Why the Kingdom Needs Builders, Not Spectators
Francis Madojemu
The Kingdom mindset that turns problems into assignments, solutions and opportunities
There is a way of looking at a nation that produces only frustration.
You see failed systems, weak institutions, unreliable infrastructure, corruption, poverty, unemployment and recurring disappointment. You examine the scale of the problems and conclude that nothing meaningful can happen until government changes, the economy improves, institutions begin to function or someone with greater power intervenes.
But there is another way of looking.
You see the same problems, but you interpret them differently.
You see an assignment.
You see an invitation to think.
You see something that must be built, repaired, redesigned, supplied or transformed.
You see an opportunity to serve.
This difference in perspective may be one of the most important distinctions between those who merely survive within broken systems and those who eventually help to transform them.
This Kingdom Conversation was developed from two related contributions.
The first is Iyin Aboyeji’s conversation, “We Are a Generation of Influencers, Not Builders,” in which he speaks provocatively about responsibility, nation-building, economic capacity, value creation and the perseverance required to build in difficult environments.
Watch the original conversation here:
The second is Strive Masiyiwa’s article, “The Opportunity Is in the Problem,” in which he recounts how a major telecommunications obstacle in Nigeria led his team to develop a solution that had not previously been implemented at that scale.
Read the original article here:
Their contributions are different, but they converge around one central truth:
The future is not built by people who only describe impossibilities. It is built by people who accept responsibility for making something possible.
This is not merely an entrepreneurial message.
It is a deeply biblical and Kingdom principle.
God places His people in difficult environments not simply to endure them, complain about them or escape from them, but to bring wisdom, order, light and solutions into them.
WHEN THE IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES PERSONAL
One of the most challenging ideas in Iyin Aboyeji’s conversation concerns the way people respond to what appears impossible.
He observes that many people look at the problems of Nigeria and immediately turn towards government as the only responsible actor. They see what is not working and conclude that nothing meaningful can be done until those in authority repair it.
But the people who eventually build, he argues, often respond differently.
They look at what is not possible and begin to believe that making it possible is somehow their responsibility.
That is a radical shift.
It is the movement from:
“Somebody should do something.”
to:
“What part of this has been placed within my reach?”
This does not mean government has no responsibility.
It does not excuse bad leadership, poor governance, corruption or institutional failure.
It does not suggest that individuals can single-handedly repair every structural problem.
Rather, it rejects the paralysis that develops when we surrender all agency because someone else has failed in theirs.
Government may have failed.
An institution may have failed.
A previous generation may have failed.
A leader may have failed.
The system may be deeply dysfunctional.
But the Kingdom question remains:
What has God placed in your hand?
When God met Moses, He did not deny the reality of Pharaoh’s oppression. He did not pretend that Egypt’s political system was functioning properly. He did not minimise the suffering of Israel.
Instead, He asked Moses:
“What is that in thine hand?”
— Exodus 4:2
The deliverance of a nation began with a man, a calling, an encounter and a staff.
The staff was not sufficient by itself. But surrendered to God, it became an instrument through which divine authority was demonstrated.
The lesson is not that every problem can be solved with whatever happens to be nearby.
The lesson is that responsibility often begins with recognising what God has already entrusted to us.
A skill.
A relationship.
A platform.
A building.
A business.
A profession.
An idea.
A team.
A piece of land.
A church community.
A position of influence.
A burden that refuses to leave us.
We frequently ask God to send someone while ignoring the possibility that our discomfort may be part of His summons.
NATIONS DO NOT BUILD THEMSELVES
One of the strongest ideas in Aboyeji’s reflections is that nations are built.
They do not emerge automatically.
Strong institutions do not appear accidentally.
Productive industries do not materialise because people wish for them.
Employment is not created by sentiment.
Infrastructure does not develop through motivational speeches.
Systems are imagined, designed, financed, tested, maintained and improved.
Someone carries the burden.
Someone thinks beyond the present condition.
Someone gathers people.
Someone absorbs criticism.
Someone confronts failure.
Someone remains focused long enough to create what did not previously exist.
Aboyeji points to the scale of enterprises that now shape the Nigerian economy and reminds us that many of them were not significant institutions thirty years ago.
What now appears inevitable was once uncertain.
What now looks established was once a fragile idea in the mind of an individual or a small team.
A major refinery does not appear because a country needs one.
It appears because someone becomes sufficiently convinced that it must be built and then accepts the cost, resistance, complexity and time required to build it.
