TRAVELOGUE: What happened in Vegas!!! - Premium Times Nigeria

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” I had always considered that a remarkably convenient rule. This time, however, I broke with tradition. I returned to Las Vegas for “The Assembly,” the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists’ conference, and the visit gave me a few stories I could not quite leave behind.

Getting to Vegas was a story of its own. After nearly 20 hours of travel, I boarded the final leg from New York’s JFK Airport to Las Vegas, thinking the hard part was over. It was a domestic flight, so I had imagined a short hop. Five hours later, I was less certain. ‘Na this one dem dey call short flight?’ That one flight was roughly as long as flying from Lagos to Cairo.

Somewhere over the United States, I found myself thinking about the debate over how Africa appears on the world map. It is right to show the continent at its true scale. But a larger Africa on paper will mean more to its people when they can move across it more easily. We need sustainable African airlines, dependable connections and routes that spare travellers the long detours that can turn a journey between African cities into an expedition.

I had been in Vegas for “The Assembly” two years earlier. The city was as dazzling as advertised, bright lights, restless crowds, and buildings seemingly designed to win an argument with the desert. I went home with plenty to say, but obeyed the unwritten Vegas rule. I must admit, it was difficult. This year’s visit felt different. Since my previous visit, I had become more aware of another side of Vegas. Beyond the spectacular hotels and casinos, I saw people sleeping outdoors; some appeared to be struggling with drug use. How could a place that displayed so much wealth also have people living this way? This time, I decided to ask.

They say the best way to learn a city’s secrets is to ask a taxi driver. In my village, we have the ‘mai shayi.’ Order one cup of tea and, before it cools, you may know who quarrelled, who settled and who is pretending they never quarrelled in the first place. Vegas was a long way from my village, but the method travelled well. I asked my driver about the people I had seen sleeping outdoors. “No be gossip o. Na the why I dey find!”

The driver was Ethiopian. His English came in short, sometimes broken phrases, and I had to listen closely. When words failed him, his hands took over. He opened one palm towards the casinos, then drew a small circle in the air as he described a path from gambling to drugs, financial distress and, for some, homelessness. I understood his point. “This is Vegas,” he said. It was one driver’s account, not an explanation for every person I had seen, but his gesture stayed with me, the circle he drew against a backdrop of dazzling buildings.

Vegas also brought back a very different memory. Tupac Shakur was killed in this city, but long before I visited it, his music had already found its way into my secondary school years. In “Changes,” he spoke of a “war on poverty” and questioned why public attention seemed to favour a war on drugs instead. Decades later, I found that question more demanding than I had as a student. It asks whether we measure progress only by the problems we confront, or also by the lives we help improve. It is a question I explored more fully in an earlier PREMIUM TIMES article, “Nigeria’s violence is not holy war; it’s sustained state of deprivation.” There, I argued that we cannot understand violence through its slogans alone; we must also examine deprivation, corruption and the public choices that allow both to persist. Tupac’s line has stayed with me since school.

I never learned to rap, an outcome for which my loved ones should probably be grateful. But that did not stop me from taking the stage at a social night at Federal Government College Kaduna almost three decades ago. I mimed Usher’s “Can U Get Wit It” before an audience. Whether they got with it is a question I have wisely never investigated. Tupac’s words, though, were the ones I learned to listen to. Tupac was killed in Las Vegas in 1996. Thirty years later, and shortly before my return to the city, a jury convicted Duane Davis of his murder. The timing was striking. I had come for conversations about financial crime and accountability, in a city where another long pursuit of accountability had just reached a verdict.

That question of accountability followed me into “The Assembly.” At a session on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and financial crime, Tony Eastin of Google made two points that stayed with me. First, institutions spend heavily on people and processes, yet still miss warning signs that AI can help identify much faster. Second, the contest is unequal: a fraudster needs to get through the defences only once, while those protecting the system cannot afford to miss that one attempt.

AI seemed to find its way into every session I attended. At first, I wondered whether it was taking over the conference. Then my thoughts turned homeward. How prepared was Africa for this change? More particularly, what was Nigeria doing to make it useful to its people? I met a few Nigerian bankers and government officials at the conference.

Their presence brought the conversation closer to home. I found myself wondering how the ideas discussed in Vegas could translate into safer banking and better public services in Nigeria. Being part of the conversation was a useful start; putting the lessons to work would be the real test. For an ordinary Nigerian, the question need not begin with how the technology works. It can begin with something familiar: could it help protect the money in my account? Could it shorten the time I spend chasing a document in a government office? Could it help a teacher with paperwork and leave more time for teaching? These are the kinds of results that would make the excitement worthwhile.

