₦airaland Forum

500 VACANCIES, NO QUALIFIED NIGERIANS?” I THINK THE REAL STORY IS DIFFERENT
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Recently, Tosin Eniolorunda, CEO of Moniepoint, reportedly stated that the company has over 500 vacancies but strvggles to find qualified candidates in Nigeria.
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The statement has generated serious debate.
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Yes, Nigeria has real pr0blems:
weak educational systems, skill gaps, p00r practical exposure, and massive brain drain.
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But let us be careful not to create the f@lse impression that Nigerians are not talented or globally competitive.
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That would be INACCURATE.
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Nigerians today work in some of the most demanding organisations in the world:
Google
Microsoft
Meta
Amazon
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They are also leading teams in global consulting firms, investment banks, AI companies, engineering firms, healthcare systems, and research institutions across the world.
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These are not environments where incompetence survives for long.
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Interestingly, Strive Masiyiwa once spoke about the impressive quality of Nigerian talent they encountered while building Econet in Nigeria.
One of the widely shared stories from the Zimbabwean billionaire entrepreneur, founder of Econet Wireless, and one of Africa’s most respected business leaders, was that when Econet Wireless Nigeria (now Airtel Nigeria) launched, they received an overwhelming number of highly qualified Nigerian applicants and were impressed by the talent pool available. He described Nigerians as intelligent, ambitious, energetic, and highly capable people.
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So perhaps the real conversation is not:
“Nigerians are not qualified.”
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Maybe it is:
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• skill mismatch
• changing industry needs
• brain drain
• unrealistic hiring expectations
• compensation issues
• or perhaps even some level of exaggeration to emphasise the seriousness of the hiring challenge
• and the widening gap between academic learning and practical capability.
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Nigeria still has exceptional talent.
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The bigger question is whether the system is developing enough of them, retaining enough of them, and positioning them properly for modern industry demands.
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- Abiodun Adetula

Tosin Eniolorunda don buy market

May God help us. Changing there mouths after seeing the hand writing on the wall

I fault the Moniepoint CEO on some grounds, but not all. Many Nigerian employers are not concerned about helping you grow, just as you are putting in efforts to grow their business. They want to pay you 60k but want you to render 5 million Naira services.

I once worked for a school owner. I was writing movie scripts for the school which they were using to promote their school. I was also giving the students who featured in the movies proper and professional trainings. The school management hired people from Lagos to work with me. All the people working with me were heavily paid, but each time I requested for motivations, they reminded me that I was being paid a salary. Salary wey no reach to feed for 2 weeks. I resigned, and that was how their movie sector and social media platforms collapsed. You cannot cheat me with my talents.

Though, we have very terrible graduates who have no skills, ambitions, or even direction. Some sorted their way through school with money.

Moniepoint has a valuation of 1 billion usd.

Oga ceo should stop trying to run the company like a corner corner startup and engage a consulting firm for proper recruitment

Probably going full tech bro - high on his ego and thinks he can disrupt standard hr recruitment practices

Person wey get fraa,Employ the few and train them on becoming what ever you want them to be,
How many youth has he trained on becoming expert in tech industry?

MoniePoint CEO is not just talking about talents but taents that can compete in the international space. You find senior managers in Nigeran banks go to the UK or Canada and find it hard to fill any senior roles there. Our people are ambitious and can work hard but we must admit that our educational institutions need to work harder to prepare their students for the global workplace. Again, you cannot blame them. When you pay a professor N5million per annum, how do yu want him to prepare a student to earn N50m? Our education needs a revamp! MoniePoint is competiting with OPay, a Chinese entity. Chinese people are groomed so hard for the workplace. They are hard to compete against. You see in some Asian countries like Japan, students go to school 7am to like 5pm. By the time they finish high school, you will think they are already in 2nd year of university. We shoud be thinking of stepping up!

The statement from the CEO I feel was irresponsible and thoughtless...

Before you crucify the CEO
Ask yourself this simple question
How many young Nigerians are ready to work?
Also what certification do you have to take up those required openings?
Finally what's the pay for the respective jobs that are open?
Once we get these right we would be putting right cubes in right holes and not otherwise
Let's not bring emotions to this
If you're qualified apply and work
Don't follow the unqualified to accuse someone whom may be your destiny helper

Nigerians go soon dig his past.
Be like he doesn't know who Nigerians are despite he himself being a Nigerian

Dee60:
MoniePoint CEO is not just talking about talents but taents that can compete in the international space.

Nigeria has them plenty and Moniepoint is not willing to pay them.

