In the polished conference rooms of Abuja’s Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani is orchestrating what might be Africa’s most ambitious—or most tone-deaf—experiment in workforce development.
The 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme has completed its pilot phase, training more than 135,000 Nigerians in digital skills ranging from AI to cybersecurity. According to the Ministry’s latest announcement, the initiative has facilitated 15,000 “job and career pathways.” To the casual observer scrolling past the #3MTTImpactChallenge hashtag on LinkedIn, this might sound like progress.
To the 1.8 million Nigerians currently sitting in the program’s pipeline, however, it’s a stark reminder that in 2026, talent is the only thing Nigeria has in surplus. The capital required to actually hire them? That’s increasingly finding a home elsewhere.
The Hashtag-Led Solution to a Capital Problem
The government’s latest move to sustain momentum is revealing in its modesty: the #3MTTImpactChallenge, announced last week, invites fellows to share “before and after” stories on TikTok and LinkedIn. The prizes—10 laptops, 200 e-tablets, and 10GB data bundles—read like a pragmatic, if slightly tragic, acknowledgment of ecosystem reality.
For many of Nigeria’s newly minted engineers, the most significant barrier to innovation isn’t a lack of Python skills. It’s the price of a data subscription.
While the Ministry focuses on “strengthening the alumni community” and “measuring impact,” the macro environment powering Nigeria’s tech sector has shifted from what founders called a “funding winter” to what they’re now describing as “the Great Reset.”
The timing couldn’t be more paradoxical.
The Numbers Don’t Lie—And They’re Brutal
Nigeria is producing tech talent at industrial scale just as funding for the companies that would employ them has collapsed.
According to data compiled by Africa: The Big Deal, Nigeria captured just $343 million of Africa’s $3.2 billion total startup funding in 2025—a 16.3% decline from the $410 million raised in 2024.
That puts Nigeria in fourth place among African markets, behind Kenya ($984M), Egypt ($614M), and South Africa ($600M). It’s the first time since the early 2010s that Nigeria hasn’t been at the top of Africa’s startup funding league table.
Even more striking: Nigeria’s share of total African funding dropped to 10.7%, down from 18.6% in 2024. This is the country that dominated African venture capital in 2021 and 2022, regularly commanding 30-40% of continental deal flow.
What happened?
The Insider Who Couldn’t Stop the Decline
The irony is almost poetic: this funding collapse is occurring under a Minister who was supposed to be the ecosystem’s ultimate insider.
Dr. Bosun Tijani co-founded CcHUB, one of Africa’s most respected innovation hubs. He arrived in government with credibility, connections, and an ambitious target: helping Nigerian startups raise $5 billion by 2027.
Two years later, that target feels like a relic from a more optimistic age.
Nigeria’s share of African venture capital is at its lowest level in seven years. The ecosystem is grappling with what founders privately describe as a “toxic cocktail” of policy missteps, currency chaos, and credibility collapse.
The Four Horsemen of the Nigerian Funding Apocalypse
1. The SEC’s 3,900% Capital Hike
In what might be the single most destructive regulatory decision in African startup history, Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) increased the minimum capital requirement for venture capital funds from ₦10 million to ₦400 million—a 3,900% increase.
Overnight, the SEC effectively banned small and emerging fund managers from the market. International VCs with ₦50-100 million funds—precisely the early-stage capital Nigerian startups need most—are now shut out entirely. The funds that can afford ₦400 million (~$285,000) are typically Series B+ players hunting deals that barely exist in Nigeria anymore.
The policy is a masterclass in regulatory capture: it protects established players while strangling new entrants. For an ecosystem already bleeding capital, the SEC just closed the last remaining artery.
2. The 2026 Tax Act
Effective January 1, 2026, Nigeria’s new tax regime introduced a 30% Capital Gains Tax for companies and a 15% minimum effective tax for large firms. For a startup ecosystem that had already been operating on thin margins and deferred profitability, the new taxes feel like kicking companies while they’re down.
International investors—already spooked by two years of funding contraction—now face the prospect of lower returns even if Nigerian startups do succeed.
3. Currency Trauma
With the Naira officially pegged at ₦1,400 to the dollar in the 2026 budget (and trading closer to ₦1,600 on parallel markets), foreign investors have watched their paper gains evaporate into exchange-rate volatility.
A startup that raised $5 million in 2021 at ₦500/$1 had ₦2.5 billion to deploy. That same $5 million today buys ₦7-8 billion—but only if you can actually access dollars. Most founders can’t.
The currency chaos has made it nearly impossible for Nigerian startups to plan, budget, or provide return visibility to foreign LPs.
4. The Credibility Gap
High-profile failures have shattered investor confidence. Okra, which raised $16.5 million to build open banking infrastructure, shut down in May 2025, citing “unsustainable burn rates” and an inability to achieve product-market fit.
It wasn’t alone. A string of Nigerian fintechs that raised in the 2021-2022 boom either shut down, pivoted desperately, or limped into “zombie mode”—operational but unable to raise follow-on rounds.
What the Big Numbers Hide
Let’s return to the 3MTT program’s announced metrics: 135,000 trained, 15,000 “job and career pathways.”
That’s an 11% placement rate.
In a vacuum, that might sound reasonable for a pilot program. But context matters.
Reality Check #1: What counts as a “pathway”?
The Ministry hasn’t disclosed what qualifies as a “job or career pathway.” Is it:
- A full-time salaried role?
- A 3-month internship through the EU-funded Jubilee Fellows Programme?
- A freelance gig on Upwork?