Some of these possibilities were already being tested. In January 2025, the government announced the launch of DeepTechReady, involving 3MTT, Data Science Nigeria and support from Google.org, with a target of training 20,000 young Nigerians in AI and data skills. But training must lead somewhere. Our young people need opportunities to apply what they learn; in banks, schools, hospitals and public offices. Otherwise, we will keep applauding their potential at home and celebrating its fulfilment abroad. Consequently, we must get the basics right through affordable internet, steady power supply and accurate records. If an office cannot find your file today, an expensive AI system will not automatically perform the miracle tomorrow.

For Africa, and Nigeria in particular, the ambition should be to use AI and help build tools that understand our languages and solve our everyday problems. Progress should be measured by what improves for ordinary people, such as safer savings, quicker services and better opportunities for the talent we already have. But enthusiasm must come with judgment.

These reflections reminded me of my late Political Economy lecturer, Mohammed Wader, who introduced me to the seminal works of Samir Amin, Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein. Years later, in Vegas, Mr Amin’s idea of delinking felt close at hand; our engagement with the world should serve our own development needs. For Nigeria, that means embracing AI while giving our people room to build it. Otherwise, we may enter the revolution with plenty of subscriptions and very little say in its direction.

Furthermore, Eli Wachs, CEO and co-founder of Footprint, emphasised another point that stayed with me. He posits that human oversight remains essential, as trained professionals retain ultimate responsibility for decisions made with the assistance of AI. The machine may draw attention to something unusual; a person must still examine the facts. An innocent customer should not suffer simply because a computer sounded certain. That thought took my mind back to Kaduna. In a recent Daily Trust report, the Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Professor Adamu Ahmed, warned that AI must not replace critical thinking. He urged postgraduate students to verify what these tools produced and remain responsible for their work. That advice belonged in the Vegas conversation too. Whether we are doing some analysis or protecting someone’s savings, “the computer said so” should never be the end of the discussion.

I left “The Assembly” convinced that Nigeria should embrace this revolution with purpose. Start with problems people recognise. Give our young people room to work. Check the results, correct the mistakes and build on what succeeds. Earlier in the journey, I had thought about Africa’s size on the map. In the conference halls, I found myself thinking about its place in the future. We should have a hand in shaping that future, and ordinary people should be able to feel the difference.

Away from the conference, there was another suggestion from my taxi driver to consider. Before we parted, he had encouraged me to try the Big Apple Coaster at (New York Hotel & Casino). One evening, I took his advice and joined the queue. The ride climbed 203 feet, dropped as far as 144 feet and reached 108 kilometres per hour. I had read those figures already. Standing beneath the track gave them a new meaning. Then India came back to me. I had once tried a ride there that was nowhere near this high, yet it frightened me enough to leave a lasting impression. In the Vegas queue, my adventurous self argued that the India experience had prepared me. My other self replied that India was precisely the reason I should go back to my hotel room with its mountain view and make a cup of coffee. Every time the coaster roared overhead, that second voice presented fresh evidence.

Still, I moved forward with the queue. I had come all the way to Vegas. Surely I could manage a roller coaster? Then I remembered that the Vice President of the United States was roughly my agemate, though, between us, “I senior the guy small.” At our age, I thought, one must learn to distinguish courage from unnecessary research into gravity. I stepped out of the queue with what I hoped looked like the composure of an elite observer. A few steps later, I was moving rather faster than an elite observer should. My taxi driver had encouraged adventure; I had listened, considered it carefully and made an honourable retreat. “No be every height person must conquer. Me, dis life no tire me o.” I love my Naija.

One of my more mischievous friends warned me to “be careful with the Vegas nightlife.” “They call it Sin City,” he reminded me, with rather more enthusiasm than concern. My dear friend, Sin City has no case against me. By the time the nightlife began, I was in my room, fast asleep. My body was still eight hours ahead, operating on Nigerian time and refusing all requests to adjust. If anyone claims otherwise, my pillow is my witness. So, there you have it, nothing happened in Vegas. Vegas happened around me while I slept.

Even leaving Vegas came with its own small drama. On the flight back to New York, three hours seemed to disappear. New York was three hours ahead of Vegas, so flying east meant moving the clock forward. The local arrival time made the journey look three hours longer than the time I had actually spent travelling. I had not lost those hours in the air, but it certainly felt as though the day was getting away from me. On the outward journey, travelling west had lent me those hours. Coming back, the clock collected its debt. No be only bank dey recover loan.

Let me leave you here and munch the last of the cheese-flavoured Doritos I imported from Vegas. During the conference, jet lag kept me sleepy, but the Doritos kept me going. Now the packet is almost empty. After everything we went through together, finishing it feels like saying goodbye to a friend. “Ha! Doritos fit stay for Vegas, but these lessons must reach Naija. We no fit travel that far come back with only crumb.”