The gap nobody wants to talk about

Anyone with a following on social media in many parts of Africa knows this scene well. At least, once a quarter, a stranger slides into your DMs asking for help: school fees, a hospital bill, rent. It’s become so routine that most have learned to scroll past.

Recently, I posted an Instagram story advertising an open sales role at my company. Nearly 500 people viewed it. Two reached out. One submitted a CV. I sat with that for a while. Because among those ~500 viewers, I know there are people struggling to find work. Some of them have probably sent me a message asking for a handout. And yet, when a real opportunity appeared in front of them, most of them kept scrolling.

This isn’t a story about laziness. It’s a story about a deeper, more uncomfortable gap; one that skills assessments don’t capture and labour market reports rarely mention. I call it the attitude gap: the widening disconnect between the opportunities that exist and the willingness to develop the character, humility, and work ethic required to seize them.

When Moniepoint CEO Tosin Eniolorunda recently said that his company, after committing to hire only in Nigeria in 2024, was struggling to fill 500 vacancies by 2025, the Nigerian tech ecosystem erupted. The outrage was understandable. But having lived a version of this frustration firsthand, I also understood what he was pointing at, even if the framing needed more context.

The standard narrative about Africa’s talent problem focuses on the skills gap and the jobs gap, which are both real, both measurable, both endlessly studied by the ILO and its peers. What gets far less attention is the attitude underneath the skills. You can train someone to analyse data. It’s much harder to train someone to show up prepared, to go beyond what’s asked, to treat an internship like it matters.

I see this play out in our own sponsored talent development programs. Two recent graduates, same training, same benefits. One decided that as a trained data analyst, she deserved to be earning in dollars. She treated the internship she was paired with accordingly, doing just enough to get by, waiting for something better to arrive. The other treated every task like an audition. He identified problems before anyone asked him to, proposed solutions, and built relationships. Before his internship ended, he had already been recruited elsewhere at roughly ten times his stipend. His colleague finished her internship and went back to searching. Same opportunity. Completely different outcome.

I hear a common pushback from early-career professionals: “Why should I go above and beyond if no one will give me credit for it?” It’s a fair question, and I don’t dismiss it. Recognition matters. But I’ve also watched people use the absence of recognition as a reason to stop growing, and that calculus only ever hurts the person making it.

Here’s where I want to be honest about the other side of this, because the attitude gap doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Local companies in Africa consistently underpay their best people, often dramatically, even as they post year-on-year growth. So, a talented software engineer starts looking for options: remote work, a master’s programme abroad, a visa. Then the same company turns around and complains that it can’t find skilled local talent. Some raise millions in funding and hire expats at multiples of what they would have paid a local professional they chose not to develop.

You cannot underpay people, fail to invest in their growth, and then express surprise when they leave or never show up in the first place. Eniolorunda’s frustration is legitimate, but it sits inside a broader pattern that founders need to examine in themselves, not just in the talent pool. The attitude gap runs in both directions. Most job seekers who won’t seize opportunities handed to them. Most employers who won’t build the conditions worth seizing.

The talent crisis in Africa is systemic, which means it won’t be solved by any single actor pointing fingers at another. It requires employers who pay fairly and invest in people before those people become stars elsewhere. It requires policy that takes talent development seriously in an age when AI is accelerating every existing gap. And it requires an honest reckoning, among job seekers especially, with the question of whether the problem is always out there, or sometimes in here.

The young man from my internship programme didn’t wait for conditions to be perfect. He made himself impossible to ignore. That quality, that attitude, is rarer than any technical skill I’ve tried to hire for. And it may be the most important thing we’re not talking about.

. Acheampong is a 2026 Public Voices Fellow of Acumen and The OpEd Project and the founder of Blossom Academy, which equips African talent with data and AI skills to increase incomes and helps companies adopt data-driven practices.