In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped work life across the globe, Ruby Igwe embarked on yet another work journey into the tech space. She was hired as the Country Activation Manager at Sand Technologies, overseeing talent acquisition and management. She eventually became the first female and youngest Country General Manager in the region where she’s worked for the last two years, empowering millions of youth and women with in-demand tech skills and training. 

How will people around you describe you?

Ruby Igwe: I believe they would describe me as hardworking, empathetic and resilient, as well as someone who brings their whole self to work. Executive leaders like me are caught daily between driving team members for optimum performance and managing emotions. I am a self-aware leader, and I respect people first as human beings with stories and context, not tools. I am also a creative person, and this is reflected in my work.

What’s the best thing about your work?

RI: I love my team. I believe that I have a very strong, innovative and supportive team and I enjoy working with them. I also love the work we do to enhance tech and entrepreneurship skills among youths and women and contribute directly to Nigeria’s unemployment, entrepreneurship, and workforce development. I feel fulfilled working with my team to impact over 145,000 youths in Nigeria with better livelihoods.

You’re also the co-founder of archiv.ng. Tell us about that. 

RI: Archivi.ng is a non-profit actively contributing to the critical mission of preserving Nigeria’s history through the digital documentation of newspapers and other materials; and then making them accessible to everyone online. As someone passionate about culture, our creative industries and infrastructure development, I believe that our history must be accessible to anyone.

Fu’ad Lawal leads the charge here and has been working tirelessly with a formidable team of staff, supporters and volunteers. So far, we have 4,029 newspapers scanned, over 60,000 pages scanned and $23,073 raised thus far. We are also currently fundraising for our next phase of operations. I’m excited about this project and the doggedness of our team, and I am looking forward to being even more hands-on than I have been able to be lately.

Tell us about ALX. How does it tie into your values or personality?

RI: ALX is a tech accelerator that seeks to provide tech jobs and build entrepreneurial capacity for Africans. We want to build Africa’s doers and changemakers by focusing on young people and offering accessible programs that empower the next generation of technology innovators, entrepreneurs, and business leaders through challenging real-world coursework. We have special courses in artificial intelligence, data analytics, software engineering, and cloud computing, among others and through ALX Ventures, we are shaping and supporting ethical entrepreneurial leaders. 

Personally, two things have guided my personal and professional life – quality service and infrastructural development. My work at ALX aligns with my core values as it involves invested work in transforming lives, ecosystems, and infrastructure in Nigeria and Africa. I am thankful daily that I am serving my nation and people with my talents and directly contributing to her growth.

You’re operating in the same space as other edtechs like Alt School, Miva etc. What makes ALX different?

RI: ALX doesn’t just tech train. We have a thriving learning community, the largest across the region, which fosters peer collaboration, prototyping, wholesome soft skills development and lifelong learning among learners. We have a high rate of applicants seeing their programmes through because of our community-first approach. Also, we have a robust “ALX fellows,” a nest for graduates to exchange ideas and identify opportunities for job placements. Our learners also find jobs soon after graduation or go on to create jobs as entrepreneurs. Our mission differentiates us: we impart technical and, most importantly, soft skills that turn learners into competent and ethical leaders in society.

Sand Technologies is bullish on AI. Do you think the Nigerian market is ripe for AI?

RI: There is a current AI boom that is fueling global market gains and the world isn’t going to wait for us. The market size is projected to reach US$305.90 billion by this year, showing an annual growth rate of 15.83% between 2024 and 2030. Countries like Singapore, Canada and New Zealand are leading in AI, and Nigeria must jump in quickly. We are often reactive in the technology industry when we have the potential to be market leaders if we have faith in home-grown innovations and our talents. We have shown promising signs of technology adoption, so we must create the market and allow the free interplay of all forces.

Are there any AI-related projects that you are (the company) currently working on?

RI: Yes, we recently launched one of Africa’s flagship programs on AI called the AI Career Essentials (AiCE). It is an online six-week programme that empowers learners to use AI tools to accomplish professional tasks, ace interviews, and solve complex problems. We expose our learners to technical and knowledge skills that will position them as industry competitors within a short period. I encourage Nigerians to enrol and learn basic AI skills to boost their careers. Also, after going through the Software Engineering program, there is an Applied AI course where learners can try to build their tools.

What’s the plan for Sand Technologies in the next five years?

Ruby Igwe: We remain committed to our vision of shaping and empowering three million ethical and entrepreneurial leaders across Africa by closing the skill gap and technical challenges through the delivery of in-demand tech skills training and soft skills development. We are also investing in founders and building future tech solutions to support businesses worldwide.

When in 2016, a group of four young people collaborated to build one of the first tech incubation hubs in Kano, they had no idea that this singular goal to participate in the tech revolution happening in the country would become the foundation of the state’s tech ecosystem. In eight years, this hub, Startup Kano, has become one of the biggest in the northern region and the entry-point into tech for over 50,000 youth in Kano, helping early-stage entrepreneurs raise over $1 million for their tech-enabled businesses. 

A tech ecosystem in Kano is vastly different from ones in other parts of the country, like Lagos or Enugu, and while the growth of the former might have inspired Kano, that didn’t make building any easier.

According to Aisha Tofa, co-founder of Startup Kano, there was no blueprint for them in the beginning as the environments were severely different. There was zero tech awareness in Kano communities, and despite its deep entrepreneurial culture, the concept of investing in technology rather than actual brick-and-mortar businesses was still largely absurd.

“People understood technology only to the extent of using social media platforms like Facebook,” she said. “Anything outside that and they didn’t trust it.”

It took years of radical tech evangelism to draw the interest of young people, and subsequently investors. Now, the state has become one of the top six tech ecosystems in the country, with the most number of startups in northern Nigeria.

According to Tofa, what is responsible for the recent push for the tech entrepreneurs in Kano is witnessing the potential of technology for their counterparts in the north. 

“At first, people didn’t even try. They simply believed that their startups wouldn’t get enough funding or traction for the single reason that they were from the north and not Lagos,” she said. “But when they started to see other founders like them in the northern region who worked hard and got rewarded for it, then they woke up.”

