Nigerian tech space needs some breathing space

 Elijah Bello

In recent years, the global tech sector has experienced rapid expansion fuelled by abundant capital and a deep talent pool. In West African countries like Nigeria, tech is one of the fastest-growing industries today.

Dominated by its young population, Nigeria is undoubtedly an African powerhouse. In the last decade, its young people have pioneered innovations showing the world that the nation has abundant world-class potential.

What’s more? The world has also acknowledged that Nigeria is not lacking in the talent that could change the face of the world, especially in the fintech space. Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, is regarded as the unofficial tech capital of Africa.

Ordinarily, such an endorsement should spur the government to want to do more via investment and growing the human capital, formulation of nurturing policies, and creation of an enabling environment.

Unfortunately, like many African countries cursed by visionless leaders who see innovations by young people as a threat to their grip on the collective conscience of their countries, Nigeria’s leaders are doing too little to encourage tech growth.

Nigerian leaders are choking the tech space.

For budding techies in the country, many of the tools they need—soft and hard—are not readily available. Despite that handicap, the zeal to succeed was never dampened by the need to import these tools even when a volatile forex regime is extremely unkind to their pockets.

At least, not until the Nigerian central bank began forcing banks to cut down on the daily threshold Nigerians could spend on their naira cards for international transactions. That tragic move eventually culminated in the online stoppage of naira cards for international transactions.

The available option is to open a dollar-denominated account. But funding the accounts largely depends on the receipts of payments from abroad or sourcing dollars from a steep black market. Crypto holdings could have provided a sort of leeway for some of these young people to buy their tools and earn in dollars.

Many young Nigerians pivoted to cryptocurrency due to the declining value of the naira against the dollar. But again, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) threw a spanner in the works, clamping down on cryptocurrency holders and sanctioning banks for not closing accounts linked to crypto trading.

More importantly, is the fact that young people in tech are constantly violated every day by Nigerian security officials who deem anyone commuting with a laptop a potential fraudster. Many people have been either extorted at gunpoint or threatened. Some are not that lucky.

As a result, in 2019, the tech community launched a #StopRobbingUs campaign against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a unit of the Nigerian police force responsible for violent crimes like armed robbery, illegal arrest, and murder they were tasked to combat.

We can chalk down some of the obnoxious moves made by Nigerian leaders as a sign of a generational gap in thinking—I mean, the corridors of power are populated by dinosaur-ish sentiments—but it is a signal that the leaders are not thinking about the future.

The unbowed spirit of the Nigerian youth to keep pushing against the odds will continue to sustain the Nigerian tech space. And the spirit will thrive better if the leaders allow the tech space to breathe.

Elijah Bello is the founder of Learnpod, an online tech entrepreneurship academy.