Stakeholders canvass tech investment to boost growth

Stakeholders in Nigeria’s technology sector are clamouring for significant investments to drive economic growth, emphasising technology’s critical role in industrialisation and national development.

At the recent Curating Chaos: ‘Unpacking the Next Decade’ event in Lagos, which focused on key topics such as technology, geopolitics, human behaviour, entertainment, and climate change, the convener of Curating Chaos, Daniel Oladoja, urged Nigeria to fully harness the potential of technology for sustainable progress.

Oladoja highlighted technology’s transformative impact, saying, “We need to leverage technology more because it drives manufacturing, and sectors like transportation and housing rely on its foundations.”

He underlined the need to integrate technology across all sectors to drive industrialisation.

“We must have a comprehensive discussion about industrialisation to shift from over-reliance on imports to locally produced goods. In the next decade, a balanced economy will rely on technology as the cornerstone of this transformation,” he added.

Oladoja identified Nigeria’s education sector as a major barrier to technological advancement, stressing the need for reforms to build a knowledge-based economy.

“The greatest challenge to technological progress is our broken education system; we need to fix it to produce local knowledge that can solve local problems,” he said.

Consultant and coach Ezeogu Kayode, who also spoke at the event, said Nigeria was at the bottom of the technology creation ladder. He noted that while the country excels in technology usage, it lags behind in innovation.

“In technology, we are at the bottom of the ladder, with knowledge often focused on usage rather than creation. In terms of adoption, we are on par with other African nations, but we still have a long way to go in developing a complete approach to technology—from creation to consumption,” Kayode said.