Mark Zuckerberg in Nigeria: Emeka Afigbo, Ime brought Zuckerberg to Nigeria

As Techpoint, a Nigerian tech blog, reported, more than fifteen managers and executives of Nigerian background work with and around Zuckerberg at the world’s largest social networking site, occupying a range of high-profile roles. Among the most prominent are Emeka Afigbo, who handles strategic product partnerships for Facebook in sub-Saharan Africa and Ime Archibong, Facebook’s director of strategic partnerships. Back in May, Archibong and Afigbo led a Facebook delegation to launch the company’s Free Basics—a service that aims to help more people access the internet at no cost—in Nigeria. Afigbo, in particular, is said to be one of Zuckerberg’s trusted advisers on growing the company in Africa. He’s believed to have influenced Zuckerberg’s decision to back Lagos-based coder training center Andela. Before Facebook, Afigbo and Archibong worked at Google and IBM respectively.

Ebele Okobi, Facebook’s head of public policy for Africa, is another prominent Nigerian at the company. She leads the company’s public policy work in sub Saharan Africa and has been involved in some of Facebook’s Nigeria-focused initiatives. Last year, she led a training initiative which saw Nigerian lawmakers schooled on how to use the social networking platform for effective engagement with their constituents.

As Techpoint notes, Facebook has several other Nigerians in key leadership roles across media partnerships, products and payments.
It’s worth noting an influential minority group at Facebook given Silicon Valley’s recent self-examination and handwringing over a lack of diversity in its ranks particularly among engineers and leadership roles overall. Blacks and Hispanics comprise just 1% of engineering leadership at Twitter, 2% at Google, and 2% at Facebook. Long-term, having a crop of young executives with Nigerian backgrounds in prominent roles at one of the world’s generation-defining technology companies could hopefully support even more local growth.