In 2022, a mobility startup founded by Kano-born Khalil Halilu won $8,000 for the mobility and smart city category during a GITEX Pitch competition.  That same year, another northern startup, Sudo Africa, raised $3.37 million in pre-seed funding. From 2021 to 2024, the number of tech startups in Kano has jumped from five to about sixty. 

Funding has always been regarded as the principal obstacle to growth in the Nigerian tech space, more so in emerging ecosystems like Kano. In 2023, we wrote that only about 6% of tech founders from the entire northern region had access to venture capital funding. 

Tofa has a differing opinion. She believes that for an ecosystem like Kano, there are still foundational challenges that still need to be gotten right, like education, mentorship, and creating the right market. 

“There’s a huge gap between the training and impact we see in the ecosystem at the moment. A lot of us are still using the templates from other places to train Kano youth, and it’s not the right fit,” she said. “Funding is important, but the things we do before getting to where we need funding should also be focused on.” 

According to another co-founder of Startup Kano, who’d like to not be mentioned, Kano is different and the ecosystem has to adapt to the cultural context of the city to be successful.

“When we pitch tech startups as something entirely separate from the regular businesses they’re used to, then it’s even more difficult to work with,” they said. “Startups are basically businesses, which is what we know here [in Kano] and how we ought to operate.”

The co-founder, who now bootstraps their own tech-enabled business, shared that funding isn’t as important to them now as finding the market for their product. 

“Before thinking about raising money from investors, I’m already thinking about how to sell and make my profits directly from my customers, which is exactly how my own fathers did business,” they said. 

A lot of things have changed in Kano in the past few years. Beyond an increased number of startups, there are also more incubation hubs, willing investors in the city, and increased interest.

“While building is still difficult, it is definitely not as difficult as it was four years ago because there are more resources to help you now,” the anonymous co-founder said. “Global organisations, the government, and even private individuals have seen what’s possible in Kano and want to be a part of it.”

Ahmed Idris, founder of Enovate Labs, a non-profit focused on driving innovation, warned that the buzz in the ecosystem shouldn’t be confused with a big change and there’s still work to be done.

“The ecosystem is largely still as small as it was years ago, but we’ve seen some unique cases of people and startups who’ve managed to do great stuff,” he said to TechCabal. 

The Lightbox, created by Anaele Iroh, a doctoral alumnus of the Dublin Institute of Technology and the founder of Adis-energy, is a device engineered to absorb heat from the environment with little or no electricity.

“For a room that requires five kilowatts of power for an AC, a control system like mine can utilize one kilowatt of power to maintain the same temperature as with the air conditioning system,” Iroh shared. Iroh’s Lightbox device uses heat and water to dehumidify and cool spaces, utilizing less energy than required with regular ACs.

Nigeria has been feeling the heat of climate change intensely in the past year; hotter than anything the country has ever experienced. In states like Sokoto, the temperature went as high as 40.8C, and in Yola, Adamawa State, the death toll as a result of the extreme temperature reached 400 between May 1 to May 13. To cope with the scorching heat, there has been increased usage of energy-guzzling fans and air conditioning units which generate severe heat and greenhouse gasses, creating further complications for the environment. 

According to this report, the air conditioner market in the past year is experiencing a surge in demand due to the rising temperature and these cooling devices are some of the biggest energy consumers around. A standard banking hall in Nigeria uses a minimum of two portable air conditioners, which consume between 3,000 to 5,000 watts of energy per hour, depending on size. Iroh believes that he can solve this problem, and in April 2024, he presented the Union Bank branch in his hometown, Mbaise, with the Lightbox, which could keep their banking halls and offices cool with 75% less energy. 

While his solution was met with a lot of skepticism earlier, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a paper a couple of years later on the same discovery that light, instead of heat, could be used for desalination.

According to Gang Chen, a power engineering professor at the institution, the discovery of desalination is especially crucial for the development of clean energy which would impact the climate-tech space.

Iroh who has a Ph.D from the Dublin Institute of Technology believes that the problem of Nigeria’s climate problem must be approached from a Nigerian perspective rather than a Western one. 

“I’ve been trying to influence the global debate on climate change, because if these countries get it wrong, then every other country —like Nigeria—  gets it wrong.”

According to the World Economic Forum, heat from machines like heating and cooling devices, industrial machines, etc is one of the biggest challenges in tackling climate change, yet the bulk of the focus of climate solutions is only focused on decarbonizing cars and electricity.

“For people in a country like Nigeria, the solution to climate change isn’t things like not flying airplanes or electric cars. Elon Musk could sell one million Teslas and it won’t affect the person living in Sokoto state, because fossil fuel is not their problem,” Iroh said.

Oghosa Erhahon, an energy and sustainability specialist, also believes in a specialized approach to climate change. According to her, the climate crisis is peculiar to different regions and the solutions must mirror those peculiarities.

“There isn’t one blanket solution to the climate crisis,” she shared. “People from different regions have to find their solutions and voices in responding to the climate crisis, which is a shame because that’s not what’s happening in Nigeria right now.”

For the past year, Iroh has struggled to convince investors to invest in his device due to the novelty of the idea. In 2019, he almost secured  $2 million in funding from PFan, until his financial advisors disrupted the deal as they still weren’t convinced it would work. 

“If we were doing something predictable or known, then I think we’d have had more success with funding,” he said.

“I’ve had to build everything by myself from scratch, including selling everything I own to keep working. It’s only now that we have demonstration units we can give to people to try out that we’re getting some requests for funding.”

In 2023, climate tech became a big deal. Investors, who previously didn’t pay much regard to the sector, signed off $1 billion of the entire funding on the continent ($3.5 billion) to that area. Despite this rush, the funding is concentrated in areas of climate change like electric vehicles that have become popular in the last few years. 

According to Erhahon, one of the reasons for this is simply the high risk attached to funding climate tech, especially one that requires hardware.