This is why vision is so important.
Vision allows a person to see something before there is enough evidence to make it obvious to everybody else.
Noah built an ark in response to a warning about rain that had not yet fallen.
Joseph prepared a national food-security system for a famine that had not yet arrived.
Nehemiah saw a rebuilt wall while Jerusalem was still covered in rubble.
David prepared resources for a temple he would never personally build.
The early Church saw nations discipled before it possessed political power, institutional wealth or cultural acceptance.
Kingdom vision is not denial.
It does not refuse to acknowledge ruins.
It sees the ruins clearly, but it also sees what obedience, wisdom, sacrifice and perseverance can build in their place.
FROM INFLUENCERS TO BUILDERS
The title of Aboyeji’s conversation makes an important distinction:
“We Are a Generation of Influencers, Not Builders.”
Influence is not inherently wrong.
Words matter.
Communication matters.
Ideas matter.
Narratives shape culture.
But influence becomes shallow when it is disconnected from construction.
It is possible to become highly skilled at describing problems without building anything that solves them.
It is possible to speak persuasively about leadership without accepting responsibility for an outcome.
It is possible to criticise institutions without creating a better one.
It is possible to gather attention without gathering people around a disciplined assignment.
Builders do more than attract an audience.
Builders create systems.
Builders develop people.
Builders establish processes.
Builders convert ideas into structures that can serve others.
Builders remain after the applause has ended.
Builders confront the hidden, repetitive and often unglamorous work required to produce something reliable.
A generation of commentators cannot replace a generation of builders.
A nation cannot be transformed by people who only know how to announce what is wrong.
The Church must not raise spectators who can quote prophetic words but cannot carry responsibility.
We need men and women who can pray and plan.
Discern and design.
Hear God and organise people.
See the future and build towards it.
THE DANGER OF POWERLESS COMPASSION
Another provocative idea in Aboyeji’s conversation is the statement that two poor people cannot easily rescue one another economically.
The wording can sound severe, and it should not be treated as a complete economic doctrine. Poverty has personal, cultural, political, structural and historical dimensions.
Nevertheless, the underlying principle deserves serious reflection.
Good intentions are not always enough.
Compassion without capacity may feel deeply, but it cannot always intervene effectively.
A person may care about unemployment but lack the enterprise required to create jobs.
A church may care about education but lack the structure, teachers, facilities and funding required to build a school.
A community may care about widows but possess no sustainable economic system through which to support them.
A leader may genuinely desire change but lack the discipline, knowledge or administrative capacity required to deliver it.
This is why Kingdom compassion must produce Kingdom capacity.
The Good Samaritan did not merely feel sympathy.
He possessed enough capacity to act.
He could lift the wounded man.
He had oil and wine.
He had transportation.
He could pay the innkeeper.
He could make a further financial commitment.
His compassion became effective because he had resources available to serve another person.
This should challenge the Church.
We must not romanticise weakness.
There is nothing spiritual about remaining permanently incapable of responding to the needs God continually places before us.
We must build capacity.
Spiritual capacity.
Intellectual capacity.
Financial capacity.
Institutional capacity.
Technical capacity.
Administrative capacity.
Relational capacity.
Leadership capacity.
The purpose of capacity is not pride.
It is service.
God told Abraham:
“I will bless thee… and thou shalt be a blessing.”
— Genesis 12:2
The blessing was never intended to terminate on Abraham.
It was meant to pass through him.
Kingdom prosperity is not simply having more for ourselves.
It is possessing the capacity to obey God, serve people, finance good works and create environments in which others can flourish.
VALUE MUST BE CREATED
Aboyeji also raises important questions about how wealth is created.
At the most basic level, sustainable economic value is connected to solving problems, producing desirable goods, delivering needed services, reducing costs, increasing quality, creating convenience or building systems that people are willing to support.
This is where many conversations about prosperity become disconnected from reality.
People want the outcome of wealth without understanding the process of value creation.
But money generally moves in the direction of perceived value.
People pay for what saves time.
They pay for what solves pain.
They pay for what reduces risk.
They pay for what improves performance.
They pay for what brings beauty, comfort, access, security, education, health, entertainment or opportunity.
The Kingdom does not call us to manipulate people into giving us money.
It calls us to become faithful stewards and fruitful servants.
Jesus said:
“Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.”
— Matthew 20:27
Service is not only an attitude.
It is the ability to produce an outcome that benefits another person.
