Nigerians have for decades been sold the dream life of doing all you can to work in an oil firm. Nigerian students studying engineering, geochemistry, geology or other oil related courses in universities have the dream of working in the oil sector someday in the future. But this dream seems to be for a select few as the competition is stiff.
Assuredly, the oil and gas sector are one of the best and most sought-after employment industries in Nigeria, considering it accounts for 70 percent of the Nigerian government’s revenue sources.
Surprisingly, services sector jobs in Nigeria occupied around 53 percent of the total employment in the country as of 2019. Agriculture and Industries produced 35 percent and 12 percent of Nigeria’s employment.
State of play
With the growing calls for the adoption of green energy and the crisis in Nigeria’s economy, many Nigerians are gravitating towards technology. According to a recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics on Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector contributed 18.44% to the country’s GDP in Q2 2022. ICT sector grew by 6.55% in Q1 2022.
The oil and gas sector, which used to dominate the country’s GDP, fell to 6.33% in the second quarter of 2022. According to the report, the non-oil sector contributed 93.67% to Nigeria’s GDP. This figure beats the 92.58% earmarked in Q2 2021 and 93.37% in Q1 2022.
Major drivers of this change include telcos, trade, financial institutions, transportation, agriculture, and manufacturing (food, beverage and tobacco).
What you should know
Tech startups on the continent have come a long way; from raising $2 billion in investment in 2019 to raising over $3.1 billion by the end of the second quarter of 2022. Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, has definitely played a major role in driving this growth. This shows that although Nigeria’s tech climate might be falling short in infrastructure, investment, and policies, there is a world of untampered opportunities locked up in this sector.
Therefore, analysts have projected Africa’s tech market to grow from $115 billion to $712 billion by 2050, considering tech startups on the continent are growing in fundings at six times more than the global average.