Otti’s education reforms and global economic opportunities

“In terms of partnership, we don’t believe in grants and aid, rather we seek partnership, believing that there is a lot of value that we can add working together” Gov. Otti (September 26, 2025)

The quote above by Governor Alex Otti of Abia State, during the September 2025 two-day visit by the United States of America (U.S.) Ambassador to Nigeria Ambassador Richard Mills alongside U.S. Embassy officials to Abia State, provides some context on how the state government’s education sector reforms can align the state with contemporary global economic opportunities, if strategically matched. Given the contemporary changes in U.S. foreign policy on the continent from development assistance to more commercial diplomacy, as well as changes in the domestic environment, there also exists an opportunity for Gov. Otti to nudge the people and economy of the state towards a more intellectually driven and rewarding pathway.

But what were key points of U.S. Ambassador’s visit to Abia State?

While acknowledging the positive outcomes from Gov. Otti’s governance approach, as well as the high value the U.S. places on its partnership with Abia and the Southeast zone of Nigeria, Ambassador Mills emphasized that he was in the state to explore existing opportunities in the state, and deepen partnerships. In his words, ‘there are tremendous opportunities here for our business, our commercial interests, and Nigeria’s’.

And some of the key points of the visit demonstrated this focus on economic diplomacy, in line with foreign policy goals of U.S. President, Donald Trump. The delegation visited the Aba Independent Power Project (IPP), developed by Geometric Power, Nigeria’s only integrated electric power company. Facilities inspected by the American delegation included Geometric Power turbines produced by U.S. firm General Electric (GE), the world’s biggest and oldest electricity equipment manufacturing firm, as well as the Aba IPP digital SCADA facilities.

What then does this pattern of economic diplomacy and focus on technology-based products and services have to do with Otti’s education sector reforms in Abia state?

The recent mid-2025 reports by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), Deloitte and Mckinsey on global semiconductor labour gaps, provide global economic opportunities that Gov. Otti’s education sector reforms can strategically harness, for efficient return on investment (ROI). The high points of the reports are that by 2030, the global semiconductor industry will require additional one million skilled workers, which by current trends, are not available. The reports highlight a shortage of 67,000 workers in the U.S. , a shortage of over 100,000 engineers in Europe, and a shortfall of over 200,000 engineers in the Asia-Pacific region. Also, the industry will require at least 100,000 middle-tier managers and 10,000 higher-tier leaders—many of whom must come from outside the industry, all by 2030.

While U.S.-based companies hold roughly 46.3 percent of global semiconductor market share, they handle 12 percent of global manufacturing, with Taiwan handling 65 percent, China 15 percent, and South Korea 12 percent, as demonstration of manufacturing concentration. This concentration is also as each global region has developed different skill sets, making it challenging for human resource mobility across markets. The industry also competes with other tech sectors for talent, and 92 percent of tech leaders report challenges finding skilled workers. Essentially, while markets are expanding, with global semiconductor sales rising to $627.6 billion in 2024, and demand continues to rise to an expected $2 trillion in 2032, the talent pool is shrinking.

It is this challenging but viable human resource gap that provides avenues for closer economic partnerships with the U.S., as well as global economic opportunities for the people and economy of Abia state, if Gov. Otti is able to strategically align his education sector reforms accordingly.  For a bit of context, China had $438.7 billion, Taiwan $116.3 billion and South Korea $131.6 billion worth of exports respectively to the U.S. in 2024, consisting largely of semiconductor-based and high-tech products such as integrated circuits, computers, electronic accessories, machine parts, broadcast equipments, electricals, motor vehicles & accessories. These countries are able to attract the type of significant investment and access to U.S.$30 trillion economy that Gov. Otti desires for Abia, because it has the human resource and subsequently industrial base that competitively manufactures high-tech products for the U.S.

In principle, aligning the state’s educational sector towards producing some of the skilled human talent required by the global semiconductor industry by 2030, is a viable proposition. As it is with such tasking propositions, there can be short, medium and long term approaches. For short-medium term, the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard (CCMAS) and Trans-National Education (TNE) policies of 2023 by the National Universities Commission (NUC), provide the policy framework for training and international linkages that allow for training of tertiary education students in Abia, with skill set at the level required by semiconductor industry.

As CCMAS allows universities to enhance their curricula with some level of specialization, the Abia government can pool resources with public and private universities in the state, and modify relevant curriculum in engineering and computing, to meet the training standards of global semiconductor industry. With the TNE policy, the state government can establish cost-effective partnerships with foreign universities such as the National Taiwan University (NTU), whereby qualified students from Abia are also enrolled in the Global Undergraduate Program in Semiconductors (GUPS) at NTU, for joint-degrees. Virtual labs can be deployed for training.