Opay has already started poaching tons of Moniepoint staff. Moniepoint was throwing tantrums and sued Opay.

Opay is owned by Chinese but they are hiring Nigerians to run Opay. But a fat-lipped sweater - wearing morsel of eba is saying Nigerians aren't employable.

Dee60:
MoniePoint CEO is not just talking about talents but taents that can compete in the international space.

I hope you know there are Nigerians working with Google and other big tech companies?

RHCM:
Before you crucify the CEO
Ask yourself this simple question
How many young Nigerians are ready to work?
Also what certification do you have to take up those required openings?
Finally what's the pay for the respective jobs that are open?
Once we get these right we would be putting right cubes in right holes and not otherwise
Let's not bring emotions to this
If you're qualified apply and work
Don't follow the unqualified to accuse someone whom may be your destiny helper

Moniepoint pays 50k per month for certain roles when minimum wage is 70k.
Does that sound sane to you?

Emeskhalifa:
I hope you know there are Nigerians working with Google and other big tech companies?

Don't mind him.
Most of them are not exposed.

Hope he doesnt pay dearly for this reckless statement

RHCM:
Before you crucify the CEO
Ask yourself this simple question
How many young Nigerians are ready to work?
Also what certification do you have to take up those required openings?
Finally what's the pay for the respective jobs that are open?
Once we get these right we would be putting right cubes in right holes and not otherwise
Let's not bring emotions to this
If you're qualified apply and work
Don't follow the unqualified to accuse someone whom may be your destiny helper

And be paid 1300usd annually?

Even if na inside room person dey, dey hustle for fiverr and upwork gig, person go don make over 1300usd annually ogar

Does any Nigerian school/uni offer courses in Nanotechnology for example? How will a Nigerian trained personnel apply for that role?

You people like to overflow issues. Let's face better issues.

This post has been removed.

atobs4real:
May God help us. Changing there mouths after seeing the hand writing on the wall

Dont blame them.

I dont know if I should say,We for just continue with Military,this men don use democrazy finish Nigeria,Tpain just carry bettet Jet Li sword finish the job pkatapkata .

Tpain own na massive weapon of mass econonic Annihilation Tinubumisilenomic don finish this Country pkatapkata na shaft He wan remain oo

RHCM:
Before you crucify the CEO
Ask yourself this simple question
How many young Nigerians are ready to work?
Also what certification do you have to take up those required openings?
Finally what's the pay for the respective jobs that are open?
Once we get these right we would be putting right cubes in right holes and not otherwise
Let's not bring emotions to this
If you're qualified apply and work
Don't follow the unqualified to accuse someone whom may be your destiny helper

You spoke well but I disagree with you on all your points.

Who are the ones working for CBN, Zenith bank, Gtb, FBN et al.

It's unfortunate that he's a greedy CEO. Every company hire and trains.

The CEO doesn't want to spend money. Just try to transfer to moniepoint from another bank you will never see moniepoint on the predilection list of banks.

Wickedtruths:
Nigeria has them plenty and Moniepoint is not willing to pay them.

Opay has already started poaching tons of Moniepoint staff. Moniepoint was throw tantrums and sued Opay.

Opay is owned by Chinese but they are hiring Nigerians to run Opay. But fat-lipped sweater - wearing morsel of eba is saying Nigerians aren't employable.

Who wants to work under Chinese employers? They can treat people like slaves!

GloriousGbola:
Moniepoint has a valuation of 1 billion usd.

Oga ceo should stop trying to run the company like a corner corner startup and engage a consulting firm for proper recruitment

Probably going full tech bro - high on his ego and thinks he can disrupt standard hr recruitment practices

..
20 more characters needed

Dee60:
When Nigerians work under Nigerian employers they sometimes come with entitlement. Somebody will come to ask you for one week off for a wedding. When they work with Chinese they wont mind to be treated like slaves! Try and work with a Chinese company and see what it means to work! you may be lucky to have two weeks vacation in a whole year.

Maybe you are used to people working in bakeries, foundries or digging trenches.

The Chinese usually take about 2 weeks off for the Chinese new year holidays.
Is there any holidays Nigerians take 2 weeks off for?

Every job requires an employment contract. Every job.
Contracts are to regulate things like this.

eddie7:
Nigeria still has exceptional talent.
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The bigger question is whether the system is developing enough of them, retaining enough of them, and positioning them properly for modern industry demands.
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- Abiodun Adetula

According to APC leaders looters, our country is just filled with LAZY youths, who deserve only rice and daily bread palliatives instead of free primary, vocational and secondary schools with adequate number of professional, well paid teachers to create a pool of employable labour.

