Funke Opeke listen is a Nigerian electrical engineer, founder of Main Street Technologies and Chief Executive Officer of Main One Cable Company, a communications services company based in Lagos State, south-western Nigeria. Wikipedia

“Opeke” (often spelled Okpeke in Nigerian Pidgin) is a slang term popular in southern Nigeria, particularly Lagos, meaning a “sweet chick,” stylish woman, or a beautiful, attractive girl. It is frequently used in entertainment, social media, and street slang to compliment a woman’s appearance or demeanor. 

Funke Opeke: The Woman Who Brought the World to West Africa

In 2008, internet access in Nigeria was a nightmare.

It ran on satellite connections.
It was slow.
It was expensive.
It lagged endlessly.

At the time, Funke Opeke was an engineer working in the United States at Verizon. When she returned to Nigeria, she immediately saw the gap.

Nigeria didn’t need more cybercafés.
Nigeria needed infrastructure.

What we needed was a submarine cable—a physical fiber-optic cable running under the Atlantic Ocean, directly connecting West Africa to Europe and the global internet backbone.

The cost?
$240 million.

The odds?
Terrible.

She was a woman.
She was a technologist, not a typical billionaire.
And it was 2008—the middle of the global financial crisis.

Investors laughed.

“You want to put wire in the ocean?”
“What if sharks eat it?”
“What if militants cut it?”

Funke Opeke didn’t back down.

For two years, she carried her briefcase from one bank to another, pitching a future no one could yet see. Eventually, she convinced them.

In 2010, MainOne landed its submarine cable in Lagos.

Almost overnight, the wholesale cost of internet bandwidth in Nigeria collapsed.

The tech boom that followed—Paystack, Flutterwave, Andela—didn’t happen by accident. It happened because MainOne built the data highway that made scale possible.

This is what strategists call an Infrastructure Moat.

Funke didn’t try to fix the symptom (slow internet).
She solved the root problem (lack of direct access to the global backbone).

Many people patch cracks in the wall when they should be fixing the foundation.

Her story teaches a powerful lesson: the harder the problem you solve, the more valuable you become.

Selling data is easy.
Laying a cable under the ocean is hard.

That’s why she wins.

Raising $240 million for a greenfield project—something that doesn’t yet exist—is nearly impossible. Funke did it by selling the future.

She showed investors the numbers:

Africa has the fastest-growing youth population in the world.
They will need internet.
If we build it, they will come.

Investors don’t buy products.
They buy visions.

If your vision is big enough—and backed by data—the money will find you.

You may not know MainOne because they don’t sell to you.

They sell to MTN, Airtel, Glo, and major banks.

Funke positioned herself as the wholesaler. She understood that it’s easier to serve 50 large clients who pay billions than five million customers paying ₦1,000.

Sometimes, the best businesses are invisible to the public.

Backend is profitable.

So why does this matter?

Because many people today are rushing to build apps and platforms.

“I want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg.”
“I want to start a blog.”

Funke Opeke’s story teaches us to look deeper.

Before building the app, ask:
What infrastructure makes this app possible?

Maybe the money isn’t in the app.
Maybe it’s in the servers, the logistics, the power, or the pipes underneath.

Be the road the gutter , not just the car.

I hope you learned something.

I saw a post like this on Linkedin written by a Man and decided to redo for Girlifi.com Girls Who wifi wife and win

Thank you our Sweet Stylish Beautiful Mama Chick

“Opeke” (often spelled Okpeke in Nigerian Pidgin) is a slang term popular in southern Nigeria, particularly Lagos, meaning a “sweet chick,” stylish woman, or a beautiful, attractive girl. It is frequently used in entertainment, social media, and street slang to compliment a woman’s appearance or demeanor. 

— Noelene Joshua
Girlifi.com