 “Most climate tech requires devices that have to be built from scratch, and most likely with parts imported from other parts of the world. It’s complicated, and that can turn investors off.”

Joash Lee, an angel investor, shares that another reason why it’s tough to fund climate tech is due to the large amount of money that it typically requires to make a difference. 

“Climate tech startups need more capital —about four to five times more than fintechs, for example—which is more than most early-stage VCs provide,” he wrote. “Private equity firms also tend to stay away, as they generally prefer to invest in cash flow-positive businesses.”

“Also, these solutions require deep technical knowledge to evaluate, and investors who lack the expertise typically steer clear of these deals, until the knowledge becomes more mainstream like EVs, for instance,” 

In the meantime, Iroh is focused on finetuning his device to more aesthetically appealing models and pitching them to banks and other large energy-consuming spaces like airports, hotels and churches. 

The 22-year-old content creator’s growth has been stunning, with an Instagram following that has grown from 300,000 in 2023 to over two million today. On a social media platform where engagement is the foremost metric, Layi has so far enjoyed the highest engagement rate on Instagram in 2024, outpacing other Nigerian skitmakers like Taooma, Broda Shaggi, and Sabinus. 

Despite these early successes, content creators like Layi Wasabi know they’re in a space where a notoriously fickle audience constantly changes its preferences. The punchline is that staying power requires more than humour.

For a while, the formula for virality stayed the same: slapstick, action-packed humour that may get some knocks for being simplistic. But Layi hasn’t taken the well-trodden path. Instead, he leans on familiar characters and pokes fun at stereotypes. In his Cost of Loving sketch, Mr. Richard tells a client, “The circle of friends you have determines the circumference of the earth to you,” as he talks him into joining GNCC, a fictional pyramid scheme. 

These kinds of schemes are common in Nigeria. In 2016, three million Nigerians lost ₦18 billion to MMM, a popular Ponzi scheme with Russian roots.

While Layi has perfected this method of using the familiar to create relatable content, he’s hardly a pioneer. 

“If you closely follow skit characters, you’ll see that several other comedians have picked up the schtick but dropped it too early or didn’t refine it,” says Olufemi Oguntamu, Layi’s manager. 

“As soon as we saw The Law, we knew there was a space for such a character in the skit market, and we were convinced that Layi could pull it off.”

“The first series of The Law skits I dropped blew up on social media,” said Layi. “I knew that we were here.”

The business of laughter: Platform and monetization strategies

Part of Layi’s strategy is to focus primarily on skits while establishing himself in the comedy industry. He can make people laugh in one minute, which is less complex to achieve than the longer-form content on YouTube favoured by creators like Lasisi and Mr Macaroni. 

While his first viral video was on TikTok in 2020, he is now more active on Instagram and posts only occasionally on TikTok.

The move to Instagram was strategic. Layi Wasabi and his team believe Reels appeals to a broader audience and is the preferred app for his target market: millennials and Gen Zs. 

Instagram is also a popular choice for influencer marketing, the primary way creators like him make money. Unlike their counterparts in America and Canada, African creators do not have monetisation available on Meta platforms like Instagram, where the majority of Layi’s audience is. 

Now that Layi has established a strong presence on Instagram, he is working on expanding to other platforms like YouTube. 

“He wants to do a lot on YouTube to take advantage of the monetization available to creators there, but also doesn’t want to do the same kind of content as he does on Instagram,” he shared. “We’re taking our time, but Layi will be on YouTube very soon.”

While sponsored posts do not get as much engagement as original skits – as the internet audience is notoriously averse to ads, influencer marketing remains one of the most popular marketing strategies. 

In March 2024, Meta announced that their platforms will open up direct monetization to African creators where they’ll be able to get paid based on the number of plays their reels get. 

Dealing with an evolving audience

Audience size affects a creator’s ability to monetise, and although valuable to the influencer, is also dynamic and can be volatile. Instagram’s algorithm prioritises engagement, leaving creators scrambling to adapt their content as audience preferences shift. 

“It’s much easier to navigate your audience and their preferences when you’re a macro influencer. When you have millions of followers, it’s hard to navigate their preferences,” Layi shared with TechCabal.

For Layi, it’s not just about the laughs, it’s about understanding what the audience wants, even when it means creating content he doesn’t love. 

He typically creates content on a whim, but there are occasions when he consults with his team of seven on whether or not certain ideas work for his brand and the type of audience he has. 

“There’s some ideas that I may be feeling, but I share with my team and they think it’s not great [in terms of what the audience would like],” Layi said. “And there are some ideas they [my team] suggest to me that I’m not interested in but we go ahead and execute anyway.”

“There are also ideas the team shared with me because they feel like there should be a Layi Wasabi content around this subject matter,”  

Keeping up with shrinking attention spans

Unlike long-form skits, Layi’s content doesn’t always require scriptwriters. As soon as the content idea is established, Layi works with his team to execute it. He has a team of seven, comprising his manager, road manager, scriptwriter, personal assistant, client service manager, production manager, and editor. Execution, which takes one to three days, including production, covers where to shoot and what kind of actors to hire.  

Since he started creating content in 2015, a lot has changed in the content creator industry, with one of such being shrinking attention spans. According to a CNN report, the average attention span to a screen is now about 47 seconds from the two and half minutes it was in 2004.

Layi Wasabi understands the value of brevity. His skits, meticulously created to hit the sweet spot between 60 – 90 seconds, keep the audience hooked from start to finish.

“With Instagram, people had some patience for content that’s between one to three minutes long,” he shared. “However, I think TikTok is taking us back to fast-paced content [like with Vine]. People want you to get your points across as fast as possible. They don’t have the patience for four or five-minute content, except they’re core fans.”

Another thing that is significantly different from when he started is the engagement metrics. When he began creating content on TikTok and Twitter,  7,000 retweets or likes signalled that the audience loved the video. 

“Once that number gets to 10K, it means the video was epic.”

Now, his videos average 50K likes on Twitter and over 100K on the clock app, occasionally going as high as 600K.

