One theme permeated every keynote and panel discussion during the 2025 Digital Summit in the Southwestern region of Ogun State, and that was the need for the state to become a hub for innovators.
During the summit, the slogan ‘build here, stay here’ saturated the halls, highlighting the state’s intention to retain talent.
For many years, innovative teams in Nigeria’s tech sector have used the state as a training ground, after which they move their headquarters, as well as all the employment that accompanies growth, to neighboring Lagos.
Summit convener Victor Adeleye recalled how the event began in 2020 with the hope of turning Ogun into a full-fledged innovation and production hub.
“We wanted Ogun to leverage its closeness to Lagos and become an innovation hub,” he said. “But when founders build, they leave. We want people to build more and stay here. We have more talent in this state than many realise.
Over 5,000 young people have passed through the summit’s training programmes, TechCabal reports.
But this year’s edition shifted the spotlight to a different group, the entrepreneurs responsible for creating the next wave of tech-enabled products and manufacturing solutions.
Organisers pushed founders to confront three essential questions: How do I build? What should I build? And what real-world problem should my product or service address?
Why Ogun state is making a case for founders to stay and build
Ogun State believes it has the right ingredients to become Nigeria’s next major digital and manufacturing corridor: abundant labour, strong educational institutions, and a young population eager to create.
Deputy Governor Noimot Salako-Oyedele emphasized that the summit has consistently revealed the state’s greatest resource: its people.
“Digital talent development and enabling founders must come first,” she said.
She argued that if the government continues to nurture digital talent and support the founders who build products, Ogun can position itself as a dual-strength ecosystem for both software development and light-scale digital manufacturing.
With 4.3 million young people spread across cities such as Abeokuta, Ilaro, Ijebu Ode, and Sagamu, the state has the demographic muscle to support an enduring innovation pipeline.
But talent alone isn’t enough if the environment doesn’t reward local creation and local production.
Policy is the backbone of a build-and-manufacture economy in Ogun state
Ayodeji Odusote, the Minister of Finance’s Special Advisor on Digital Technology and Transformation, believes that policy, not skill, determines whether founders remain.
“Policy defines the DNA of your environment,” he said. “It shapes how outsiders perceive your space.”
He described how the government could protect young innovators through targeted procurement strategies. Instead of losing them to more competitive ecosystems, Ogun may give local builders and product developers a runway to flourish by reserving specialized tech and service contracts for early-stage companies.
Odusote went on to say that rather than depending on remote tech centers, digital learning needs to be integrated within current educational institutions.
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According to him, schools could serve as miniature manufacturing and innovation hubs where young builders may test items and prototype ideas without having to leave their neighborhoods.
“We talk about pipelines, but young people leave because the environment doesn’t create a road for them to stay.”
Ogun could be positioned as the production engine that drives Nigeria’s commercial capital because of its proximity to Lagos, according to Special Adviser on Finance Abiola Bakare.
3MTT initiative in Ogun state
Attention also turned to the national 3MTT initiative, which aims to train three million tech talents. Ogun’s coordinators reported high interest, but a wide disconnect in expectations.
Some think 3MTT means the government will give them a million naira,” said Oluwaseun Dabiri, Ogun State Lead for the programme.
“After two weeks, a cohort of 1,000 can drop to 200 because the motivation was wrong.”
To address this, the state is running broad awareness campaigns and partnering with local training hubs to ensure trainees understand that the real value lies in building market-ready skills.
Similar push for energy in Ogun state
Nigeria is currently planning to build a $50 billion, 500,000-barrel-per-day refinery on a 1,471-hectare free trade zone in Ogun state.
Before this project, Algeria’s Skikda Refinery, which had a daily capacity of roughly 356,500 barrels, was the second-largest refinery in Africa.
The largest and second-largest refining facilities on the continent will be located in Nigeria after the Ondo refinery starts up and replaces Skikda.
However, even upon completion, it would still come second to the Dangote Oil Refinery, which has a refining capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, with plans to expand to 1.4 million barrels per day.
