It is clear that the sale of HopStop by Chinedu Echeruo should no longer be news having taken place in 2013. But the revelation of how much Apple had to path with to take ownership of the transport aid app seems to be mind blowing to many people.

Chinedu, an alumni of the Kings College, Lagos, Syracuse University and the Harvard Business School founded HopStop in 2005; an application

Industry observers say Apply paid the whooping $1bn to acquire Chinedu Echeruo's company in response to Google's purchase of HopStop's Israeli competitor, Waze, for $1.1bn.

There is hardly any information about Mr. Echeruo's parental background but his name is enough for most Nigerians to trace his origin to the Igbo dominated South Eastern part of the country.

This is a country battling with several negative stories following a highly "combative" electioneering period, failure of government to decisively deal with the Boko Haram menace, embezzlement of public funds and other not too fanciful reports.

Most Nigerians see this as a boost to the achievement by compatriots in the recent elections in Britain. Not less than four Nigerians won seats in the parliament. However, if not that Nigerians receive the story as that of one of their own, the HopStop deal has no direct connection to Nigerians.

This is demonstrated on social media platform, twitter.

As at this moment, 1,659 tweets was made in the past 7 days. Out of this 436 representing not less that 25% began with "Nigerian born..."

Perhaps, more of such stories will be vital in cleaning-up the image of the country dealt several deadly blow through negative reportage in the past



- See more at: http://www.homelandnewsng.com/opinion/chinedu-echeruo-nigerian-period