It's very interesting that a year or so ago when uLesson launched, its decision to have its operations in Jos was interesting. It put action behind all that talk of "more companies need to move out of Lagos."
uLesson said all the right things about the move to Jos

No traffic, higher wages for staff and lower operating costs. Yet, last week, uLesson has confirmed) that it is moving to Abuja. It is interesting, given that Adewale Yusuf's startup, TalentHQ is also launching in Ife. What's the state of the "start outside Lagos" experiment?

It's too early to say the idea has failed, the sample size is too small and SafeBoda is doing pretty well in Ibadan. Yet, you can't shake the feeling that uLesson's move highlights an important point about launching your startup outside of Nigeria's major cities.

It is not enough to launch a startup outside a big city because you'll get away from the wahala of Lagos. The states you're moving to have to actively provide the right environment for business to succeed. Lagos can afford to be passive, it has the numbers.

Do cities like Jos, Ife, Ado-Ekiti and co have governments that will be so pro-business that companies will be willing to overlook some of the downsides of setting up operations there?
In the end, startups need to talk a lot more about some of the actual challenges they face

I saw uLesson's reasons for moving to Abuja and it didn't say much. Not surprising, given that in these parts, companies try not to offend government
Yet, in the end, we need to start having conversations about what it really takes for smaller Nigerian cities to attract startups