“Instagram is hard to tell for me, but I average about 100K likes for original content there. If it does 200K then it’s great content.”

*Editor’s Note: Rate prices have been removed at the interviewee’s request.

Tijani, who has been vocal about his plans to shape the direction of AI in the country, believes that AI is at the helm of the digital conversation now, and Nigeria needs to be a part of that, or risk being left behind. 

He’s not wrong. 

AI has seen robust investment across the world with AI-related startups raising about $50 billion globally in 2023 alone. Investors and tech companies are putting unprecedented amounts of money into the sector as they have recognised the huge financial returns, as well as the access and innovation that AI is unlocking. Africa alone could see its economy expand by $1.5 trillion if it can capture 10% of the growing AI investment, according to a report. Currently, Africa holds less than 1% of the AI market, and the majority of AI-related projects are surface-level, with investors being unsure if the continent has what it takes to build deeply-rooted AI solutions that can move the needle enough.

According to Olu Oyinsan, managing partner of Oui Capital, Nigeria is in the stage of using AI rather than building AI startups like the rest of the world. 

“There are the fundamental models which are capable of taking large amounts of data, and there are AI models that include just using AI as a part of its tech stack—which is where we’re at,” he said.

Oui Capital has five startups in their portfolio that deploy AI, including Duplo, Ndovu, and Maad; and Oyinsan believes that is the more sustainable model of AI introduction on the continent. 

What chance does Africa have in the AI race?

According to Oyinsan, the jury is still out on whether or not Africa can catch up to the rest of the world on the foundational level of AI. The major reason being that the continent doesn’t seem to have the resources—like technical talent—required to build AI startups. 

“Because tech talent is now more borderless than it used to be, most of the brilliant AI engineers in Africa are not working for African companies,” he said. “They’re developing foundational models for companies outside Africa, which is more lucrative for them, and that is the real problem we have to tackle before we can have an actual African AI movement.”

Between 2022 and 2023, African AI-focused startups in general received a total of $641 million in investments from VCs.  In Asia, this figure was as high as $3 billion, with a single startup, Moonshot AI, securing $1 billion in a funding round.

“I wouldn’t say that as investors, we’re looking for AI startups in Africa, but we recognize that startups that can successfully use AI into their existing stack will probably outdo their competitors,” he said. “We’re already behind on the AI arms race, but we’re not behind on the application level. Companies here can use already developed models to plug and play into a tech stack or further develop and customize it for what they need it to do.”

Ayobamigbe Teriba, a venture partner at the HoaQ syndicate community, is more optimistic. He believes that beyond solutions that use AI, building successful AI startups in Africa is achievable and crucial. According to him, innovators on the continent have to find a way to build out these fundamentals that ensure representation and inclusion in the “next innovation paradigm”.

“Building foundational data models in Africa using African data is extremely important,” he said. “We may lose out on major corporate development activities (acquisitions) from foreign corporations in the future if we cannot build AI products that reflect the Nigerian/African reality.”

Teriba believes that heavy investment has to be made into ensuring that African companies can accomplish this, and he is optimistic that, for a country like Nigeria, this won’t take too long.

“The AI groundwork, such as building Large Language Models (LLMs) is underway, catalysed—interestingly—by the public sector [ministry of communications, innovation and digital economy]. I believe that there will be increased capital flows into this vertical, taking a cue from investor enthusiasm in the public markets,” he said.

In 2023, Africa’s pioneering AI startup, InstaDeep, was acquired by a German biotech company BioNTech in a deal worth $684 million. InstaDeep was one of the only AI-focused startups from the continent that scaled to a global level, and Teriba is convinced that the continent could see more of this if the initial investment is made to cultivate them.

According to InstaDeep’s cofounder, Karim Beguir, one of the major reasons why they founded the startup was to show that Africa had the potential to build AI and deep tech solutions.

“The large players like Open AI and Microsoft are not necessarily going to be the ones to solve the problems of Africa,” he said. 

One of the biggest challenges that InstaDeep has had to navigate is finding and retaining talent and while the solution for them was to offer stock options alongside mouth-watering financial benefits, this is not realistic for other AI companies on the continent amidst stiff competition from AI giants in other parts of the world.

In Nairobi, the Artificial Intelligence Centre for Excellence (AICE) led by John Kamara is working to find a way around this by training AI engineers for the continent.

Kevin Simmons, a venture capitalist at LoftyInc Capital, shared that more organisations and startups like AICE are building in the fundamental AI space, but aren’t visible due to the sheer time it takes for these larger models to be built and tested. 

“It’s too early to conclude whether or not African countries are left behind in the AI race,” he said.

This had a significant impact on private capital activity on the continent in 2023, as the economic uncertainty pushed fund managers into being more wary and prudent with their investment strategies. 

In April 2024, The African Private Capital Association (AVCA) released its 2023 African Private Capital Activity Report which provides insight into dealmaking, fundraising, exits and the key trends shaping Africa’s private capital landscape. For over two decades, AVCA has been focused on enabling and championing private investment in Africa. 

Here are five interesting things we learned from the report:

1. The African market was more resilient than expected 

According to the report, there was a notable decrease of 28% in Africa’s total private capital deal volume, bringing the total number of deals to 450. Despite this downturn, Africa displayed surprising resilience, performing better than other developing regions and still managing to achieve $5.9 billion deal value —the second-strongest year on record for deal volume in Africa. This surpassed both the decade-long average and recent years’ averages, and was primarily driven by two large infrastructure investments in the South African renewable energy sector of above $250 million each. 

2. Tech and clean energy received the most attention

Venture capital (VC) remained the star of the show, attracting 68% of all private capital investment in Africa. This trend reflects the continued interest of investors in backing tech-driven businesses across the continent’s rapidly growing markets since 2015. After VC, infrastructure also saw a significant surge in investment values which tripled to $1.8 billion, and was largely driven by renewable energy projects. According to the report, investors and experts are convinced of the continent’s potential to become a leader in clean energy transition in the coming years.

