Rethinking Progress: Tunde Ohiozua on Why Strategy Must Guide Nigeria’s Development

By Jemima Sule

In Nigeria, conversations about development often center around new budgets, foreign loans, or infrastructure projects. Yet beneath these efforts lies a more silent, more dangerous issue system inefficiency.

Across both public and private sectors, many Nigerian institutions suffer from poor planning, manual processes, and reactive decision-making. From revenue leaks in finance to delays in public procurement, the country continues to lose time, trust, and resources because its systems are not built to anticipate problems only to react once it’s too late.

Tunde Ohiozua, a Nigerian expert in data analytics and risk modeling, believes the real challenge Nigeria faces is not a lack of resources, but a lack of strategy.

“In many places, data exists, but it isn’t used,” Ohiozua explains. “Decisions are made based on habit, not insight. We respond to failure instead of building systems that can predict and prevent it.”

Ohiozua serves as a Business Financial Analyst, where he has led initiatives using predictive models to reduce financial risk, improve planning accuracy, and track key performance indicators across operational units. His work revealed how much waste and inefficiency could be avoided with the right tools and a forward-thinking mindset.

He now advocates for a national shift toward predictive governance where public and private systems are designed to flag issues early, reduce human error, and empower leaders to make smarter decisions using real-time data.

These ideas go beyond software. They require professionals who understand how to translate raw data into action experts who can design dashboards that matter, build models that make sense, and create systems that don’t collapse under pressure.

“Technology is not enough,” Ohiozua says. “Nigeria needs people who understand process, policy, and numbers and who can bring those together to improve how our institutions function.”

For Nigeria to move forward, Ohiozua insists, it must stop managing risk reactively. It must invest in data strategy, operational design, and predictive thinking as national priorities.

“Inefficiency,” he warns, “is not just an inconvenience. It’s a national liability.”