This means we must ask more disciplined questions:
What problem are we solving?
For whom are we solving it?
How well are we solving it?
Can the solution be repeated?
Can it be sustained?
Can it grow?
Can it create employment?
Can it become an institution?
Can it outlive its founder?
Can it serve people beyond our immediate circle?
These are not merely secular business questions.
They are questions of stewardship.
FAILURE IS NOT AN INTERRUPTION OF THE PROCESS
One of the strongest sections of Aboyeji’s reflections concerns failure.
He argues that the natural outcome of many endeavours is failure unless deliberate effort, repeated correction and sustained work are applied.
This is difficult for a generation that is often shown the polished results of success without being exposed to the hidden years of confusion, rejection, financial pressure, repeated mistakes, broken models and unanswered questions.
Success is often presented as a moment.
In reality, it is usually a process.
We see the completed building but not the rejected drawings.
We see the thriving company but not the failed products.
We see the public ministry but not the years of obscurity.
We see the strong marriage but not the difficult conversations, forgiveness, growth and adjustments.
We see the mature leader but not the rebukes, embarrassments and corrections that formed them.
Many people enter an assignment believing that success should come naturally because the idea is good or because God spoke.
But divine instruction does not remove the need for endurance.
Noah still had to build.
Joseph still had to administer.
Nehemiah still had to organise workers.
Paul still had to travel, preach, reason, suffer and return to strengthen the churches.
Faith does not eliminate process.
It empowers us to remain in the process.
Scripture says:
“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again.”
— Proverbs 24:16
The distinction is not that the righteous never fall.
The distinction is that they rise again.
Failure becomes fatal when it is interpreted as final.
But failure can become instruction when we allow it to reveal what must be changed.
A failed attempt may expose:
A weak assumption.
An inadequate system.
A lack of skill.
Poor timing.
An unsuitable partner.
Insufficient capital.
Weak execution.
An unclear market.
Bad communication.
An immature leader.
The failure is painful, but the information within it may be invaluable.
The question is not merely:
“Did it work?”
The deeper question is:
“What did this attempt teach us that we could not have learnt from theory alone?”
THE OPPORTUNITY IS IN THE PROBLEM
Strive Masiyiwa’s telecommunications story brings these principles together in a practical and powerful way.
His company had acquired a licence to build a mobile network in Nigeria.
But there was a major obstacle.
The national fixed-line operator, Nitel, had not built the microwave transmission infrastructure required to connect base stations beyond the major cities.
The conventional conclusion was that expansion would take years.
The engineers outlined the difficulties.
The technical obstacles were real.
The required infrastructure did not exist.
The familiar model could not work.
Masiyiwa then asked a different question:
Why not connect the base stations using satellite technology?
The response was immediate:
Impossible.
Connecting thousands of base stations by satellite had not been done before.
When the equipment supplier was approached, the idea was reportedly dismissed because nobody had attempted it at that scale.
There was no international example to copy.
There was no established template.
There was no reassuring case study from Europe or America.
Masiyiwa challenged the assumption behind the objection.
Was the idea impossible because the calculations proved it could not work?
Or was it being called impossible simply because nobody elsewhere had done it before?
That question reaches far beyond telecommunications.
Too many African leaders, professionals, churches, businesses and institutions believe an idea becomes credible only after it has succeeded somewhere else.
We import models created for different histories, economies, cultures and infrastructures, then become frustrated when they do not function effectively in our environment.
But sometimes the absence of infrastructure is not merely a disadvantage.
It is the reason innovation becomes necessary.
The Nigerian challenge forced a new solution.
Masiyiwa and his team sat down to design the system.
Rather than attempting an immediate nationwide rollout, they proposed testing it quietly with a limited number of sites.
They calculated.
They designed.
They tested.
They learnt.
The solution worked.
According to Masiyiwa’s account, the system developed in response to Nigeria’s particular infrastructure challenge was later adopted by competitors and other telecommunications operators around the world.
What looked like a local disadvantage eventually produced a globally relevant innovation.
This is the point:
The problem did not merely require a solution. The problem created the conditions for discovery.
IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT A CALCULATION
One of the most powerful aspects of Masiyiwa’s story is the question he asked when his technical officer said the satellite solution was impossible:
Show me the calculations.
This is a profound leadership principle.
Some impossibilities are real.
They can be demonstrated.
They arise from physics, cost, time, regulation, risk or insufficient resources.
