Moniepoint’s CEO, Tosin Eniolorunda, has explained why he thinks that Nigerians lack talent, stressing that it is difficult for his company to fill roughly 500 job vacancies.
Eniolorunda recently gave a speech at The Platform in Lagos, and said in a now-widely shared social media video and seen by ENigeria Newspaper, that his company had made the decision to prioritize hiring locally, but it has not been able to locate applicants who fit its international standards.
“I used to feel like Nigerians are really, really bright, but I’m beginning to feel like we need to do something,” he said. I blame our education system and I’m realising that environment shapes a lot of things from what we consume on social media to the values shaping society”, he said.
The level that people are reasoning in this country is not as high as it used to be. In a country of over 200 million people, there are many alternatives to becoming a ‘big boy’ or chasing quick money,” he added.
His comments came after he disclosed that this fintech company, Moniepoint, had been looking for skilled Nigerians to fill up roles.
“We made a decision that we will no longer hire from any other place than Nigeria. If you go to Moniepoint career website, we have maybe 500 vacancies and we are struggling to find people to fill those roles.
“Not only could we not find people at the quality and the quantity we needed, the few people that we found were not up to the global standards that we need”, he said.
The CEO of Moniepoint stated that hiring highly qualified and globally competitive employees is essential because the company competes on a worldwide basis, especially with Chinese businesses.
“We are not competing with just local players. I’m competing globally. I need to make sure that I have world-class people working in the organisation,” he said.
However, the CEO proferred a solution to the issue, claiming something needs to be done as soon as possible.
“All we need to do is develop our human capital and change the mentality”, he noted.
