General News
Software Can Generate $10b Annually if Harnessed-Obaro
John Obaro is the managing director of SystemSpecs. He has had a distinguished IT management career and is regarded as one of the most respected personalities in the Nigerian IT industry.
Under his leadership, and with a team of professionals with varied experience, SystemSpecs has attained the enviable position of Nigeria’s leading software house and aspiring to become the de-facto software institution in Africa.
Before establishing Systemspecs, Obaro worked with United Bank of Africa, International Merchant Bank (IMB) among others.
He spoke on issues around software development in the country.
Evolution of SystemSpecs In the Software Space
I left Intercontinental Merchant Bank (IMB) in 1992 as Head of Systems Department to start SystemSpecs.
This was after I led a team that implemented Nigeria’s first international banking application on a network linking Lagos and four other towns.
By this laudable feat, I helped in pioneering Nigeria’s online real-time banking at a time when most banks were still debating its feasibility.
SystemSpecs started with a foreign financial and business application called SunSystems and due to demand from our clients then, we decided to develop HumanManager, a Payroll/HR application.
As the market developed and we began to envision the emergence of e-business and e-payment space in Nigeria, we went ahead to develop and introduce Remita, a world class e-Payment application into the Nigerian market.
Remita has today been adopted by all Nigerian banks and is used for the payment of all Federal Government contractors and employees under the Central Bank of Nigeria’s e-payment initiative.
Attaining leadership requires foresight, creativity, innovation, focus, excellence, discipline, hard work, resilience, patience and consistency; these are necessary roads that any successful entrepreneur must travel and we give God the glory for where we are today.
SystemSpecs is strictly a software company with focus on e-payments, financial and human resource management applications.
Challenges of Nigerian Software Industry
Nigeria, like most African countries that are in the developing nation’s league is predominantly plagued with “information poverty”.
Data is such a hard thing to find in Nigeria, so people just make up the numbers and the man that can shout the loudest gets the most attention. Unfortunately, you don’t really need to shout to win an argument if you have verifiable facts.
Today, no one can estimate the country’s earnings from software exports as they would for cocoa or oil export.
According to National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), the country loses over $1billion annually to software importation simply because most Nigerian companies prefer to import foreign off-the-shelves software to meet local needs where indigenous software could have provided better solutions.
Any software that comes from abroad was built mainly for that environment and anyone who uses it here is just a secondary user.
This has further thinned the potential of the Nigerian software market which by now should be in excess of probably $10billion annually if well harnessed.
There are some people who don’t believe in themselves, therefore, they cannot even believein their immediate environment.
Their belief is that something must come only from the western world for it to be good. I put that to ignorance.
However, this is not to say that I am not mindful of some challenges with a few locally developed software such as low quality assurance, non-scalability, improper documentation and packaging among myriads of other issues. If we don’t deliberately share success stories, no one will believe the indigenous software space is really worth the effort.
SystemSpecs’ Critical Success Factors
We have done a lot with the Remita integrated solution. You can’t get that anywhere in the world because they, for instance, do not have “ghost worker” challenges.
So, I will say it is high time government further encouraged the use and adoption of indigenous software in the country. I think with the right policies and awareness, indigenous software will blossom in the country.
Trends & Opportunities in the Nigerian Software Industry
Today, we live in a world that is driven by information technology and the software industry which has been a source of galloping income for some countries is at the driver’s seat.
A faster and more powerful economic and technological development has taken off in Africa and the Nigerian Software industry is likely going to easily become the most significant regional player going by current developments in the country.
There are so many opportunities for the software industry in a developing economy like Nigeria given the low capital entry requirements as well as the industry’s high value, high growth, high technology and knowledge-rich profile of software activities.
It is apparent that the industry requires skilled manpower but few raw materials which are not in any way damaging to the environment.
There is a big opportunity to remake the software space because of the fundamental shift of the software business focus from just the corporate market to the consumer experience.
The need to bring the consumer experience into the development and use of software is good ground for easy harvests.
There should be sufficient home-grown software that can handle the day-to-day lifestyle of the Nigerian people.
