Nigeria's Digital Economy: Opportunities and Challenges.

Nigeria’s Digital Economy Opportunities and Challenges:

On the 16th of December 2021, I administered a Google Form questionnaire with six(6) fundamental questions. The questions are as follows:

1. Are you a graduate?

2. Are you currently employed?

3. Does your potential career requires a digital skills?

4. What are the challenges you thin you may likely encounter in getting a job today?

5. (Given set of options) Which of the options do you think is likely going to be Nigeria’s Challenge in digital economy?

6. Drop your email for potential opportunities.

The questionnaire has since being active, until recently when I decided it is time to write down the blog.

This is likely going to be the best blog I have ever written so far, because I made you, the reading community, the center of the blog. Your inputs are very important. And in fact, your responses to the questionnaire, are in line with the facts out there.

By the end of this blog, Insha Allah, I must have provide scientific responses to each and every question above.

I will also like you to comment below, and let me know what you think as well.

 

Understand: Digital technologies are rapidly changing the way we humans behave in all aspects of the society, starting from digital economy, health-care, finance, agriculture, education services, traveling, working life, personal and group communication, democracy etc. Therefore, it is very important we understand its applications in our daily lives.

The COVID19 pandemic came along with banes and blessings. Among its banes are global economic meltdown. Further throwing the low class below the poverty line, and increasing numbers of youths unemployment, global insecurity etc. It has also expose the frictions from the industrial economy that still remains with us till date.

The blessings can never be overemphasis. From our ability to work from home, I.e, remote working, from the increasing number of young people coming online, digital marketing, virtual meeting, alternative source of income and our ability to spend more time with our families. This is a warning, however, the blessings are never without a cost.

Let us Understand: every economic system has its principles of wealth creation. Once for instance, the Industrial Revolution brought about wealth creation called “industrialization”, so does the digital economy brings about a new form of wealth generation known as “digitization”.

Think of the digital economy this way. Think of it like a tree. A tree has roots beneath the soil, it has a body and so many branches. The root of the digital economy is the broadband penetration. The body is the cyber infrastructure, and the branches are all aspects the internet ubiquitously extend to, from health, skills, finance, education, transport, you name it. 

The branch we seek to address in this blog is becoming employable and how to better improve on our obsolete skills to the contemporary ones. And if we were firms, where and how do we employ skilled labour. Thus, this blogs seeks to address the problems we are likely going to face from two perspectives:

1. From the perspective of the employer,

2. From the perspective of the employee.

Say you are a digital business, your number one problem is likely going to be access to skilled employees. 

Joysy John, Director of Education at UK Innovation Foundation Nesta, and Chris Johnson, CEO and co-founder of Talent Acquisition Platform looked at 41 million jobs advert. What they found was amazing. The patterns they were able to identify were skills that will see increase in demand and those that will see a decrease in demand in the forthcoming years. 

Some of the skills that are the basic digital skills which are associated with jobs that are going to see a decrease in demand are requiting lots of digital skills. However, they are some jobs like, teaching which actually see an increase in demand are seeing low digital skills that are required.

Base on Nesta analysis, the most promising digital skills are things like animation, multimedia production, designing engineering, research and quantitative analysis, these are some of the more advance digital skills rather than the basics that can be automated away. 

The research shows that just having these technical skills or digital skills is not enough, we need creativity, collaborative problem solving, communication skills to complement the digital skills.

At this point, it is important to note that according to UNCTDA 2019, global employment in ICT sector, which is the core pillar of digital economy, increased from 34 million in 2010 to 39 million in 2015, with computer service accounting for the largest share (38 per cent). We can see of course, employers are still on the run looking out skilled employees. For employers looking out for skilled employees, it is best they consult Digital Hubs for this. For instant, KadIct in Kaduna is linking up employers with employee. Other Hubs in Lagos are most likely not going to resist this temptation. There is also Malhub at Ilorin. In fact, Kaduna State increasingly becoming the Silicon Valley of Northern Nigeria. No state in Northern Nigeria match Kaduna State in terms of contemporary skills acquisition centers, backed by Google, Microsoft, United Nations and Amazon.

Coming back to our questions from the questionnaire, when respondents were asked if there were graduates or not? 50 percent responded yes, and the other half also 50 percent. 

Source, Author.