But many supposed impossibilities are not conclusions reached through careful analysis.
They are inherited assumptions.
They are statements such as:
It has never been done.
Nobody will support it.
That cannot work here.
People like us do not do that.
The government will never allow it.
The technology is not available.
Our people are not ready.
The Church has never operated that way.
These may contain legitimate warnings.
But they may also conceal fear, laziness, lack of imagination or dependence on precedent.
Leadership does not ignore evidence.
Leadership demands evidence.
The mature leader does not simply shout, “Nothing is impossible.”
The mature leader asks:
What exactly makes this impossible?
Which part is technically impossible?
Which part is financially difficult?
Which part is simply unfamiliar?
What assumptions are we making?
What would have to become true for this to work?
Can the idea be tested on a smaller scale?
Masiyiwa did not answer impossibility with empty optimism.
He answered it with disciplined inquiry.
MUST THE WEST DO IT FIRST?
Masiyiwa’s challenge to his technical team exposes a deeper problem:
Must someone else, preferably in the West, have done it first?
This is one of the hidden effects of intellectual dependency.
We may possess education without confidence.
Expertise without imagination.
Information without authority.
We may know how to reproduce established answers but hesitate when our environment requires a new one.
Africa should learn from the world.
There is no wisdom in rejecting proven knowledge simply because it came from elsewhere.
But learning from others is different from believing that all valid innovation must originate elsewhere.
Joseph did not wait for Egypt to import a food-security model from another nation.
Daniel did not require Babylonian permission to operate in the wisdom of God.
Bezalel did not copy another sanctuary.
The apostles did not wait for an existing template before addressing the food-distribution crisis in Acts 6.
A local problem may require a locally designed solution.
And a locally designed solution may eventually become globally useful.
NECESSITY CAN BECOME A LABORATORY
Nigeria and Africa contain many conditions that have trained people to expect frustration.
Unreliable electricity.
Weak transportation systems.
Limited access to quality healthcare.
Poorly funded education.
Fragmented supply chains.
Low trust.
Difficult payments.
Inadequate data.
Unemployment.
Food waste.
Housing shortages.
Weak public institutions.
These conditions are painful and often unjust.
But they also represent a vast field of assignments.
Every recurring frustration is asking a question.
How might this be done differently?
How can access be widened?
How can cost be reduced?
How can trust be restored?
How can waste be removed?
How can the informal be organised?
How can the difficult become simple?
How can local knowledge be combined with modern technology?
How can a solution created for one community be scaled to serve a nation?
This does not mean we celebrate dysfunction.
We should not preserve problems merely because they create business opportunities.
The goal is not to profit from suffering while leaving the suffering intact.
The goal is to solve the problem so effectively that the old condition becomes unnecessary.
The lepers outside Samaria understood something the leaders inside the city had not yet grasped.
Their crisis compelled movement.
They asked:
“Why sit we here until we die?”
— 2 Kings 7:3
Their desperation forced them beyond passivity.
In moving, they discovered that God had already disrupted the enemy’s camp.
Movement revealed provision.
There are discoveries that remain hidden until someone moves.
STOP ASKING ONLY WHAT GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO
One of the common threads in both Aboyeji’s and Masiyiwa’s contributions is the tendency to direct every problem towards government.
Government matters.
Good governance matters.
Policy matters.
Public infrastructure matters.
Justice, regulation and institutional competence matter.
We must never use personal responsibility as an excuse for political irresponsibility.
However, a society cannot be built by government alone.
Families build.
Entrepreneurs build.
Teachers build.
Pastors build.
Architects build.
Engineers build.
Artists build.
Farmers build.
Doctors build.
Researchers build.
Communities build.
Investors build.
Administrators build.
Technicians build.
Young people build.
The Church must build.
Jeremiah told the exiles in Babylon:
“Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them… And seek the peace of the city.”
— Jeremiah 29:5–7
They were living under a foreign government in a city that did not represent their covenant identity.
Yet God did not instruct them to suspend productivity until the political environment became ideal.
They were to build, plant, marry, multiply, pray and contribute to the peace of the city.
This is a powerful model for Kingdom engagement.
We do not wait for a perfect society before becoming productive.
We bring order into disorder.
We bring excellence into mediocrity.
We bring integrity into corruption.
We bring light into darkness.
We bring solutions into problems.
THE CHURCH MUST BECOME A COMMUNITY OF SOLUTION-SEEKERS
This conversation must come into the Church.