Also, bulk negotiation with NTU on GUPS for Abia students will bring discount, as Taiwan, encourages educational diplomacy. Furthermore, provision can be made for the trade test certification of skilled tech talent involved in tech repairs, to be converted to some level of academic credit as prior learning, for efficient enrollment into the GUPS.

Given the costs involved, a more feasible short-medium term approach may require pooling the engineering, computing, mathematics and physics students with the best test scores from Abia State University (ABSU), Rhema University, Clifford University, Spiritan University and Gregory University – established by the founder of Skill ‘G’, a leading science, technology and innovation firm, at a central hub possibly provided by Skill G. At this location, training will be provided in chip design, silicon assembling, packaging, testing and other determined fields of semiconductor. The students selected via test scores from their first two years of study, can spend most of the remaining 2-3 years of study on practical learning at this up-scaled facility, after which they will be awarded their degrees. The training will also count for the SIWES/industrial attachment.

Skill G has a good record in tech training, development and deployment. Its partnership with Israeli firms comes in handy, given that Israel is one of the leading countries in semiconductors, especially in chip design, research and development (R&D) and manufacturing equipment. The existing partnership with Israel is one that should be properly harnessed. Annapurna Labs, which is the semiconductor arm of Amazon Inc, is originally an Israeli company that was acquired by the $2.4 trillion U.S. tech giant, and is a demonstration of Israel’s strength in the global semiconductor industry. Gov. Otti’s hosting of Israeli Ambassador to Nigeria Michael Freeman in May 2024 in Abia, where partnership opportunities for Nigerian entrepreneurs and innovators with Israel were part of deliberations, provides an official platform for cost-effective upgrading of existing Skill G facilities with equipment and training pathways for the training of Abia students in semiconductor. Harnessing the partnership with Israel should also extend to work placement for the graduates. And if the cost of roll-out is high, the government can institute a financial arrangement that makes beneficiaries installmentaly repay some of the cost of training when they start their working careers.

Abia has experienced semiconductor and technology professionals who can coordinate this proposition. There is Prof. Ndubisi Ekekwe, academic, engineer, founder of the Intel FGPA certified semiconductor firm FASMICRO, who has supported other countries in semiconductor development, and holds industry patents. There is also Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu, former Microsoft General Manager (Anglophone West Africa) overseeing a 7-country portfolio as a member of the Microsoft EMEA executive management team, who is currently Principal Secretary and Chief Strategy Officer to Governor Otti. Though Gov. Otti had both appointed them to the leadership of Abia State Technological Skills Acquisition Center in September 2025, a lot more can be done with their skills and experience, especially given existing global opportunities.

Beyond tertiary education for the short-medium term goal, sustainable long-term pathway requires reforms at feeder system, that is primary and secondary school systems. And this is where the recent teacher recruitment efforts of the government come into view. In May 2025, the Abia government announced the recruitment of 5,300 teachers and lecturers that included vacant academic positions in critical areas of study in ABSU. This is in addition to the procurement of engineering equipment valued at N800 million for ABSU, and the positive outcomes from its investment in the Ogbonnaya Onu Polytechnic especially with technological and curriculum developments. Furthermore, the government in July 2025 announced plans to recruit 4,000 more teachers due to a surge in education demand, , its free basic education programme, teachers remuneration being  more attractive than the Civil Service and education infrastructure upgrade, all funded with 20 percent of the state’s budget allocated to the sector since 2023.

These additional 4,000 teachers recruitment should be strategically aligned with providing desired human resources, with some emphasis on producing semiconductor talent. An exchange program can be infused into both the recruitment and education system that enables a minimum of 10 percent of teachers to be recruited from Taiwan, Israel, South Korea, Vietnam, India and China, i.e from countries that have functional semiconductor industry. There are people from these and other educationally advanced countries that desire international teaching and life experience, perhaps for just one year/gap year. Abia can provide the platform for such exchanges, which will support knowledge sharing and train-the-trainers opportunities.

The infrastructure and security upgrades, health insurance scheme, health infrastructure upgrade supported by 15% of total budget for health sector since 2023,  Abia Medical City in view, urban renewal, public transportation, upcoming airport and good governance in the state, are making Abia more acceptable and liveable for Nigerians and other nationals.

A private university in the state, Lux Mundi University Umuahia, already has an international education exchange programme that the Abia government can model,  for students of public and private universities in the state. Lux Mundi University has a partnership with the Home Health Aid Training Institute,USA (HHATI), which will see 50 of their students travel to the U.S. in August 2025 for an exchange programme with the institute. Dr. Mario Santiago, CEO of HHATI, New York, visited Abia to profile the 50 students of Nursing Science of Lux Mundi University, approved, by the American Government for the student exchange program.

