Built to Extract: Why the Average Nigerian Uses Products Differently, and What That Means for Your Solana Startup.
We Were Never Just Users, The Nigerian Product Culture Is Rooted in Survival. And products like Verxio Protocol, Airbills Pay, NectarFi, and Paj Cash are building with this knowledge.
Disclaimer: Grab some popcorn…🍿
PART ONE: History And Now
SCENE 1 — History
Dera walked barefoot down the red clay path toward the oracle’s shrine in Arochukwu. His chest was tight. Behind him, his relatives whispered prayers. Ahead of him stood the Ibini Ukpabi shrine, home of the Long Juju oracle. Every step forward was a gamble. In his village, people didn’t talk about what happened inside. But everyone knew. If the oracle condemned you, you were never seen again. You were sold./p>
The Aro priests claimed they delivered judgment. But they didn’t. The core of their system was a business, and like all businesses, there was an exchange. You paid to enter. You paid for a chance at freedom. And if “the gods” found you wanting, you paid with your body. The guilty were often blindfolded and led through tunnels beneath the earth, emerging by the river where traders waited. From there, they were shipped off to Calabar or Bonny, sold for silver and rum./p>
And on top of all this, most of the decisions made by the gods in the Ibini Ukpabi shrine were verdicts that were bought. Still, people kept coming, not necessarily because they trusted the system, but because they believed in the power behind it. The oracle was rigged, but it was also real. It gave answers. It gave outcomes. It gave people something to fear and something to believe in. By the 1700s, this system stretched across Southeastern Nigeria. The Aro Confederacy had become a spiritual and commercial empire. Its oracles were used to settle disputes, enforce debts, and punish rivals.
The illusion lasted for centuries. Then, in 1901–1902, the British launched the Anglo‑Aro War to dismantle this system. The oracle shrine was destroyed and burnt, the myth was shattered, and they installed their own system. But the habit of engaging with powerful, expropriative systems never went away. It simply evolved. Because it wasn’t the gods that were destroyed — it was an economy.
SCENE 2 — Still History!
The Royal Niger Company (RNC), founded in 1886 from George Goldie’s earlier trading operations, was granted a royal charter giving it the power to administer territories, sign treaties, collect taxes, and operate its own militias, essentially functioning as a private government supported by the British Crown. The company is said to have signed over 400 treaties with local chiefs, that tricked them into granting trade monopolies, land rights, and sovereignty to the company in exchange for trivial gifts.
Once these treaties were secured, the RNC enforced an economic monopsony: it purchased palm oil, ivory, and shea butter at suppressed prices, while simultaneously forcing communities to buy imported goods (often gin or rum), and all this was driving wealth outward. Even when chiefs like Jaja of Opobo or King Koko of Nembe resisted this system, they faced exiles, assassinations, or violent reprisals. In 1895, King Koko attacked the RNC base in Akassa; the British retaliated by burning Brass and executing punitive violence as a warning to all.
While the Royal Niger Company extracted from Nigeria, Britain’s working class benefited significantly. Palm oil was essential to the British Industrial Revolution, for things like lubricants, soaps, and steel machines. So basically, by shifting stripping and exploitation abroad, especially to colonies like Nigeria, Britain reduced domestic hardship and unrest, improving the standard of living at home. And this system survived well into the 20th century./p>
After the devastation caused by years of colonial and corporate extraction, Nigeria needed a way out. That’s when the IMF arrived, offering ‘redevelopment loans’ that came with fine print and far-reaching consequences. In July 1986, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, Nigeria adopted a sweeping Structural Adjustment Programme. The underlying rules were clear:
- Slash public spending on education, health, and subsidies/li>
- Block national ownership, enabling Western privatization and profit/li>
- Prioritize export industries over local welfare/li>
- And ultimately Devalue the naira/li>
Acceptance to these terms was mandatory to unlock IMF loans./p>
SCENE 3 — Now
Dera walked with his military-themed Crocs down the red marbled path toward his uncle’s Cybertruck. His chest was gleefully beating. Behind him, his uncle walked towards the driver’s seat of the Cybertruck, whispering a song. Ahead of them stood the tall, heavy gate that was opened by the gateman in the building, and Dera and his uncle drove out. But just as they rolled out onto the main road, the cement pavement covering the gutter gave way beneath them. Not because the car was faulty, it was built to global standards, but because the environment wasn’t.
Dera is me. Scene 3 really happened to me. And in that moment, I realized something: you can’t just import success or products into a system built on unstable, historically depleting, constraint-laced foundations.
Stay with me.