3. Southern Africa is now investors’ favourite investment destination

Southern Africa made a comeback in 2023, reclaiming its position as a top investment hub. The region attracted the highest volume (26%) and value of deals ($2.6 billion) with South Africa in front amidst growth in sectors like IT, software, logistics, and transportation. West Africa attracted only 11% of the total value of private capital deals on the continent, after Southern Africa and North Africa; a sizeable decline from 2022 where it got 23% of the total private capital value while Southern Africa drew 19%.

4. Investors are still interested in Africa

While final closed funds —funds ready for investment— declined slightly, the average value of capital raised for private debt and VC funds increased. Despite the global recession which was speculated to dampen investors’ spirits, there was some growth in interim fundraising activity (capital raised throughout the year) which suggests that investors are still interested in the continent. Africa experienced a 9% decrease in the total value of fundraising, while Asia experienced an alarming 39% decline. Europe’s decline was moderate at just 2%.

5. Exits are lower than in 2022, but still in line with the average 

There were 43 exits in 2023, which is only about half of the 82 we saw in 2022; but this is still more than the 32 and 36 exits recorded in 2020 and 2021 respectively. South Africa remains the most active exit market, affirming to is status as the prime destination on the continent for mature investments.

While there was only one IPO exit, there were seven through management sales buyouts (MBOs)/private sales; 18 through trade buyers; and 14 through private equity and financial buyers. For the first time since 2015, there were no exits via the private equity routes within the financial services sector, which was one of the most popular routes in 2022. 

To read the full report, click here.

Across the country, there are millions of music lovers like Obishai, who download songs from stream ripping sites or use the free tiers of music streaming services due to inability to afford such subscriptions or plain disregard for the value of the art. According to a report, Nigerians spend an average of 31 hours weekly — much more than the global average of 20.7 hours — listening to music, especially Afrobeats. And while there are now more people who are paying for music streaming platforms than five years ago, it’s not nearly enough revenue for the kind of growth the industry is witnessing.

The global music industry is dancing to the rhythm of streaming, with 67.3 percent of all music revenue worldwide generated from digital subscriptions to streaming platforms. In March 2024, The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) released the Global Music Report for 2023, which disclosed that streaming brought in 67 percent of the $28.6 billion realised in 2023, leaving the sales of physical copies and performance rights trailing behind with 17.8 percent and 9.5 percent respectively.

Sub-Saharan Africa had the fastest growth out of all global regions. It was the only one to surpass 20 percent growth as revenues climbed by 24.7 percent , fuelled by the growing popularity of Afrobeats and Amapiano tunes worldwide. Interestingly, while the Nigerian music industry is the largest on the continent, consistently churning out global hits and achieving billboard ranks; South Africa, the second largest music industry, has remained the most profitable music market in the region, bringing in the bigger bucks. According to the report, the rainbow nation contributes 77 percent to music revenue in sub-Saharan Africa — an impressive 19.9 percent growth from the previous year.

Joey Akan, a music journalist, isn’t surprised by this twist, as he shared that the Nigerian music industry has a long way to go before reaching profitability like its well-oiled South African counterpart.

“South Africans have a more structured industry. They have all their collection society rights which is basically a fanbase that values music and a government that punishes piracy. If you put all of these together, you have a better environment for music to generate more money,” he shared with TechCabal.

“It’s taken us about 30 years to build what this industry currently is, while South Africans were able to clock the system and build a functional industry which works for them. We have the artists to brag about, as well as the fanbases and cultural commitment to Afrobeats, but are missing one of the most important elements, which is the [revenue] numbers. This is why we cannot have access to certain deals and attract certain investments.”

While creatives across the world tussle with the illegal distribution of their work, Nigerian artists deal with a much more sophisticated version where bootlegged versions of their music might be even more popular than the original versions on streaming platforms. Nigeria was named the worst place in Africa to be a creative as it has the largest market in Africa for goods which infringe on intellectual property rights. Original physical copies of albums are almost nonexistent in the Nigerian industry, as pirated copies are already the norm.

Outside of the lack of regard for the value of music, Akan believes that the broader economy also has played a climacteric role in music revenue for the two countries as richer countries are more likely to have higher-yielding industries. The South African rand is stronger than the Nigerian naira, with one rand equaling over 70 naira. 

“It’s not new information that in Nigeria, everything competes with food,” he said. “The money the average Nigerian will pay for Apple Music can be diverted to pay for lunch.”

This means that for music artists in Nigeria, the biggest revenue opportunity lies in their music reaching international audiences across the Atlantic who bring in the juicier revenue; as the majority of their local fans cannot afford to pay for these streaming services.

*Kamal Chude, a popular artiste in Lagos is yet to get the “streaming cake” even after four years of making music, as he doesn’t consider the his earnings significant enough to withdraw yet. *Chude, who is in a two-year contract with a local distribution company he says isn’t transparent at all, has found himself still doing the bulk of the distribution work for his music despite having a 70:30 revenue split agreement. 

“I worked with them on one song, which is my biggest so far, and there isn’t much to show for it on the backends. I didn’t even get access to it until I brought my lawyer into the conversation. We checked the logs and found out that the streaming platforms that were on the list were not up to five. Meanwhile, the song was available on all the Digital Service Providers (DSPs) you can think of,” he shared.

Will partnerships save the music industry?

Distribution and record companies play a vital role in boosting artists and nurturing the industry’s growth, especially in today’s hyper-competitive global market, where social media platforms like TikTok are changing the game with their content-heavy environment.

Tunji Balogun, Chairman & CEO, of Def Jam Recordings, shared that one of the strategies that can be deployed for this growth is forging partnerships. 

“When it comes to music coming out of Sub-Saharan Africa, we’ve partnered with a label from Nigeria called Native. I felt strongly that I wanted to work with people that have a genuine connection to the culture on the continent,” he shared. 

In September 2023, Def Jam signed a Nigerian rapper,  Odumodublvck, who was one of the biggest new artists on the continent with over 252 million Spotify streams. Two of his songs, Declan Rice and Blood on the Dance Floor, were some of the top-streamed Nigerian songs in 2023.