For the past 11 years, APC has worsened unemployment instead of creating the millions of jobs promised by Buhari and recycled by Tinubu.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYltMapDyIo?si=0-hO0Vt5C9uBxVd1

OkCornel:
Dear sycophants

On August 29 2023, Tinubu’s government promised to create 50 million jobs and revive the economy.

This is almost one year. How far with your messiah’s plan?

Where is the economic revival? Where are the jobs?

https://www.nairaland.com/7821154/tinubu-sets-3-year-economic-revival

Emeskhalifa:
I hope you know there are Nigerians working with Google and other big tech companies?

I personally know young Nigerians in big tech firms. We dont have a shortage of tech talents. We have Nigerians as top doctors also, and in several sectors. Those ones have had to develop themselves to be able to compete at top levels. We should be looking towards ASIA. China and India have built schools to train their people to compete well globally. They are ahead. We should be that ambitous too as a nation. Things dont just happen. Our schools need to do a bit more to prepare people for the global space.

E dey always pain una when you hear the truth. We overrate ourselves.
Many times, we think we're smarter than others. No, we're only more crude and anyhow than others.
Are we resilient? Yes. Are we talented and intelligent? Very much, yes. Are we superior? Nope.
Are we equipped, exposed and educated enough to solve real world problems? No.
These are the issues.

CodeTemplar:
Does any Nigerian school/uni offer courses in Nanotechnology for example? How will a Nigerian trained personnel apply for that role?

Yes..the FUTA has a couple of courses on it and are about hosting a full department.

Emeskhalifa:
I hope you know there are Nigerians working with Google and other big tech companies?

Since when did a tree, or even a few trees make a forest

TheBedWench:
The one-drop rule is a social and legal principle of racial classification that was historically prominent in the United States in the 20th century. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry ("one drop" of black blood) is considered black (Negro or colored in historical terms).

This concept became codified into the law of some states in the early 20th century. It was associated with the principle of "invisible blackness" that developed after the long history of racial interaction in the South, which had included the hardening of slavery as a racial caste and later segregation. It is an example of  hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in different groups.[3]

The one-drop rule is defunct in law in the United States and was never codified into federal law.

In as much as I appreciate the central message in this post, I don't really want us to take all the messages seriously because there is more to it than what is presented for us to read.

Please, my intention is neither to personally attack the writer nor the poster but to let us think deeply and look at the bigger picture.

Are you aware that recently, Opay is listing on the USA stock exchange, claiming to worth over $4 Billion in value? Not only Opay, the same pattern is observed with Moneipoint, Flutterwave, Paystack and even Jumia (our popular e-commerce platform). These are companies that started operating in Nigeria not up to 10 years now.


Now, the question is, what do these companies have in common? They all started from Lagos, Nigeria and they grew so big that they believe it is very difficult for Nigeria to handle them anymore. They have forgotten that we made them who they are today, so instead of listing on Nigeria Stock Exchange, then enable Nigerians to benefit from investing in their stocks, they decided to take the profit sharing abroad. It is a long story, in case you need more information on this, I implore you to do your research.

Now, back to the Fintech and the case of unemployability of Nigerians. This is not a new thing globally. This is the same lie that many companies lie anytime they want to attract investors. They will roll out recruitment campaigns and create the feeling that they want to expand. Some may even advertise that they are recruiting 5000 employees nationwide. It is a lie, they want foreign investors to commit more funds in their business expansion. We all know the business model of Opay, Moneipoint and other new Fintechs that I mentioned above, they do not need to employ more people to run their business effectively. They are already running billions on transactions with a very minimal number of staff...so what is the need to recruit more people?

The way forward shouldn't be for us to accept their lies that our people are not employable. Instead, let's do what the UK government did to Uber and Lyft. Let's ask our government to compel them to be flexible with their recruitment and operations to absorb more Nigerians into the system and let their tax be reviewed accordingly.


Thanks so much for understanding. I come in peace ✌️.

I don’t fault Tosin in any way. He said the truth ! Even local skills are honestly lacking . There is a horrible brain drain happening in Nigeria . There is no transfer to knowledge and skills to the next generation in Nigeria . Even when there are , the youths are mostly not interested . They will rather be “social media “ influencers .

Everyone is leaving . Doctors , engineers , IT professionals etc . Can Tosin compete with the likes of google and other tech giants ? NO ! Those are the ones picking our skilled professionals with the incentive of relocation abroad . We need to build local competence and this generation will rather do hookup or become a social media nuisance than have a honest job .