Still on medium-long term training, there are non-governmental initiatives the state government can support, towards producing semiconductor human capital. They include the Aba Mathematics Olympiad organised by the Rumexx Foundation, which recognizes Mathematics as the foundation of all scientific and technological advancements, and aims to make Aba, the commercial capital of Abia, a hub of mathematical excellence. A present, the winner of the city’s Maths Olympiad wins a cash prize and full sponsorship to the International Mathematics Olympiad. Gov Otti can endorse and attend the finale of the next edition, and possibly make the next winner a ‘One Day Governor’ of Abia State, which will signal to young students and talents the way to go. The South East Maths Olympiad organized by Intervention for South East Education (ISEE) is another educational exercise that Gov Otti should strongly identify with. Given how patterns dissipate, his identification and signaling will influence education and career patterns toward semiconductor-related education to spread to other parts of Eastern Nigeria, for which Otti will be remembered for.

Some of Gov. Otti’s digital economy policies and projects already provide the environment for semiconductor training to leverage and thrive in Abia. They include the May 2025 partnership with MTN Nigeria for 100 percent coverage of the population and space of Abia with broadband access before year-end 2025; a device ownership scheme to support Abia civil servants with work tools such as acquisition of laptops, smartphones, and Wi-Fi devices; and provision of cloud services and computing infrastructure for government operations and digital governance. Other areas in the partnership include the establishment of Abia Digital Mall to support small businesses and the informal sector, and will involve the usage of multiple digital tools to drive SME growth in Abia State;  the roll-out of 4G and 5G services in Umuahia, Aba, and Ohafia before year-end 2025; and creation of digital marketplace to drive e-governance and online commerce in the state.

Also, the state government and the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) on October 29, 2025 began the Abia State Duct Infrastructure Project, designed to expand broadband access, enhance digital inclusion, improve last-mile connectivity, develop open-access, carrier-neutral digital infrastructure capable of supporting next-generation connectivity and cloud services across the state. The project with its DigOnce Policy, will provide high-speed fibre optic broadband and data centres in the state, thereby opening vast opportunities for the South-East and Niger Delta regions, in line with the state’s January 20, 2025, MoU with WIOCC.

The synergy between Gov Otti’s desire for increased USA investment in Abia, the semiconductor industry, and some Asian countries, can be found in the intersection between geopolitics and economic patterns. Though the Biden administration through the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 and especially the current Trump administration have been keen on on-shoring critical tech manufacturing in the U.S., the realities of the the global semiconductor value chain over the decades, has created economic and manufacturing linkages between the U.S. and some Asian countries. ‘Fabless’ companies such as Nvidia with its GPU chips for AI, design their chips in the U.S., but manufacture mostly with TSMC in Taiwan. Same with Apple Inc, as TSMC manufactures almost 100 percent of its chips. South Korea’s Samsung will be manufacturing chips for Tesla. Some testing and packaging (OSAT), and other value chain activities also take place in Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, China and parts of East Asia, with India supplying a lot of tech talent for U.S. semiconductor and high-tech companies.  These Asian countries have therefore developed deep economic links with the U.S., mostly around R&D, technology and products that require semiconductors.

Trade figures for 2024 explain how the type of economic partnership Gov. Otti desires for Abia and the U.S., is sustained by high-tech products with huge semiconductor input. U.S.-Taiwan trade was $158.8 billion in goods, with Taiwan exporting $116.3 billion to the U.S. and the U.S. exporting $42.5 billion to Taiwan. Integrated circuits, computers, electronic accessories, machine parts, broadcast equipments, electricals, motor vehicles & accessories which all require semiconductors, constituted a major portion of Taiwan’s total export to the U.S. U.S.-South Korea goods trade was $197.1 billion,with South Korea exporting $131.6 billion and electric batrries, electronic accessories, machine parts, transformers, electricals, motor vehicles & accessories which all require semiconductors, constituting a major portion.U.S.-China total goods trade was $582.0 billion, with China exporting $438.7 billion worth of goods including broadcast equipment, computers, office machine parts, electric batteries, and other tech products worth over $150 billion in 2024.

The strong economic linkages Taiwan, South Korea, India, Vietnam have with USA is largely because of high tech supply chain linkages. And these high tech linkages are created and sustained by high skilled tech talent workers in and from these countries, developed by their education systems and of course some geopolitics, not charity. The pattern is similar to how U.S. Embassy delegation placed huge emphasis on Geometric Power high tech equipment as managed by Prof. Barth Nnaji, during the embassy’s visit to Abia.

For official relations with some of these strategic Asian countries, Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, can support the Abia government in establishing official and economic linkages. Dr. Kalu served as the World Bank Country Economist in the East Asia and Pacific Programme Department covering the Division that included China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In his almost a decade stint, he supported the economic policy and governance initiatives of these countries that enhanced their integration and economic partnerships with the U.S.- similar to what Gov. Otti is aiming for.

And ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’, as popularly emphasized in business strategy. Semiconductor education and training are very competitive, and require an educational culture that is already competitive to be feasible. Abia’s high national cutoff mark for national examinations is one of the indicators of its competitive education culture. Abians have similar intense work, study ethic and business acumen (hustle culture) as Taiwanese, South Koreans, Indians, Chinese, so it is a viable concept. The founders and CEOs of leading semiconductor and tech firms TSMC, Nvidia, AMD, Google, IBM and Microsoft, such as Dr. Morris Chang, Jensen Huang, Dr. Lisa Su, Sundai Pichai, Dr. Arvind Krishna and Satya Nadella, have origins from Taiwan and India. Though the CHIPS and Science Act has led to on-shoring of chip fabs in USA such as TSMC Arizona fabs, there are reports of TSMC and US work culture disputes, which increase the prospects of TSMC recruiting foreign talent with similar Taiwanese work culture.

Channeling Abia work and study ethic into advanced intellectual exertion is strategic, as it supports the evolution of talents in the state from entrepreneurship and light manufacturing- which can sometimes cause some social tensions in diaspora locations due to high visibility and real estate ownership, by nudging them to higher intellectual roles which are also more socioeconomically rewarding. This enhanced worldview can be sustained through the Abia Leadership Academy (ALA), which Gov. Otti established to identify, nurture, and develop the leadership potential of young people in the state, and which has trained over 3,000 young people within 16 – 20 years old. Such awareness for young Abians gives more expanded and balanced worldview and opportunities on intellectual capital as high skilled global talent, not just in entrepreneurship and light manufacturing. Furthermore, this will nudge young Abians towards job opportunities that are not negatively affected by artificial intelligence (AI). They will also be exposed to the increased competition for U.S. high-tech investment from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, who have more financial resources, which makes Abia’s competitive edge rest on the scale and quality of its tech talent.

And Otti has the expanded worldview and experience to lead in this new vision and iteration for Abia. The Geometric Power Project that was one of the key events during USA Ambassador visit to Abia was a project Otti was involved in its financing during his banking career. So he knows what is required. Similar to how he evaluated business plans as a banker, his educational policy should be a social investment that targets certain market gaps, in this case global semiconductor industry, for sufficient ROI. Similar to how certain trade and economic patterns evolved among for example Abiriba businesses that gave them a profitable worldview, Otti’s strategic education policy can lead to an iteration of new worldview on semiconductors and advanced technologies that are more rewarding.

And Gov. Otti should be able to personally relate to pathways. The BOFID Decree 25 of 1991 was part of structural economic policies designed by Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu and others. This policy framework created Nigeria’s current liberal financial industry for the likes of Zenith Bank, Fidelity Bank, UBA, Access and Diamond Bank, where Otti was CEO. Otti continued his trajectory to Signature Bank, which he founded, that launched operations on November 21, 2022.  He didn’t establish Signature Bank to offer exactly same service as other commercial banks. Rather, he identified a market gap, and designed the niche for Signature Bank to fill. Same gap exists in global semiconductor education training, that Abia can fill a part of. Similar to how Signature Bank had the 40 million unbanked and underbanked Nigerians as its market gap, the one million semiconductor industry human resource gap by 2030, is a market gap Otti should prepare Abia residents to harness.

As Tim Cook, the CEO of U.S. tech giant Apple Inc explained, the manufacturing and supply chain investment of America’s second largest company in China is due to the large talent pool of engineers and technology specialization in China, not necessarily because of cheap labor. This talent pool was developed through the strategic education and socioeconomic policies of Deng Xiaoping as leader of China, and sustained by successors. The pattern is similar for South Korea, Taiwan and other countries, who have billions in  positive trade relations with the $30 trillion U.S. economy. This is largely through semiconductor-based supply chain products such as integrated circuits, computers, electronic accessories, machine parts, broadcast equipments, electricals, motor vehicles & accessories. Therefore, one of the major avenues for Gov. Otti to achieve his desired increased U.S. investment in Abia is through strategic education policy and programs, that develop a quantum of high skilled tech talent. With the recent Semiconductor Industry Association identifying a human resource gap of one million by 2030, the onus is on Gov. Otti to align his current education policy with NUC TNE and CCMAS policies to produce talent that meets global semiconductor needs. That way, his aspiration of attracting more investment from major U.S. companies- not foreign aid, becomes more feasible. As experienced bankers are known for implementing goals, the time is ripe for Gov. Otti to match aspiration with practice.

Uwanaka writes from African University of Science and Technology, Abuja. [email protected]