I'm sure this question has been asked before, but this time we'll go into the meat of why a capable junior dev in Nigeria deserves #350-500k minimum.

1. For most companies, our products serve millions :
It's crazy that a bank will hire devs and pay them a tiny bit above 6 figures when we secure their infrastructure and meet the demands of customers quickly and seemlessly, those banking apps that login in 3 seconds is the work of a dev making sure those API requests and auth are managed quickly.

2. Nigerias inflation is virtually 40% now :
Nigerian tech companies think the #100k they paid devs 9 years ago is still as valuable as it was today, if inflation is 40% then you have to pay to account for that as even those businesses hike prices to stay above inflation, so it's highway robbery to pay peanuts and eat the sweat of the very people that bring in that money.

3. There is competition :
Tech as a whole is a competitive space, it's why companies incentivize devs with "competitive pay" for their work. If you want devs that stick around and not have apps fail most of the time then pay them a decent wage that encourages improvement.

4. It can get depressing :
Looking at a screen all day then getting paid 100k in a month when a bag of rice is 40k is a depressing reality, not all jobs pay well for the value they provide but the modern world runs on tech and is paid best to account for that.

5. To prevent people leaving :
In tech, the number 1 reason devs leave are for higher pay and a more flexible work-life balance. If you're paid well then there's little reason to leave.

These are my thoughts, I'm not saying every company needs to pay like this but we all know some tech companies in Nigeria are just glorified contractors that slash a zero from the pay they're meant to pay devs(Andela).

Currently there are layoffs going on in tech but if you're a capable dev then you should have no fear of getting hired, surplus money is just being held tightly and spending stopped/lessened to hold off excess inflation.