How IGA Is Equipping Nigerian Youth With Tech, Business, and Life Skills for Global Relevance

Behind many of the challenges facing Nigerian youth today, founder Tobiloba Akanni sees a common root cause: a lack of proper, practical education. After a decade spent mentoring and educating young people through workshops, summits, and one-on-one guidance, that observation led to the founding of IGA in 2023, an academy built to equip young people across four areas: technology, business and entrepreneurship, career and personal development, and life skills.

The problem IGA is responding to is layered. Social media, the pursuit of quick wealth and fame, and peer pressure have fed what the founder describes as an instant-gratification culture among young people, one that erodes long-term thinking and discipline. That culture has coincided with what IGA identifies as a decline in values and behavior among many young people, undermining both personal growth and community development. At the center of both trends, according to the academy, is a lack of proper education and practical knowledge, a gap that results in weak values, unsustainable career paths, limited problem-solving ability, and, in some cases, derailed life outcomes.

IGA's response is structured around holistic skill-building rather than a single curriculum track. By combining technical training with entrepreneurship education, personal development, and life skills, the academy aims to prepare young people not just for employment but for broader responsibility and impact, positioning them, in the founder's words, as solution providers and change makers ready for global relevance.

Though IGA was founded in 2023, its first years were spent building momentum and refining its training model rather than operating at full scale. That groundwork has translated into measurable early traction: the academy has trained more than 100 young people to date, generated ₦70,000 in revenue in April alone across two workshops, and reports a 70% improvement in participant confidence following its programs.

IGA's emergence reflects a broader pattern within Nigeria's youth-focused ecosystem, where founders are increasingly building structured, skills-based alternatives to address gaps left by formal education systems. As conversations around employability, entrepreneurship, and digital skills continue to shape policy and private-sector initiatives across the country, academies like IGA represent a grassroots layer of that work, one rooted in direct mentorship and community-level engagement rather than large-scale institutional reform.

With 2026 marked internally as the year IGA moves from groundwork to full operation, the academy's next phase centers on scale. Its stated vision is to establish multiple Youth Development Centres across Nigeria, extending its model of holistic education beyond its current reach and toward a more permanent, multi-location presence in the communities it serves.