The major requirement for the software industry is human capital and with the country’s size and abundant supply of low cost software engineers or graduates, majority of whom are self-taught, the country stands a chance to provide highly skilled professionals with absolute wage comparative advantage in the international software market.
Nigerians are beginning to realize the importance of software for day-to-day activities and have therefore began to invest in this sector, although the rate at which the industry is growing is still at a very slow pace.
Cloud computing and mobile applications are also new trends in software development. In these areas there are so many opportunities for developers who know and understand these technologies.
Opportunities for Upcoming Software Developers
Software development is an art. You must develop some kind of stronginterest in it for you to succeed.
Apart from updating your knowledge and skills through training on new technologies, you must be focused and patient.
There are lots of institutions with the right development programmes springing up to help interested persons in software engineering and related fields. So get up and get trained!
Whether as an employee or a self-starter, you will require mentorship for product and industry understanding.
Mentoring helps you to gain good momentum and quickly exit when your venture is not likely to succeed.
Like I said earlier, you really have to be creative to succeed in the software industry. It may already be too late trying to develop a banking application in Nigeria right now because we have lost that to the foreign players but when you understand what banking means to you as an individual you can develop software around it to address specific unmet or undiscovered needs.
This is why the mobile money application was so successful in Kenya unlike Europe where there are so many banks with several transaction platforms.
To become a successful entrepreneur you must also develop certain skills in management, marketing and human relations.
Launching Pads for Entrepreneurs
Do not make money your goal, make the delivery of quality software your goal and remember this may take some time, and then money will come.
Be patient. A lot of software companies that will stand the test of time do take a long time to build.
You may need to learn three vocabularies; “Partnership, Collaboration and Team execution”. Even marathon races have support.
This is one of the ways you can create safety net for yourself and mitigate the risk of wearing out during the software development phase as a self-starter especially knowing fully well that there are some heavyweights in the industry lurking around to offer you jobs rather than partnerships as a small developer.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes but don’t make the same mistake twice. Be ready to fail. Unfortunately, today there is the stigmatization of failure in our environment.
The whole idea about success without failure is really funny.
The Remita product that the whole nation boasts of today was a product of a failed bid! Be creative and resilient in the execution of your business plan and it’s not just about business plans but the thinking behind the assumptions of your business plan that matters.
Be professional in managing people and finances and go to school to learn same if need be.
If you happen to require loans, seek help first from informal sources. If your friends and family have not invested in you, why should someone else?
You must develop a thick skin especially to survive the Nigerian business terrain and by this I mean a strong staying power; the ability to stay focused on what you believe to be a solution that can sell.
Understand the intellectual property laws and rights, and don’t be in a hurry to give out your code without protection. It could be costly.
Prospective Entrants into the Software Industry
Software industry is such an amazing one because of its potential for the economy of individuals and nations. India today makes more money from software than Nigeria makes from oil.
The richest companies in the world today are in the computer industry.
Records have it that half of the ten richest men in the United States made their money from software-related businesses.
However, more than making the money is the fulfillment of helping to solve daily life’s problems for people.
If you must enter the industry as an employee or entrepreneur, I will leave you with three words and they are “innovation, innovation, and innovation”.
Innovation is apt in designs and architecture, in business models, and in monetizing your solutions using cost effective solutions distribution mechanism.
Chinonso Akujobi, former staff of Access Bank in Lagos, has been remanded in Ikoyi prison after she was arraigned on a five-count charge bordering on stealing to the tune of N294.5m.
Akujobi who is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was arraigned before Justice I.O. Ijelu of the State High Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos.
EFCC alleged that Akujobi stole the money between January and December 2025 while under the employment of Access Bank Plc.
As stated in one the charges, the defendant stole the money through unauthorized payments from the general ledger of Access Bank to her account number 0036668871 with the name Chinonso A., Uchechi A. and Florence A., thereby committing an offence of stealing, contrary to Section 280 and punishable under Section 287 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
The defendant pleaded “not guilty“ to the charges when they were read to her.