We have often trained believers to recognise demons but not systems.
We can describe spiritual opposition but may be unable to design a functioning process.
We can pray intensely but sometimes fail to organise carefully.
We can declare abundance while neglecting productivity.
We can speak about influence without developing competence.
We can ask God for national transformation while reproducing disorder inside our own institutions.
But Scripture does not separate spirituality from wisdom.
When Pharaoh needed an answer to Egypt’s approaching crisis, Joseph did not only interpret the dream.
He designed a national economic and food-storage strategy.
When Moses struggled to administer Israel, Jethro introduced a leadership structure.
When the tabernacle had to be built, Bezalel and Aholiab received wisdom for craftsmanship, design and execution.
When food distribution created tension in the early Church, the apostles established an administrative solution and appointed qualified people to manage it.
When Jerusalem’s walls were broken, Nehemiah prayed, assessed, planned, organised, delegated, defended and built.
Kingdom people are not merely people who identify what is wrong.
We are people who ask God for wisdom to make it right.
James says:
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.”
— James 1:5
Wisdom is not merely information.
Wisdom is the God-given capacity to know what to do, how to do it, when to do it and through whom it should be done.
FROM CONSUMERS TO BUILDERS
A consumer enters a city and asks:
What can I receive?
A builder asks:
What is missing?
A consumer enters a church and asks:
Who will minister to me?
A builder asks:
Whom can I strengthen?
A consumer enters a workplace and asks:
What am I entitled to?
A builder asks:
What value can I create?
A consumer looks at a problem and asks:
Who should I blame?
A builder asks:
What can be done?
This does not mean builders never rest, receive or require help.
It means their dominant posture is contribution.
Paul wrote:
“Let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.”
— Ephesians 4:28
Work produces more than personal survival.
It creates the capacity to give.
The Kingdom transforms us from takers into stewards, from spectators into participants, and from critics into builders.
LEADERSHIP BEGINS WHERE EXCUSES END
Leadership does not begin with a title.
It begins when a person accepts responsibility for an outcome.
A title may give authority.
Responsibility reveals leadership.
The leader sees what everybody sees but responds differently.
Others see the difficulty.
The leader begins to frame the problem.
Others repeat why it cannot work.
The leader asks for evidence.
Others demand a model that has succeeded elsewhere.
The leader asks whether this environment requires something new.
Others fear embarrassment.
The leader proposes a small test.
Others wait for certainty.
The leader gathers enough information to take the next responsible step.
This is exactly what stands out in Masiyiwa’s story.
He did not respond to the declaration of impossibility with motivational rhetoric alone.
He asked for calculations.
He challenged assumptions.
He gathered the team.
They designed a system.
They tested it quietly on a few sites.
This is not reckless optimism.
It is disciplined faith.
Faith is not the refusal to calculate.
Faith refuses to make present limitations the final authority over what can be built.
Jesus taught that anyone intending to build a tower should first count the cost.
Kingdom thinking therefore holds two things together:
Bold vision and careful planning.
Courage and calculation.
Prayer and design.
Faith and testing.
Prophecy and process.
START SMALL, BUT DO NOT THINK SMALL
Masiyiwa’s team did not immediately attempt to deploy the unproven system everywhere.
They tested it with a few sites.
This is a crucial principle.
A large vision does not always require a large beginning.
The Kingdom is compared to a mustard seed.
A seed is small, but its design is not small.
It contains an architecture for growth.
Many people never begin because the complete version of the vision is beyond their current resources.
They want the national platform before proving the local model.
They want the large building before developing the community.
They want the major investment before demonstrating stewardship.
They want the final organisation before building the first reliable system.
But wisdom often begins with a prototype.
One classroom.
One product.
One branch.
One event.
One neighbourhood.
One farm.
One application.
One service.
One carefully measured experiment.
The question is not whether the beginning is small.
The question is whether it contains the integrity, intelligence and discipline required for growth.
PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION OF SOLUTION-SEEKERS
Masiyiwa’s article does not end with the telecommunications story.
He turns towards a new generation of African innovators and celebrates young people working in artificial intelligence, financial technology, literacy, robotics, agriculture, food security and emergency healthcare.
He highlights Nigerian solution-seekers participating at the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.
This is not a disconnected afterthought.
It is the continuation of the same principle.
A new technological era is creating new problems, new tools and new possibilities.
The question is whether Africa will remain primarily a consumer of systems designed elsewhere or become a producer of solutions shaped by its own realities.