Capital will always move to where it’ll find a profit, and more global labels are partnering with local names. Seventeen months after Def Jam and Native Records signed a partnership deal, Mavin Records, another heavyweight in the music ring, announced that the majority of its stake had been acquired by Universal Music Group (UMG) in a deal that is speculated to be worth about $125 million. The deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2024, will give Mavin artists unhindered access to the resources at UMG, furthering their reach. 

This is excellent for the industry, except that it feels like deja vu for industry professionals like Akan. The journalist cuts through the positivity with blunt honesty, and shares that until the structural problems are solved, the challenges in the industry will erode all positive development. 

“We need to increase the numbers we have outside their [the West’s]  influence. We need to know that they can take whatever percentage of our money and numbers or this crop of artists, and we’ll still have the base to successfully nurture new artists and make money independently in the future.”

In 2023, Ali Baba, one of Nigeria’s veteran comedians, nearly broke the internet when he shared that popular Nigerian skit-maker, Mark Angel earned over $300,000 monthly from his YouTube videos. The 32-year-old creator, became an internet sensation in 2016 when skits of antics with his little cousin Emmanuella started going viral. 

Skit-making is almost synonymous with comedy in Nigeria today. What started as a niche industry is now the third-largest entertainment industry in the country, worth about ₦50 billion ($34 million). At first, the process of creating this content was basic, requiring only a cell phone, editing skills and an internet connection. Now, as the industry grows and becomes more global, the skit-making process has become more complex; requiring larger teams, more money to execute, and a more strategic plan.

For over six years, Olufemi Oguntamu, CEO of Penzaarville Africa, has worked in the Nigerian creator space. His company, a talent management and media agency, is responsible for some of the biggest content creators and skit-makers in the country, including Broda Shaggi, Kie Kie, and Mr Macaroni, among others. 

According to a report published by Selar, in which they surveyed 2,000 digital creators, 29.3% of creators start hiring immediately after entering the business, while the majority of the sample study size, 37.6%, hired staff after six months. Due to the nature of their job, which requires a constant churn out of high-quality content, many creators often need to hire people to work with them to meet this demand. While production needs and costs differ from creator to creator, it’s almost impossible to do the work alone, no matter how small the project is.

“We have videographers, supporting actors, scriptwriters, production managers and assistants, make-up artists and costumiers, gaffers, and sometimes even a director,” he shared. “Sometimes, for the more popular creators, like Brodda Shaggi or Layi, we also hire security guards as shooting outdoors in Lagos can draw a lot of unwanted attention.”

Talent is often hired on a project basis, but some are more permanent than others, like production managers, who handle everything from liaising with other talent to planning and managing the creator’s time. The permanent employees are paid salaries, while other talents like videographers and makeup artists are paid on a project basis. Even after shooting, the post-production crew takes over; from the editors to special effects guys, to those who specialise in colour-grading. These people are hired to handle the post-production of these videos and digital products before they are ready for distribution. 

Many creators have different reasons for hiring, though the most obvious seems to be not having enough time to handle all the responsibilities that come with the job. The report from Selar confirms this:

On average, it takes about a week to produce and release a skit, and the costs can vary from between ₦800,000 to ₦1 million per skit on average, according to Oguntamu.

The effort put into these skits comes with a lot of material rewards. These skits attract millions of viewers and engagement to their social media pages. In 2023, Mark Angel gained over 197 million views on his Instagram account, which currently has about 3.15 million followers. Newcomer, Layi Wasabi, had the second-highest engagement, with 133.2 million views and 1.6 million followers, while Sabinus had 130 million views in total.

These numbers translate beyond stats to real money as these creators or skit-makers charge big bucks for promotion. Skitmakers can charge as high as ₦3 – 5 million for sponsored posts on Instagram, according to Oguntamu. Platforms like Facebook and YouTube offer direct monetisation options where they pay creators directly for their content.

“YouTube is a big market. Apart from monetising, it opens you up to a larger audience, even outside Africa. It’s interesting to note that creators who have a large audience outside Africa in places like Asia, Europe, and America, are paid more than those who have the majority of their audience residing here in Africa.”

Oguntamu adds that in order for creators to maximise their monetisation opportunities, it’s important for skit-makers to find their niche, and build a brand in order to be able to secure brand ambassadorships and partnerships when the proverbial stream of advertorial income dries up.

Beyond platform monetisation, there are ample opportunities available for creators. Endorsement deals, brand collaborations, and even physical appearances.

In Nigeria, freelancing is a thriving market, especially for creative, non-technical skills like writing. According to the World Bank, there are an estimated 17.5 million online freelancers in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, with most of them being from Nigeria. In its 2023 freelancer report, Payoneer, a payment service used by Upwork, also shared that the countries with the highest number of users outside the USA are Bangladesh, Nigeria, and India. Upwork and Fiverr, another freelance platform, provide freelancers the chance to trade in-demand services for some dollars, but the emergence of artificial intelligence threatens to disrupt this flow. 

Since its release in 2022, the chatbot ChatGPT has been widely used in writing. While some writers use ChatGPT to improve their processes, small business owners are increasingly using it to create content, cutting out the need to hire writers. On social media, for example, there are thousands of videos and threads teaching people how to leverage AI writing and designing tools to secure freelance jobs without any prior knowledge or experience. It is increasing competition in an already-saturated freelance market.

Double the hustle for half the pay

According to Onyi, payment rates for simple gigs on Upwork have dropped significantly in the past year as competition on the app is now steep. Clients went from offering about $100 for 10K words to half the amount as there are always freelancers desperate enough to accept meagre pay.

This situation has led Onyi to secure twice as many clients as she would normally take on in order to meet her income target. This is more tedious, but she’s found tools that make her work faster. According to her, about 60% of the words in her drafts, especially the novels, are generated by AI tools.