Secondly, when asked if respondents were currently employed? Only 20 percent of the them said yes, while overwhelming 80 percent said no.

Source, Author.

Thirdly, when respondents were asked if their your potential career requires a digital skills? All of them attested to this in affirmative. Below is the pie chart of their testimony. 

Source, Author.

Fourthly, when respondents were asked what are the challenges they think they may likely encounter in getting a job today? It is an open ended questions. Below are their responses:

A. Having access to potential employers.

B. Challenge in communication skills.

C. Lack of crisis management skills.

D. Scarcity of vacancy.

E. High rate of unemployment.

F. Job opportunities are not on merit.

G. Don’t like command or given orders.

H. Not applicable.

I. Required qualifications.

J. Lack of entrepreneurship courses in our institutions that will enable students/graduates to be independent.

Fifthly, when respondents were given set of options, and asked which of the options do they think is likely going to be Nigeria’s Challenge in digital economy? 20 percent said access to skilled employees. 40 percent clamored cyber-security. 10 percent said data privacy breech and 30 percent emphasized obsolete academic curriculum. Below is a pictorial representation.

   

Source, Author.

So what lessons do we learn from this survey? Let us start our analysis from the last question, “Which of the options do you think is likely going to be Nigeria’s Challenge in digital economy?” While all the options mentioned above staged a serious challenge to Nigeria’s digital economy, the challenge of cyber security can never be overemphasized.

According to CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, Bank customers lose 42.7 billion  to social engineering in the last four months of 2021. Data from the Nigerian Inter Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) demonstrated that social engineering remains the best deception trick fraudsters deploy successfully to lure their victims.

Another report by YallAfrica 2021, Nigeria has lost N5.5 Trillion to cybercrime in the last decade.

Nigeria is not alone in the mud. Global economic cost of cybercrime is estimated to be around $600b in 2017. Such attacks have micro-effects on citizens (victims), SMEs, and even large organizations.

Seeing how thriving the industry has being without effect law and policing, it has attracted unemployed youths known as “Yahoo Boys” in Nigeria. In fact,  cybercrime is the fast growing remote crime; and this it has continued intensely with the everyday engagement of numerous young person (s) who are electrically infuse with the get-rich-quick syndrome.

All hands must be on deck to bring about an inclusive and lasting solution to this problem. Furthermore, there is growing demand on cyber security experts. And the pay is very handsome. Nigeria as a country must make courses related to cyber security as ubiquitous as possible.

During my undergraduate project, titled “The Roles of Digital Economy On Quality of Life in Nigeria”, I was overwhelmed when I discovered people now understand the need to protect themselves online.

For instance, I once asked, a group of 54 people if they have the opportunity of learning data science, graphics design and cyber security, which one would the choose? Majority choose the latter. 

Source, The Roles of Digital Economy on Quality of Life, (Yusuf Nasir Ahmad 2020).

Data Privacy Breach: With the evolution of mobile app money lenders who loan our money to lenders without collateral, whenever these lenders default, these firms have resorted to breaching of customers data to send deforming messages to customers contacts. Well, this is a clear breach of data privacy. NITDA and other institutions involved have taken keen measures to address this issue. However, data such as our digital footprints are also monetized without our consents. Google sell them out to firms to train machine learning model and artificial intelligence algorithms to use targeted ads in return for ads revenue through click through rate.

We must take responsibility for our data online. Terms and conditions are not always comprehensive to read and understand, but that is where the problems lies. We don’t read terms and conditions. And even if we do, the function-ability of the app is held hostage to us agreeing to the terms and conditions. NITDA also needs to design a framework to probe this scheme.

 

We can see about 40.7 percent responded to cyber security as their best option. 

Secondly, the responds we got from the respondents when they were asked what are the challenges they think they may likely encounter in getting a job today? These challenges exists. And until we address them, the desired output may not e achieved.

 

Secondly, Problems such as having access to potential employers, challenge in communication skills, lack of crisis management skills, scarcity of vacancy, high rate of unemployment, job opportunities are not on merit, don’t like command or given orders, required qualifications, and lack of entrepreneurship courses in our institutions that will enable students/graduates to be independent can all be addressed with the right approach.

