The comment may have been controversial, but perhaps its biggest impact was forcing a conversation many people had avoided publicly for too long. Beneath the outrage lies a more uncomfortable reflection about direction. Nigeria’s real test is not whether it can produce brilliant tech talent, it already does, but whether it can build an environment where that brilliance does not feel like an exception that has to leave to fully thrive.
When Tosin Eniolorunda declared that Moniepoint had decided in 2024 to stop hiring outside Nigeria, only to later discover in 2025 that many of the candidates identified were “not up to global standards,” the comment immediately ignited debate across Nigeria’s tech ecosystem.
Since the controversy erupted, I deliberately stayed reserved in commenting on it because I did not want to react from emotion or sentiment. But the reaction the statement generated was hardly surprising. In a country where thousands of graduates continue searching for opportunities, while technology remains one of the few sectors still offering economic hope, such comments were always going to strike a nerve. For many young Nigerians struggling with unemployment, inflation, and an increasingly unforgiving labour market, the statement felt less like a hiring complaint and more like a dismissal of their efforts.
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Part of the outrage also came from Nigeria’s long history of foreign validation. For decades, many Nigerians have watched multinational companies reserve top technical positions for expatriates, while highly qualified locals struggled for recognition. That background shaped how people interpreted the Moniepoint CEO’s remarks. Many did not hear a narrow concern about recruitment standards. They heard a broader suggestion that Nigerian professionals themselves were inadequate.
The timing made the reaction even more intense. Our country is currently experiencing one of its toughest economic periods in recent years. Inflation continues to erode purchasing power, the naira has suffered repeated devaluations, and youth unemployment remains a serious concern. For many young Nigerians learning software engineering, cybersecurity, or product design, tech represents more than a profession. It represents survival, relevance, and the possibility of economic mobility. That is why the statement felt deeply personal to aspiring developers spending months building skills, despite graduating from underfunded institutions and operating in difficult conditions.
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Yet, beneath the outrage lies a contradiction that is difficult to ignore. Nigeria produces hundreds of thousands of graduates yearly and continues to battle widespread unemployment, still some of its fastest-growing technology companies insist they cannot find enough qualified talent. The deeper I examined the issue, the clearer it became that the problem is not necessarily a shortage of people, but a shortage of people with the specific skills, exposure, and experience required by companies operating on a global scale.
What Nigeria appears to face is not a complete absence of talent, but difficulty producing and retaining highly experienced professionals at the scale required by a rapidly expanding digital economy. This challenge has become even more complicated because many of the country’s best professionals are increasingly leaving the local ecosystem. Over the last few years, thousands of skilled Nigerians have either relocated abroad or moved into remote roles for foreign companies paying in dollars and euros.
To be fair, there is some truth in the concerns raised by the Moniepoint CEO. Employers across the technology sector have privately complained for years about outdated curricula, weak practical training, and the disconnect between academic learning and industry demands. Technology evolves far faster than traditional educational systems, and many graduates leave school without experience in cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity operations, system architecture, or large-scale collaborative software development. Modern technology companies are no longer looking only for people who can write code. They want professionals capable of building scalable systems, solving complex business problems, and working effectively in highly demanding engineering environments.
But focusing only on employer complaints ignores another reality. Nigeria has already proven that it can produce world-class talent. Nigerian engineers work at companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon. Nigerian developers continue to build globally funded startups and contribute to international technology projects. If Nigerian professionals were fundamentally substandard, global companies would not continue hiring them aggressively.
What Nigeria appears to face is not a complete absence of talent, but difficulty producing and retaining highly experienced professionals at the scale required by a rapidly expanding digital economy. This challenge has become even more complicated because many of the country’s best professionals are increasingly leaving the local ecosystem. Over the last few years, thousands of skilled Nigerians have either relocated abroad or moved into remote roles for foreign companies paying in dollars and euros. Local startups are no longer competing only against themselves for talent. They are competing against the global labour market.
That reality also explains why many people pushed back against the conversation around “global standards.” If companies want globally competitive talent, workers naturally expect globally competitive compensation and work environments. Many Nigerian startup employees have repeatedly complained about burnout, unstable management structures, poor work-life balance, and salaries that cannot compete with international opportunities. Skilled engineers increasingly understand their value and are no longer willing to tolerate poor conditions simply because a company is locally successful.
I also think the statement unintentionally undermined ongoing efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s digital workforce. Programmes introduced by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), including the 3 Million Technical Talent initiative and the Digital for All initiative, were specifically created to prepare young Nigerians for global competitiveness. Public comments suggesting local professionals are broadly below global standards risk weakening confidence in those efforts at a time when the country is actively trying to position itself as a serious digital economy.
What makes Nigeria remarkable is that, despite these conditions, many young professionals still compete globally through extraordinary personal effort rather than through the strength of national systems supporting them. But resilience alone is not enough to build a globally dominant digital economy. Sustainable growth will require stronger institutions, better training systems, healthier work cultures, and long-term investment in developing and retaining talent.
Another angle many people raised is whether the statement was partly strategic. In startup culture, founders often emphasise recruitment challenges and talent demand to demonstrate growth potential and operational expansion to investors. By highlighting the difficulty of filling roles locally, the comment may also reinforce Moniepoint’s image as a rapidly scaling company with significant hiring capacity. Whether intentional or not, such narratives can influence investor perception in highly competitive funding environments.
Still, I believe the biggest mistake would be reducing this debate to patriotism or outrage alone. Nigeria clearly possesses talented professionals, but it also faces serious structural weaknesses in education, infrastructure, workforce development, and talent retention. The issue is not simply a talent crisis. It is a systems crisis.
What makes Nigeria remarkable is that, despite these conditions, many young professionals still compete globally through extraordinary personal effort rather than through the strength of national systems supporting them. But resilience alone is not enough to build a globally dominant digital economy. Sustainable growth will require stronger institutions, better training systems, healthier work cultures, and long-term investment in developing and retaining talent.
The comment may have been controversial, but perhaps its biggest impact was forcing a conversation many people had avoided publicly for too long. Beneath the outrage lies a more uncomfortable reflection about direction. Nigeria’s real test is not whether it can produce brilliant tech talent, it already does, but whether it can build an environment where that brilliance does not feel like an exception that has to leave to fully thrive.
Shuaib S. Agaka is a tech journalist and digital policy analyst based in Kano