“I have to write quickly to attend to the next project,” she shared with TechCabal. “Sometimes I have to write something I don’t know about and so I need these tools. If I don’t take the low-paying jobs, others will, and there’s no guarantee that I’ll get the higher-paying ones either. In the time I’d wait for one $100 job, I could have completed four $20 jobs or two $50 jobs.”

Onyi is not alone, as this situation, coupled with global inflation, is placing additional pressure on freelancers to take on more work. In this report which had 2,000 freelancers surveyed from over 120 countries, 55% of them admitted to taking on more work just to meet up with income demands.

Beyond the most popular freelance marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork, smaller marketplaces also feel AI’s impact on the interaction between talent and clients. Femi Taiwo, CEO of Nigerian freelance marketplace, Terawork, shared that his company has seen a slight decline in the number of gigs available and the rates offered. 

“Apart from the freelancers, I know people who have let their contract staff go because they felt that they were too expensive for the services they were offering,” he said. “After all, why should they pay so much for an analyst when AI can create reports for you?”

According to Taiwo, freelancers on his platform earn more than popular platforms like Upwork and Fiverr, on average, and produce better-quality results.

Toyosi Godwin, a freelance content and copywriter, was forced to leave Fiverr as a result of the paltry pay. Godwin, who has offered writing services for the past five years, shared that, at some point, he was getting offered $5 to $10 per article on the platform. He knew he had to leave to find clients elsewhere. Now, he gets clients mainly from social media, which guarantees significantly more pay.

Godwin is aware a lot of writers use AI tools to save time and take on more work. “When you get paid this small amount for your work, you will likely not want to invest a lot of your time and effort into it,” he said. 

The bulk of gigs on platforms like Upwork and Fiverr are targeted towards freelancers from the Global South, and this is evident from the low compensation offered. A 1,000-word article can receive as low as $20 as payment. A sizable number of clients who cannot afford or are unwilling to pay for full-time staff outsource on these sites, specifically targeting talent who are desperate enough to accept these rates. In this global freelancers report by Payoneer, freelancers from Africa and Asia have lower hourly rates on average, compared to their counterparts in North America and Western Europe.

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Projects with higher price tags are more expensive, in terms of time, money and qualifications. According to Onyi, these gigs with higher pay typically state clearly that only writers from certain countries like the United States, are welcome to apply. 

“Getting good projects from Nigeria is difficult, and most clients immediately lose interest as soon as they realise that you’re Nigerian or black,” she shared. 

These gigs also cost a lot to secure for new freelancers. On Upwork, users need “connects”, which are essentially tokens used to bid on job opportunities. One hundred and fifty connects cost about $30, and the higher the job’s pay, the more connects you need. 

“If you can’t afford to pay for connects to secure better jobs, then you’re stuck with the low-paying ones,” Onyi said.

Redefining the value of work for freelancers

Jasmine-Jade, a freelance writer for over five years, typically has a lot of clients and doesn’t need to use freelance marketplaces. According to her, the bulk of her freelance opportunities come from referrals and inbound marketing, as opposed to what she calls “sitting on platforms and waiting”.

Because a lot of these clients come to meet her, she’s able to set her rates which are higher than if she were on a freelance marketplace where the price already was specified and hundreds of people are already bidding.

While she’s had several friends and colleagues lowballed by clients on these marketplaces, it’s not something that she has experienced herself.

Despite market realities, Taiwo believes that freelancers can still get paid decent rates depending on how well they position themselves and offer value.

“Now, freelancers, especially in Nigeria, have to provide more value beyond what they were doing before that will make them stand out,” he shared. “There are AI tools for graphic design but people still employ graphic designers because they know that the result they’ll be getting is more unique.”

According to him, while AI is threatening the value of freelancers, the effects of the 2023 layoffs make up for this decline, and more businesses are laying off full-time staff to employ freelancers as they have realised that it’s a less-expensive alternative.

“Some freelancers might be losing jobs and getting paid less but some are seeing more opportunities now,” he said. “If you have a track record of doing good, quality work that people can see, then people will always see your value.”

Pamela Ephraim, a journalist, understands the concept of value as a freelancer on Upwork. The writer and editor who started using the platform in 2022 had a hard time finding well-paying gigs at first. After two projects which paid her $10 each, she reached out to someone with more experience navigating the platform who put her through a series of Zoom meetings, profile optimisation tips, and YouTube tutorials. She updated her profile to show all her work qualifications and added useful writing samples, and she was strategic about applying only for projects within her niche and a certain pay range, as that gave her some exclusivity.

“In about a month, I landed my first $150 gig which was for a 1,000-word article,” Ephraim said. “I’ve been on the platform since then.”

Ephraim no longer has to apply profusely as she did in the beginning and her profile now brings in gigs she didn’t apply for. According to her, apart from writing convincing proposals and optimising your profile, one of the most effective tips she can share is to treat freelancing as one would a full-time job.

“Initially, I treated it as a part-time hustle and didn’t put a lot of effort into it,” she said. “You need to treat it as you would an actual job and also ask clients to leave good reviews. Platforms like Upwork thrive on good reviews.”

When asked if she wasn’t bothered about being phased out of employment by AI, she said she didn’t think it would ever happen. The future of freelance storytelling belongs to creatives who cannot be replaced with AI, she said.

A week ago, when Titilayo had ordered the shoes from Lagos and the vendor asked what delivery options she preferred, Titilayo hadn’t realised that the real cost of the price difference between the options meant not wearing the shoes for her wedding at all. She had been presented with three options: ₦18,000 for next-day doorstep delivery via DHL; ₦7,500 for doorstep delivery which would take three to five days; and ₦5,000 for a package drop at the nearest motor park (the delivery station), from where she could pick the shoes up. Titilayo lived less than 10 minutes away from the park and three to five days seemed like a reasonable wait time for her shoes to arrive; she chose the third option. 

Her shoes did get delivered to the station all right, but Titilayo had already worn something else for her wedding: a pair of champagne-gold sandals her sister had hurriedly purchased from the nearby market that morning. They were nothing close to what she wanted, but she didn’t have the time to be choosy.

