06/05/2026
The Founder of Moniepoint says he cannot fill 500 vacancies because Nigerian youths are not employable.
A post currently circulating on Facebook talks about a friend trying to hire for a cold room business, offering N200,000 to N250,000 monthly, and still cannot find the right person.
The conclusion from both sides is the same.
Nigerians are not employable.
Both of them are not entirely wrong.
But both of them are not telling the complete story either.
Let me try.
First
this is not a Nigerian problem. It is a global problem.
The United States, the largest economy in the world has over 8 million unfilled job vacancies as of 2025.
Not because Americans are lazy or unintelligent. But because the skills employers want and the skills the education system produces do not match.
Germany, the industrial engine of Europe is facing its worst skilled labour shortage in history. They are actively importing workers from Africa and Asia because their own population cannot fill the gap.
Japan, one of the most disciplined, educated, and hardworking societies on earth — has a skills crisis so severe that companies are hiring people in their 70s and 80s to stay operational.
China, with 1.4 billion people and the second largest economy in the world has millions of unemployed graduates while factories cannot find skilled technicians.
This is a structural development problem that every economy faces at different stages of growth.
It is not a Nigerian character flaw.
So before we use one man's frustration to indict an entire generation — let us be honest about the global context we are operating in.
Second
let us talk about Moniepoint specifically.
Moniepoint is a payment infrastructure company.
The millions if not billions of naira being transacted on that platform every single day — who is doing that?
The agents on the streets of Oshodi, Onitsha, Kano, and Warri processing payments at N100 per transaction.
The market women using the POS terminals.
The small business owners who adopted digital payments before many corporate executives did.
The same Nigerians he says are unemployable are the engine of his entire business model.
You cannot build a billion dollar Nigerian company on the back of Nigerian resourcefulness — and then turn around and question Nigerian intelligence.
That is a contradiction that deserves examination.
And then there is a deeper question nobody is asking —
What is Moniepoint's internal training infrastructure?
When Japan faced a skills crisis after the Second World War, Toyota did not go on television and complain that Japanese workers were unemployable. They built the Toyota Production System — a training philosophy so powerful it became a global management standard. They took raw, unskilled workers and built world class competence from the inside.
The most sophisticated companies in the world do not just hire competence.
They build it.
If you are running a technology company in a developing economy and your only strategy for talent is to find it fully formed — that is not a talent problem.
That is a leadership gap.
Third
and this is the point almost nobody is talking about.
Who defined what employable means in Nigeria?
The skills being demanded by Nigerian tech companies are almost entirely modelled on Silicon Valley and Western corporate frameworks.
When we say a Nigerian youth is not employable — employable by whose standard? Optimised for whose system? Built for whose economy?
The same young Nigerian that a tech founder calls unemployable is —
Running a logistics operation entirely on WhatsApp with zero formal training.
Managing a thrift contribution system for 200 people with zero defaults and zero software.
Pricing goods across three different markets simultaneously — in his head — while negotiating in two or three languages before 9am.
Repairing a generator, a phone, and a tricycle engine with tools that should not work — and making them work.
These are extraordinary economic skills.
They are just not packaged in a CV format that fits a Western corporate template.
The real question is not whether Nigerian youths are smart.
Anybody who has spent real time in this market knows they are.
The real question is whether we are building an economy and companies that recognise, formalise, and develop the intelligence that already exists.
Or whether we are measuring our people with a ruler that was never designed for them.
The employability gap in Nigeria is not a motivation problem.
It is a structural problem.
A broken education system that produces graduates without practical skills.
An economy that did not build enough industries to train people through real work experience.
Employers who want world class output but are unwilling to invest in world class development.
And a conversation that keeps blaming the individual — instead of interrogating the system that produced them.
In economics, when the output is consistently disappointing — you do not keep blaming the output.
You examine the process that created it.
The problem is not the Nigerian youth.
The problem is the soil they were given to grow in.
And until we are honest about that —
we will keep having this conversation.
Every year.
Louder and louder.
With less and less progress.
Ekenomics — Where Market Meets Economics.
