The CEO and Co-founder of Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola, has said Nigeria does not have an ambition problem but must move beyond dreaming to building big.
Agboola spoke at The Platform Nigeria Independence Day Edition, organised by Covenant Nation and held at Iganmu, Lagos, on Thursday, where he challenged Nigerians to turn their ambitions into tangible realities through knowledge, courage, discipline, and resilience.
“Nations are not transformed by dreams alone; they are transformed when enough people acquire the knowledge, courage, and discipline to turn these dreams into reality. Africa does not have an ambition problem; now we need to go and build and build big.”
Speaking about his experience building Flutterwave, Agboola said Nigeria taught him to dream despite the country’s challenges.
“I’m a product of a country that has taught me how to dream about my reality and infrastructure. Nigeria is my home, and what Nigeria teaches you is how to dream despite what you see around you.
“Sometimes, the capital is not there; the rules might still be evolving sometimes; even the path you set might not be there sometimes, but one thing about we Nigerians is that we will still dream, and our challenge is not that we can dream or dream big; it is that can we build big?
“There is a huge difference between having a great idea and having a country that has been here for over a decade, employed over a thousand Nigerians in Nigeria, has millions of customers and investors and is across Africa.”
Agboola said African businesses had brilliant ideas but operated in a fragmented environment, adding that Flutterwave chose to address the infrastructure deficit by building solutions for money movement across Africa.
“Africa has brilliant businesses; however, everything was fragmented. Today, instead of complaining about that infrastructure deficit (that existed earlier), we decided to build it at Flutterwave.
“We went ahead to build a company that will make an attempt to solve how money movement will work across Africa, and today global companies like Uber, Netflix, Microsoft, and Google are building on the rail that we have built, using an infrastructure built in Africa by Africans.”
He said Flutterwave’s business experience demonstrated that Africans could build companies and infrastructure capable of earning global trust.
“That matters to me beyond Flutterwave; it tells me that Africans can build global companies and infrastructure, we can build systems that the world can trust, and that is very key. However, the dream is very key, but the scale is expensive.”
Reflecting on the challenges of building Flutterwave, Agboola said resilience was necessary to continue despite setbacks.
“Building Flutterwave has not been easy; we have had the setbacks that we had to learn to overcome. The lesson here for me is always knowing that resilience is not just building in setbacks but building in spite of setbacks and being able to understand that every challenge you have in building that serious idea into reality will actually make you stronger when you go through that process.”
He urged Nigerians to keep pursuing their ambitions but stressed that dreaming was only the beginning.
“Do not stop dreaming. Dream very big, but understand that the dream is just the beginning; then you have to go and learn, become excellent at something.”
Agboola also stressed that building systemic infrastructure required collective effort.
“You cannot do it alone; nobody can build systemic infrastructure alone, not government, not entrepreneurs, and not businesses,” he added.
The event is themed “Dream BIG. EXECUTE with Knowledge” as it features a lineup of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and speakers sharing practical strategies and lessons.
It also focuses on engaging national transformation by building businesses at scale, as well as innovation, resilience, execution, and scaling.
