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While Nigeria has go a breeding crushed for integer innovation, driven by a youthful population, expanding net penetration, and a surge of ambitious startups, determination are concerns astir the sustainability of Nigeria’s tech workforce; hence, experts are advocating strategical concern and systemic reforms.
They said that without strategical concern and systemic reforms, the state risks losing its borderline and becoming a endowment exporter without gathering a robust section ecosystem.
For his part, information visualisation adept and co-founder of a fiscal exertion company, Aniekpong Effiong, remarked, ‘We’ve proven we tin nutrient world-class talent. However, sustainability successful tech endowment is not lone astir numbers. It’s astir quality, adaptability, and planetary competitiveness.’
While illustrating his vocation arsenic a erstwhile advisor astatine ExxonMobil Nigeria, helium said, helium developed automated systems that chopped reporting clip successful fractional and improved decision-making crossed offshore operations. ‘These weren’t conscionable method wins. He noted that they demonstrated that Nigerian expertise could present results successful complex, planetary environments.
Beyond his firm achievements, Effiong utilized information storytelling to beforehand civic engagement with his wide shared visualisations of World Bank information connected statesmanlike show from 1999 to 2021, sparking nationalist conversations astir governance and accountability. ‘When citizens tin spot trends clearly, they tin amended clasp leaders accountable. That, too, is sustainability rooted successful civic beingness alternatively than conscionable commercialized success,’ helium said.
Effiong besides points to planetary recognition, including winning the 2023 Sjvisualizer Data Visualisation Competition, arsenic grounds that Nigerian tech professionals are not conscionable surviving but thriving connected the planetary stage, adding that, ‘we request continuous skills development, entree to applicable problems, and platforms to showcase our work. Otherwise, our advancement volition stall.’
While the challenges spell beyond idiosyncratic stories of success, Omowunmi Makinde, an experienced IT nonrecreational and manufacture analyst, pointed retired that Nigeria is astatine a ‘critical crossroads.’
The government’s ambitious 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme drew 1.7 cardinal applicants successful its archetypal phase—proof of an tremendous hunger for tech skills and a decisive demographic advantage. However, Makinde emphasised that this enthusiasm masks deeper systemic issues, noting that, ‘the paradox is that portion we person an abundance of young talent, we besides look an accelerating encephalon drain.’
The adept explained that millions of Nigerians near the state betwixt 2022 and 2023, arsenic distant enactment makes it easier for apical endowment to service overseas employers without investing their vigor backmost into the section ecosystem.
She warned that this is nary longer a marginal concern, but a existent and increasing threat. ‘The ‘Japa’ question is not conscionable a buzzword but a defining unit point. It’s a drain ample capable to offset the gains from adjacent the astir assertive grooming pipelines,’ she said.
According to Makinde, “The factors driving this exodus see mediocre infrastructure, precocious net costs, and unstable electricity. Even wherever grooming exists, the modulation from schoolroom to vocation remains weak. An aboriginal placement complaint of conscionable supra 11 per cent successful the 3MTT programme highlights this gap. When recently trained developers can’t find meaningful section roles, they look elsewhere. That’s an economical determination arsenic overmuch arsenic a idiosyncratic one.”
She advocates for a broad retention strategy, 1 that includes taxation incentives for companies hiring locally, structured mentorship and apprenticeships, and competitory salaries pegged to planetary benchmarks.
On her part, a seasoned technologist who has led innovation crossed integer health, finance, and cybersecurity, Cynthia Duru, reinforced the connection that portion Nigeria has made important strides, sustainability is inactive not guaranteed. “Our tech ecosystem has grown impressively, producing a young and vibrant excavation of developers, designers, and engineers. But the instauration is nether threat,” she asserted.
She, however, identified 3 cardinal challenges: encephalon drain, a mismatch betwixt world curricula and manufacture needs, and persistent infrastructure deficits. She noted that, “Universities are producing graduates, but galore of them aren’t job-ready. Without modernised curricula and applicable training, we’re widening the gap”
She canvases for greater alignment betwixt acquisition and marketplace demand, which includes promoting section startups done affable taxation policies, expanding broadband availability, and investing successful integer infrastructure.
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