Titilayo is one of many customers who have to experience delayed deliveries due to the increased cost of more efficient methods.

In February 2024, DHL increased the prices of their deliveries in Nigeria by 100%. Their reason was pretty obvious: the naira was devaluating and increasing operational costs for the company faster than they were able to make profit. 

In the past month, the price of sending a 2kg box that’s about 45cm in length and 20 cm in height from Abuja to Lagos via DHL has increased from ₦20,000 to ₦39,000. People might be able to justify paying exorbitant delivery fees for more expensive items like generators or refrigerators, but not a lot are willing to pay that much for shoes or dresses. This has pushed small business owners in the country into exploring other delivery options which are more tedious, delay-laden, and unsafe.

In an email sent to partners in February, DHL wrote:

“As a network business, we face the constant pressure of balancing currency exchange rates and we make the necessary budgetary decisions to counteract these effects where possible. Unfortunately, the situation in Nigeria has continued to surpass our budgeted levels.

“To ensure operational continuity and keep connecting the world with high-quality service, DHL will levy a Currency Surcharge to all Time Definite International (TDI) shipments. The surcharge percentage will be 100 percent, effective March 1, 2024, and is applicable to transportation charges.”

Iman Muhammad is the founder of Iman Hammad, a fashion brand based in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja. The businesswoman, who has a large customer base in Lagos, shared that she’s lost several customers in the past two months due to the inflated delivery costs.

Express deliveries from Abuja to Lagos used to cost about ₦20,000 via DHL and were affordable for most of her clients until the price hike on March 1. Now, the same package costs about ₦48,000, which many clients find unreasonable. 

“To some extent, I understand them,” she shared. “How do you buy a dress for ₦45,000 and spend over ₦40,000 transporting it?”

To meet her customers’ demands for swift deliveries, Muhammad began going to the motor park in Jabi to waybill the items so they reached Lagos the next day. Despite being cheaper, it soon proved to be unsustainable as it was an incredibly stressful process. 

“I got a lot of calls from clients about how rude the drivers were, which was affecting my brand,” she said. “And even when I got a dispatch rider in Lagos to pick up on my behalf, it was such a hassle coordinating the entire process, and so I gave up.”

Now, Muhammad uses SendBox, a logistics service based in Abuja. While it takes about five working days to deliver clothes to clients outside Abuja, it costs her about ₦7,000 for each package—about the same amount she paid for waybills.

When logistics companies broke into the Nigerian e-commerce space, their premise was simple: providing a faster way to send parcels from one part of the country to another. Unfortunately, the naira came tumbling, crushing everything in its fall, including promises of logistical ease. As long as economic factors strain the logistics sector, small businesses and consumers will be locked in a battle between affordability and efficiency.

Hera Samaila, who lives in Abuja, runs Hera’s Closet, a popular social media clothing store in Lagos. While a large number of her customers are within the state, she has a healthy client base in other cities outside like Abuja and Port Harcourt. In the four years since she’s been running her store, she has experimented with different delivery channels in a bid to find the most sustainable option for her buyers in other states. 

At first, Samaila started using night buses to deliver to clients as they were cheaper than options like DHL and arrived the next day. She soon realised that this option was risky business as she was left stranded after several incidents involving broken-down vehicles and truant drivers.

“These people [the motor park drivers] have no insurance for your items, and if anything happens, you alone will bear the cost,” she shared. “I get a lot of customers now who ask me to use that option so they get their orders faster, but I don’t oblige.”

While Samaila has found an interstate delivery service that costs between ₦6,000 and ₦7,000 and takes three days on average, there are still some customers who complain about the costs. 

Samaila has tried several different tricks to lessen the load of delivery fees for her customers. Some of these include subsiding delivery costs, an endeavour she soon had to give up as it was eating into her profits; arranging for shared deliveries; offering stockpiling for up to three months; and even driving around Abuja to drop off packages herself.

Lola Oyegunle, who sells shoes on Instagram, typically uses a small air freight service to bulk-send orders to cities like Abuja and Benin and then have her representative there dispatch individual orders. According to Oyegunle, this ensured that her clients received their parcels in good time and was also cheaper than using the service for individual doorstep deliveries.

In the past two months, however, the price of next-day deliveries has doubled, forcing her to seek out other delivery methods, all of which take longer to arrive.

“I have to explain to customers that not only have the prices of shoes almost doubled due to the currency devaluation, but that delivery costs have followed,” she said. 

The cost of an economy one-way flight ticket from Lagos to Abuja now ranges from ₦90,000 to ₦145,000. In October 2023, these tickets sold for between ₦55,000 to ₦70,000. Within the last four months, flight prices have risen as high as 100% in some cases, with stakeholders blaming jet fuel prices and other operational costs. 

Osita Okonkwo, chief operating officer of United Nigeria Airlines, shared that the naira inflation has affected multiple facets of their operations, including the purchase of aviation fuel, which first went from ₦800 to ₦1,000 per litre in October 2023, and then rose to ₦1,300 in February this year.

According to him, all airlines operating in the country were forced to increase their prices or face even more losses than they currently do.

Oyegunle now uses slower but cheaper delivery methods and uses only the air freight service for specific customers who request next-day deliveries. 

International deliveries aren’t left out of the price-hike conversation. In December, shipping a 2kg parcel from Nigeria to the United Kingdom cost about ₦30,000 and ₦33,000 to the United States and Canada. In the past month, however, these fees have almost doubled. 

Sending a 2kg parcel from Nigeria to the UK and the US now costs about ₦65,000 and ₦75,000 respectively via companies like ShipNaija, according to Muhammad.

Fuelled by rising internet penetration and the youth population, Nigeria is one of the largest markets for e-commerce in the world, with a projected revenue of $2.6 billion by the end of 2024. The last-mile logistics space has fed into e-commerce growth and is now one of the fastest-growing on the continent despite the challenges facing the sector. In the past year, the sector has been hit with a number of policy challenges including a fuel subsidy removal and currency devaluation which have significantly affected operations.