Will our children only download applications, or will they design them?
Will they only watch robots online, or will they build them?
Will they merely complain about agricultural losses, or will they develop technologies that improve food production and distribution?
Will they only discuss poor literacy outcomes, or will they create tools that help children learn?
Will churches only warn about the dangers of artificial intelligence, or will they also prepare believers to use it ethically, wisely and productively?
This is why skills matter.
Education matters.
Exposure matters.
Experimentation matters.
Mentoring matters.
Investment matters.
Preparation matters.
The future belongs, under God, to those who prepare for it.
WHAT, THEN, MUST WE DO?
We must change the way we interpret problems.
A problem is not always a signal to retreat.
It may be evidence of an assignment.
We must accept responsibility without pretending to possess unlimited control.
We cannot solve everything, but we can faithfully address what God has placed within our sphere.
We must build capacity.
Compassion must become competent.
Vision must become organised.
Prayer must produce obedience.
We must create real value.
Our businesses, churches, organisations and initiatives must genuinely help people.
We must become comfortable with disciplined experimentation.
Not every attempt will work.
But every serious attempt should teach us something.
We must stop requiring foreign permission to think.
We can learn from the world without assuming that all wisdom must arrive from outside Africa.
We must train the next generation to become builders.
They must know how to design, collaborate, communicate, calculate, code, cultivate, manage, repair, create and lead.
Finally, we must recognise that Kingdom influence is demonstrated not only through what we preach, but through what we build.
A FINAL KINGDOM CONVERSATION
When Jesus looked at the hungry multitude, the disciples saw an impossible logistical problem.
They said the people should be sent away.
Jesus said:
“They need not depart; give ye them to eat.”
— Matthew 14:16
The disciples immediately calculated their insufficiency.
They did not have enough.
Their resources were too small.
The crowd was too large.
The environment was too remote.
But Jesus began with what was available.
Five loaves.
Two fish.
A surrendered resource.
Divine blessing.
Orderly distribution.
And a problem that appeared impossible became a revelation of the Kingdom.
This does not mean every problem will be solved through a miracle that suspends natural processes.
It does mean we must stop allowing insufficiency to end the conversation before God has spoken.
The question is not merely:
“Why is this impossible?”
The Kingdom question is:
“Lord, what wisdom, responsibility, resource, partnership or act of obedience have You placed before us?”
Nigeria does not need more people who can eloquently describe its darkness.
Africa does not need another generation trained only to identify what is broken.
The Church does not need leaders who spiritualise disorder while refusing to build systems.
We need solution-seekers.
We need builders.
We need men and women who will look at the impossible, refuse both denial and despair, and then prayerfully, intelligently and persistently begin to make something possible.
Because sometimes the problem standing before us is not merely an obstacle.
The opportunity is in the problem.
SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This article was developed from two related but distinct contributions.
Iyin Aboyeji
The central ideas concerning responsibility, the difference between influencers and builders, the deliberate construction of nations and institutions, economic capacity, value creation and perseverance were drawn from Iyin Aboyeji’s conversation:
“We Are a Generation of Influencers, Not Builders.”
Watch the original video:
The article does not present every statement in the conversation as a complete or unquestionable economic doctrine. Rather, it receives Aboyeji’s observations as provocative leadership insights to be examined, refined and applied through a biblical Kingdom framework.
Strive Masiyiwa
The telecommunications case study and the governing phrase, “The opportunity is in the problem,” were drawn from Strive Masiyiwa’s Facebook article describing the challenge his team faced while building a mobile network in Nigeria.
Read the original article:
The article also draws from Masiyiwa’s celebration of a new generation of African solution-seekers working in artificial intelligence, financial technology, literacy, robotics, agriculture, food security and emergency healthcare.
Together, these sources reinforce the central argument of this Kingdom Conversation:
The presence of a problem does not merely announce what is broken. It may also reveal what we have been called, equipped and positioned to build.
Developed from Iyin Aboyeji’s teaching on builders, responsibility, capacity, value and perseverance, and Strive Masiyiwa’s account of turning Nigeria’s telecommunications infrastructure problem into a globally relevant innovation.
Written and developed by Francis E. Madojemu for Kingdom Conversations, drawing on Iyin Aboyeji’s teaching on builders, responsibility, capacity, value and perseverance, and Strive Masiyiwa’s account of turning Nigeria’s telecommunications infrastructure problem into a globally relevant innovation.