- A “business process outsourcing” role earning $200/month?
Without transparency, that 15,000 figure is functionally meaningless.
Reality Check #2: The math doesn’t work
Even if all 15,000 placements were legitimate full-time roles, here’s the problem: Nigeria has 1.8 million more people in the 3MTT pipeline.
If the placement rate holds at 11%, that means 3MTT will eventually “facilitate pathways” for ~330,000 people out of 3 million trained.
What happens to the other 2.67 million?
Reality Check #3: The ecosystem can’t absorb this talent
Nigerian startups raised $343 million in 2025. Assuming an average salary of $15,000/year for entry-level tech roles (generous in the current market), that funding could theoretically support ~23,000 jobs.
But that funding isn’t going entirely to salaries—it’s going to product development, infrastructure, marketing, operations, and burn. Realistically, maybe 30-40% goes to payroll.
Which means Nigerian startups hired perhaps 7,000-9,000 people in 2025.
3MTT alone produced 15 times that many trained candidates.
The mismatch isn’t just a gap. It’s a chasm.
Founders in Survival Mode
Talk to Nigerian founders off the record, and you hear the same themes:
“We’re not hiring. We’re trying not to fire people.”
“International investors ghost us after the first call when they hear ‘Nigeria.'”
“We’re relocating to London or Nairobi just to have a fighting chance at Series A.”
Some are taking “fire sale” terms—raising at down rounds with punitive liquidation preferences—just to survive another 12-18 months. Others are pivoting to consulting or services businesses because software-as-a-service economics don’t work when you can’t access dollars for cloud infrastructure.
The domestic banking sector, meanwhile, still treats a software company with the same suspicion it might afford a high-stakes gambling operation. Debt financing? Forget it.
The Policy Disconnect
Here’s the fundamental disconnect:
The government is optimizing for inputs (training) while ignoring outputs (employment).
Training 3 million people in Python, AI, and cybersecurity is easy. You can partner with Microsoft (which committed $1 million), MTN (₦3 billion), IHS (₦2.5 billion), and Airtel (₦1 billion), design online curricula, and scale through 197 Partner Applied Learning Clusters.
It’s the venture capital equivalent of “teaching a man to fish” without checking if there’s any water in the pond.
Creating the economic conditions for those 3 million people to actually get hired? That requires:
- Capital formation (which is collapsing)
- Investor confidence (which is shattered)
- Currency stability (which doesn’t exist)
- Tax competitiveness (which just got worse)
- Regulatory clarity (which remains elusive)
The Ministry of Communications can’t solve those problems alone. But pretending they don’t exist while handing out data bundles for TikTok videos is borderline absurd.
The Comparison That Stings
While Nigeria trains talent for an ecosystem in freefall, its competitors are building the infrastructure to hire them.
Kenya led Africa with $984 million in 2025 funding, driven by clean energy giants like d.light ($176M) and Sun King ($236M). Nairobi has emerged as the continent’s preferred destination for impact investors, particularly in climate tech.
Egypt displaced Nigeria for second place with $614 million, fueled by large rounds in fintech (Valu, Thndr, Money Fellows) and proptech (Nawy’s $75M round). Cairo benefits from regulatory reforms and a government actively courting international capital.
South Africa grew funding 51% year-over-year to $600 million, with over 90% coming as equity—the highest equity concentration in Africa. Johannesburg and Cape Town are maturing into genuine exits markets, evidenced by Optasia’s $35 million JSE listing.
Meanwhile, Nigeria is giving away tablets.
What Needs to Happen (And Won’t)
Fixing Nigeria’s ecosystem requires a shift from “talent-counting” to “capital-building.”
What should happen:
- Government-backed support funds similar to Egypt’s emerging venture debt facilities or Tunisia’s startup grants
- Tax incentives for startups, not tax increases
- Currency stability mechanisms that allow startups to plan beyond 90-day horizons
- Domestic LP development—mobilizing Nigerian pension funds and family offices into venture
- Regulatory sandboxes that allow fintechs to test products without drowning in compliance costs
What will happen:
- More training programs
- More hashtag challenges
- More ministerial press releases celebrating inputs
- Continued capital flight to Kenya, Egypt, and South Africa
The Uncomfortable Truth
Nigeria’s 3MTT program isn’t a failure of execution. It’s a failure of strategy.
Training millions of people for an ecosystem that can only hire thousands isn’t ambition—it’s a cruel joke played on young Nigerians who believed the “tech is the future” narrative.
The government’s focus remains on what’s easy and measurable: training completions, certificate distributions, LinkedIn posts with before-and-after photos.
The hard work—creating an environment where startups can raise capital, scale sustainably, and hire aggressively—remains unaddressed.
For now, Nigeria’s 3 million newly trained tech talents face a stark choice:
- Emigrate to markets with functioning ecosystems
- Accept exploitative freelance rates on global platforms
- Pivot to non-tech careers
- Join the 1.8 million still waiting in the pipeline, hoping something changes
The Bottom Line
Dr. Bosun Tijani’s 3MTT program will likely hit its numerical target: 3 million trained by 2027. That will generate impressive press releases, ministerial awards, and international conference speaking slots.
But unless Nigeria solves its capital crisis—and solves it fast—those 3 million talents will be
Africa’s most educated unemployed workforce.
The “Nigeria Rising” narrative is being tested by a simple, brutal arithmetic: You can train all the talent you want. But if there’s no capital to hire them, you’re just creating a more educated diaspora.
And based on 2025’s funding numbers, that’s exactly what’s happening.