Having Access to Potential Employers: you must know what skills you posses, where you need to apply them, target any firm you feel you can work with and watch them closely. Whenever they are recruiting, whether invited or uninvited, pay them a  surprise visit. Make sure you have done some research about them. I know of a lady who landed her dream job when she paid the Airline Firm she desired working with a visit on the day of the recruitment exercise. Even though she was not invited, she was able to prove her worth. And guess what? She is now working with them happily.

 

Communications Skills Challenge: Communication skills is nothing but simply the ability to communicate effectively. In order to communicate effectively, one needs to first listen attentively. Don’t interrupt the speaker. Develop the ability to mirror back his words to him. Use languages that are simple and easy to understand. Demonstrate and use relevant examples. Communications skills is beyond verbal communication. You must look out for nonverbal cues. Emotions. For instance, you don’t invite a friend who recently lost his dad or brother to your birthday party.

Finally, summarize what you have told them and remind them again. Make your communication have a happy ending as possible. You can refer to books such as “Effective Public Speaking”, by Dale Carnegie. “How to Talk to Anyone”, by Leil Lowndes. These two books, I’m sure will have tremendous positive impact on you if carefully studied.

 

Crisis Management Skills: Crisis management is simply the ability to creatively improvise whenever we are faced with an obstacle of inglorious predicament out of sheer habit. In crisis, we learn. We must develop the ability to embrace diversity of thoughts, creative thinking capacity and think out of the box whenever we are in crisis. Sometimes, all that is required of us is embrace all the peaceful mind we can muster.

For skills on crisis management, I strongly recommend “The Obstacle is The Way”, by Ryan Holiday.

 

Birds of the Same Feather: To me, Scarcity of Vacancy, High Unemployment Rate and Nepotism are all birds of the same feather. Rather than complain, we must learn to get up and think. Not only think, take responsibility. We must first of all look for motivation, passion and enthusiasm. We must change the perspective. What if we can actually start something very small, like for instance writing a blog, poem, digital marketing, online session, tutorial, free lancing or anything? We must cultivate the art of saving for our long term goals. Yes, you unemployed, that should not justify your idleness. The internet is now the new market square. We can sell ourselves online. 

 

Don’t Like Command or Taken Orders: Well, I’d better tell you, you are a rebel. You have the mindset of an entrepreneur. However, most entrepreneurs went through apprenticeship in life. You also need mentors, either books or human angels who will eventually guide you in life. If keep this ego and your narcissism, you are most likely going to end up in a deadlock, dead end or even a stalemate. 

Albert Einstein rightly said, knowledge equals to 1/ego. The lesser the ego, the greater the knowledge and vice versa. I strongly recommend “The Laws of Human Nature” by Robert Greene for you.

Paradigm Shift: Required qualifications and lack of entrepreneurship courses in our institutions that will enable students/graduates to be independent can all be addressed with the right approach calls for a paradigm shift. This alternation must happen both at micro and macro levels.

At micro levels, we as individuals must learn contemporary new skills as the necessary ticket we will have to pay to make income from the new economy. We must spend less time on social medium, and entertainment centers.

At macro level, we need to rethink our academic curriculum. We must integrate contemporary courses into the system. For economics students fro instance, data science is now essential. Learning Python for data analysis or machine learning will not be overemphasized. 

Thirdly, It is indeed a good news that all respondents now acknowledge that they need digital skills in order to remain relevant in the labour market today. I truly hope they understand that know is just the first step. You must look out for the skills you want to master and start your apprenticeship now.

Fourthly, the 20/80 percent response is a testimony of youth unemployment in the land. We must replace skills and competency of over certificate if we truly desire to remain within potential output. Skills, zeal, passion, ability and enthusiasm is the new certificate employees must vigilantly watch put for. 

Lastly, we have much graduates as much as we have have undergraduates in school. The flow is almost constant. Just like the flow of money supply. The question should not be about quantity, but quality. Just like too much money in circulation creates serious and unhealthy inflation, too much graduates in circulation without jobs, create serious socioeconomic catastrophe: Kidnapping, cybercrime, bandits, drugs and alcoholism, etc. It will not be a bad idea if institutions create mandatory internship programs to enable students have real world experience. Send them to Hubs to learn contemporary skills before graduation, they should all learn programming, it assists tremendously in problem solving.

By sharing this blog, you will be part of the community that are advocating for solution to Nigeria’s unemployment and digital nonchalant attitude. Please be kind enough to put down your comments below let me know your perception on this blog as well. Thank you very much for reading!!!