The Challenges of A Nigerian Blogger

The Online community is wary of Nigerians. That is a very sad fact and it has had a lot of negative effects on my internet earnings potential.

The latest Internet Complaint Centre’s Annual report for 2008, has rates Nigeria as the number one nation in Africa that is deeply involved in internet fraud, coming third in the global ranking, only after the US and the UK -which were rated first and second.

According to them, Nigerian scammers sent about 7.05% of all fraud mails in 2008, a steady increase from the 5.7% recorded in 2007 and 5.9% in 2006. So far, no report on 2009 has been released.

Yet, despite the higher cases of reported perpetrators in the US, the Centre specifically warns US citizens to be sceptical of Nigerians, in their prevention tips on so-called ‘Nigeria Letter scam.’ Of course fraudsters from all over now pose as Nigerians.

I find this very biased indeed.

I live in Lagos, Nigeria as at the time of this writing though I can work from any part of the country as long as I have access to the internet – but that is where a challenge lies. I cannot guarantee that there will be internet access where I want to go.

Try to imagine these:
• You cannot open a PayPal Account
• You cannot open a ClickBank Account
• You cannot open an Ebay Account
• You cannot make payments for Hostgator Hosting
• You cannot subscribe to Aweber email management service
• You cannot buy on Amazon.com

These are the challenges I face as I cannot do any of these things as someone who wants to make money online {except I ask someone abroad to help out so that we can co-own the account, a move that can backfire at anytime or I use software that hides my IP address – I am not comfortable with either of the choices).

These are some of the disadvantages of living in my geographic location.

Generally, I spend time researching legal but far less popular alternatives. The results have not been impressive at all.

Apart from these, I’m not sure when exactly I will be online as service providers are unreliable.
There is poor electricity supply in most cities – for the past three days now, there has been total black out where I live.

I registered with a Women’s Development Centre nearby so that I can use their library because of the fairly stable power but yesterday, it only came on for 10 minutes and I had to leave in disgust.

I have two generating sets – a big one and a small one. Lately, I have been using them sparingly because of the queues at gas stations due to a 3-month old fuel scarcity in a country reputed to be the 8th largest producer of crude oil in the world.

I had to power the small set when all hope of getting power is gone but alas, it went off three times and I decided to quit using it for the sake of my laptop’s safety.

As I am typing this post, I am using a second generating set but it is a fuel guzzler and very uneconomical.
Living in Nigeria can be a pain in the butts and I am strongly considering living the city of Lagos for good – I grew up in a university environment where power is regular 75% of the time and I am seriously considering moving back there. Besides the cost of living is about 30% of the cost of living in Lagos.

There is always a light at the end of the tunnel though – I just got a call from a client asking me to come and make a presentation and price negotiation for a second web design job.

So for now, I will still be in Lagos a.k.a. Las Giddy (The City of Hustlers) for another 2 weeks and not more hopefully.

So guys that live in countries where the government is not in a coma – where you can make transactions online and where infrastructure is not a challenge be very grateful and make the most of it.

What challenges do you face as a blogger or someone trying to earn money legitimately online?

Cheers,
Olusegun