technology must be deployed in the context of local communities, local traditions and with a well designed approach to convince the people using it of the value it adds to their lives.
Thus, I was very excited to make my way to Nigeria and visit a team which has led a multi year effort to deliver on the promise of Blockchain in Nigeria. Sela Labs has taken a comprehensive approach in developing technology providing accountability and transparency for capital deployment. For the past two years, the team has focused on UI/UX, backend, and processes, taking into account local requirements, illiteracy, socio-economic dynamics, and power distribution.
The ultimate goal of Sela Labs is to deliver a universal verification platform enabling efficient deployment of capital. This is especially critical in environments where little or no trust exists and government institutions are largely ineffective or absent.
Use Case: Deliver cleanup where nothing has been done for over 50 years
The Niger Delta is home to one of the largest oil reserves in the world. Oil extraction has taken place since the early 1960s with devastating side effects on society and environment. Aside from civil war, civil strife and massive amounts of corruption, the inadequate infrastructure in oil production has led to countless oil spills at an extreme scale. No cleanup has been documented — ever!
As a result, the local population is hostile to any outsiders and oil companies as none of the wealth created by the local deposits has found its way back to the region. Underground pipes break regularly, oil wells cause spills and the local population adds to the destruction with illegal refinery operations.
Fish is a staple food in Nigeria, which was produced in countless fish farms by the local population. Mangrove forests provide critical food for fish in the Delta and tidal waters enable effective water management for commercial fish farms. Due to widespread oil pollution, many farms have seized to operate, forcing fishing in open waters with inadequate equipment resulting in loss of life at sea, and more youth seeking incomes from illegal refining.
The Sela application has enabled the cleanup of several fish ponds owned by local chiefs and communities. Independent verification agents, equipped with mobile phones document the completion of daily tasks, the presence of crews on the jobsite, etc. Workers employed on the project track their efforts and document critical steps on site. The result is a fully documented cleanup with certainty for the investor that the project has been executed and funds have been used for the intended purposes.
Change is an Imperative
The opportunities for development enabled by reliable and efficient capital deployment in developing economies are enormous. Capital deployment in environments where no such activity has taken place, will enable rebuilding of communities devastated by environmental and political strife, bringing opportunities to a population which is growing significantly.
On our trip in Nigeria, we met local chiefs, who did not think that any cleanup would ever happen in their lifetime, youths which refused to believe that all they could hope for was life as armed rebels syphoning crude, and brilliant engineers heading back to Africa from the world’s top universities and companies to deliver technology changing their countries.
The journey in Nigeria reinforced the notion that Blockchain technology can deliver the kind of economic and societal change it promises. However, we can not underestimate the amount of effort it takes to implement solutions which are adopted locally and scalable.