In view of this, S.M.Yabo, prosecution counsel, asked the court for a trial date and also prayed for the remand of the defendant in a Correctional centre.
Justice Ijelu, thereafter, adjourned the case till October 8, 2026, for the hearing of the bail application and the commencement of trial.
The Judge also ordered that the defendant be remanded in the Ikoyi correctional Centre.
The Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) says the flight captain of the VMO Aero aircraft that landed on a roadway near Asaba Airport in Delta State told investigators that the observer pilot mistakenly identified the paved road as the runway before touchdown.
The bureau disclosed this in a preliminary report released on Thursday on the June 10 incident, which prompted the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to ground the private jet.
The aircraft had seven people on board, including the pilot-in-command (PIC), second-in-command (SIC), an observer pilot, a cabin crew member and three passengers.
According to the report, the aircraft was cleared by Air Traffic Control (ATC) to approach Runway 11 at Asaba Airport after the crew requested a right orbit.
The crew initially discontinued the approach, executed a missed approach and repositioned for a second landing attempt.
NSIB said the crew reported that the aircraft’s navigation systems indicated it was correctly established on the published RNAV Runway 11 approach.
“The PIC and SIC reported that the observer pilot identified the paved surface ahead as the runway,” the report stated.
However, the observer pilot gave investigators a different version of events.
According to NSIB, he said the aircraft remained inside cloud until late in the approach and that the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS) repeatedly issued “TERRAIN, TERRAIN, PULL UP” alerts.
He also said he observed a telecommunications mast directly ahead and instructed the flight captain to abandon the approach and climb immediately.
The bureau further disclosed that a cabin crew member reported that one of the passengers became concerned after overhearing discussions among the pilots and asked whether one of them was undergoing training. The passenger was reportedly reassured that all three pilots on board were experienced captains.
NSIB said no abnormal events were reported in the cabin before touchdown.
The aircraft eventually landed at about 8:57 a.m. on an under-construction paved roadway near Asaba Airport instead of the designated runway.
The bureau said its investigation into the incident is ongoing, while the preliminary report highlights conflicting accounts among the cockpit crew over the circumstances that led to the erroneous landing.
European Union has warned Meta Platforms Inc. that it could face a significant financial penalty unless it changes what regulators describe as the “addictive design” features of Facebook and Instagram.
The European Commission issued the warning in preliminary findings released on Friday, saying Meta had failed to sufficiently address risks posed by its platforms, particularly to children and vulnerable users.
The Commission said features such as infinite scrolling, personalised content recommendations and automatic video playback were designed in ways that encouraged excessive engagement with the platforms.
EU Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, said protecting the physical and mental well-being of European citizens should be a priority for social media companies.
The Commission said Meta should consider introducing design changes, including disabling autoplay and infinite scrolling by default, providing effective screen-time reminders and adjusting recommendation systems to reduce the focus on maximising user engagement.
The findings were issued under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which sets obligations for major online platforms to address risks associated with their services.
Meta, however, rejected the Commission’s conclusions, saying it disagreed with the findings but would continue engaging with European regulators.
The company said it had already implemented measures aimed at protecting younger users, including Teen Accounts that allow parents to manage screen time limits and restrict access during night hours.
The EU said its investigation, which began in 2024, found that existing time-management tools on Facebook and Instagram could easily be bypassed, while parental controls required technical knowledge that limited their effectiveness.
Regulators also expressed concerns over children’s nighttime use of the platforms and the possibility that features such as Reels and Stories could encourage compulsive behaviour.
If the Commission’s preliminary findings are confirmed, Meta could face a fine of up to six per cent of its annual global revenue under the DSA.
The warning comes as the EU steps up efforts to strengthen online safety measures for children, with an expert panel established by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expected to present recommendations on protecting minors online.
Several EU member states, including France, have also supported discussions on restricting social media access for children, following Australia’s decision to ban users under 16 from accessing social media platforms.
Meanwhile, the Commission is continuing a separate investigation into whether Meta’s recommendation algorithms create “rabbit hole” effects by directing users towards increasingly extreme content.
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