Renowned software developer and president/CEO of IT Touch Limited Dr Damola Solanke has spoken on the state of software development in Nigeria and its future.

Solanke said that since the early 2000s, information technology has been a booming sector in Nigeria, paving the way for multiple industrial and digital revolutions. Nigeria’s newly found digital revolution saw the arrival of mobile phones, GSM, the internet, the email revolution, online Yahoo messenger talks, and penpals, he added.

He noted that the information, communications, and technology (ICT) sector (the “tech sector”) is now one of Nigeria’s fastest expanding. According to him, the industry produced 15% of the country’s GDP in 2020, ranking second only to agriculture. This maintained a five-year trend, with the industry rising at an 18% annual rate between 2016 and 2019.

“Nigeria has established itself as the African continent’s largest ICT market, with 90 tech centres and a growing and engaged client base. More than 180 million individuals (72 per cent of the population) currently have access to mobile phones, and internet penetration is expected to reach 65.3% by 2025, up from less than 2% in 2001. Some of the world’s most successful technological companies are headquartered in the nation, including IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Cisco, Solanke noted.

According to an investigation by Jobberman, the industry will contribute $88 billion to the GDP by 2027.

“Despite all these, there are impediments to the growth of the industry, especially as it pertains to software development.
Speaking further,Solanke, a software development specialist and business strategist said Nigeria’s software development tech sub-sector is still developing, as just a few individuals are still actively engaged, despite how booming it is in the international globe, Nigeria, unlike the United States and India, is yet to arrive,” Solanke said.

Speaking further, he said: “Software development is the path to making people’s lives easier, which is why technology exists.

“And, if you look at wealthy countries, they virtually generate new software every now and then that is aimed at making life easier for society as a whole. And, despite Nigeria’s progress in software development, the previous three years have been quite quiet.

“We have not witnessed a significant increase in the number of new softwares. And it all comes down to young people sitting down to acquire a skill and then applying what they’ve learned.

“Furthermore, There is a scarcity of highly trained IT gurus who can educate Nigerians on the newest developments in software development. Andela, which used to be a hub of skill acquisition, closed down, and the ones that remain are unable to accommodate the number of young people who are interested, with many resorting to informal methods of acquiring the skills, such as computer centres and online courses,” he added.

Solanke, however, urged important decision-makers to give the software development sub-sector the attention it deserves in order to expedite Nigeria’s economic success because no country can thrive without a fully operating tech industry in all aspects.