Ayomikun Idowu
Nigerians are often described as entrepreneurial, resilient and hardworking. Yet enormous individual effort continues to produce far less national prosperity than it should. The deeper challenge is not a shortage of productive people, but the failure to build institutions, infrastructure and systems that allow their productivity to translate into sustained economic transformation.
Nigeria’s labour market is changing faster than the categories used to describe it. Platform work, remote jobs and digital freelancing are creating new forms of employment and income that often disappear inside broad labels such as self-employment and informality.
Many Nigerian sources of livelihood become digital long before they become formal. In my research with digital workers and small businesses in Nigeria, I met people who ran much of their economic lives from their phones. They advertised on Instagram. They negotiated with customers on WhatsApp. They received bank transfers, arranged deliveries through apps and […]
A DIGIT Research article on social media platforms as an alternative route to digital retail for young people in Africa.