Nigerian Space Entrepreneur, Temidayo Oniosun on why Africa’s Space Industry May be the Next Big Thing

Space technology is not a thing a home-grown Nigerian young man is naturally drawn to. It is a subject that rarely comes up in any level of consciousness or national discourse. But Temidayo Oniosun is one of the very minute exceptions to that void.

Seeing that many developmental problems in Africa could be solved by Space programs, Temidayo, 26, made it his life’s mission to drum local and international support for the African Space and Satellite industry.

This passion drove him to launch Space in Africa in 2018, an online platform which provides market intelligence - business, technology, discoveries, events and political information on the African space industry. The platform was instrumental to today’s extensive coverage of the Africa’s Space category by international media such as BBC, CNN and so on.

Temidayo has received many international accolades including a recognition award from the International Institute of Space Commerce for his outstanding work in the African Space sector. He recounts his entrepreneurial journey in this interview with Business Elites Africa and speaks extensively on the growth, opportunities and challenges in the Space industry.

Oniosun speaks at conferences across the world and regularly appears on various media calling for more government

investment in space programs in Africa[3] and leading conversations around the African Space and satellite Industry. He also comments regularly on the African space program in various media.

A typical Nigerian kid wouldn’t choose to study Meteorology in the University. Was the course your choice or was it what the school offered you, as is the case for many others?

I kind of chose it. When I wrote the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board Examination, I wanted to study Mechanical Engineering, but my interest changed after the exam. I had shifted interest from Engineering to Space Technology but there was no course like that offered in the institution (Federal University of Technology Akure – FUTA) at the time. Meteorology was the closest thing to it, so I opted for it.

What is the current state of the Space industry in Africa?

First of all, Africa has a Space industry. I think a lot of people don’t know that. When people talk about space, they just think of NASA. Even when you talk about satellites in Nigeria, people just jokingly refer to the satellite that got lost.

The industry in Africa is still at an early stage of development but it’s growing really fast. The majority of the players are foreigners. But in recent years we have seen the emergence of African-based companies. We have a report we are releasing soon where we profiled 282 companies in Africa that are operating in the industry value chain.

The industry is generating like $7.37 billion every year. That is projected to rise to over $10 billion by 2024. To visualize the application of it, you can think of satellite TV services, that are powered by satellite services. You can think of broadband connectivity, fiber is still very popular but satellite communications also offer a lot of services in Africa.

You can think of navigation systems – GPS and the likes. And you can look at the engineering aspect of space, we have few companies in Africa that are now manufacturing satellite components that are flown on missions to the moon, space stations and the likes. African countries are also increasing their investment in Space technology.

Last year, Nigeria’s space budget was over 5$0 million and this year’s budget passed $80 million. Altogether, Africa’s Space budget this year is almost $550 million. So far, 44 satellites have been launched by African nations while about 114 satellites are under development. In the next 4 years, the continent would have launched more than 150 satellites. So the industry is growing.

Like you rightly pointed, little is known about the Space industry in Africa. Some would say that’s because there is nothing revolutionary going on in the industry. Would you agree to that assertion?

The number one reason is probably because the industry is driven by the government in Africa. To be honest, governments in Africa are bad at running businesses. If you think of the US Space program, NASA is globally known. That didn’t happen overnight. NASA has billions of dollars in the budget for that is spent outreach programs everywhere and branding. African Space agencies don’t have an outreach budget. They don’t think about how to get the public to hear about their work.

The second thing is that, in Europe, Asia, and America, the majority of Space programs are now being driven by private companies. You think of the likes of SpaceX, OneWeb, Virgin Galactic, etc. When you have an industry that is driven by private institutions, there is more publicity, there is more interest, and more investments. But there are very few of those companies in Africa. There is also the problem of trust. Let me give you a few examples, Nigeria had a satellite that got, they managed the PR extremely badly.

Now if you mention Nigeria’s Space program people are always referring to that. There was also a time that a Meme was flying around social media that a Nigerian astronaut was stuck in Space. That’s also like a bad PR. So if you have an industry that has traces of bad PR like that, when you are doing something really cool, it’s going to be difficult for people to trust it. I remember in 2019 when Ethiopia and Sudan lost their first satellite, I was interviewed by BBC and when the interview came out people were commenting that these countries are very poor, should they be investing in satellite? and all sorts.

If the government is bad with running businesses, it also seems like African entrepreneurs do not understand the Space industry enough to invest in it. Do you think there is a knowledge gap?

That’s a good point. I think it’s a combination of all of that. There are barely Space entrepreneurs in Africa. Do we lack the skill? To be honest, probably yes. We have people that are skilled but they don’t work in the private sector.

They work for either government or they are in the Universities. So I would admit that there is a lack of capacity. We don’t really understand the technology. In Nigeria, all of that can be traced back to the Space agency. It’s not doing anything to bring in entrepreneurs like what is going on in the general tech ecosystem, where companies are coming up everyday, building awesome stuff. That’s not happening with the Space industry.

You can literarily monitor what’s going on in northern Nigeria (the Boko Haram zone) using the satellite. We can’t use our satellite to do that but we can buy commercial satellite services that can do it. But is the government willing to do that? The answer is no. They won’t do this because of political reasons.

I have had this conversation with the Space agency director in Nigeria several times. They have thousands of people working in the space agency and it’s not like they are working. Instead of maybe running programs that would get entrepreneurs to develop this technology, they feel like we’ve got thousands of people (staff) that can do it. But the truth those thousands of people can’t do anything. So there is that massive disconnect. I will blame the government for that, and the people they are appointing to those critical positions.

In 2020, your company’s report estimate that African countries would have launched at least 110 satellites by 2024 compared to the 41 at the time. One would think it shouldn’t be about the

We talk about how a lot of places in Nigeria do not have internet connectivity today, that’s a problem you can solve with satellite. We have a satellite in Nigeria that can solve that problem. Is it being used for that? Probably no.

number but the impact of those satellites.

That’s a good point. It’s not about the number, yes. The only thing is that the number shows that activities are going on. So there is a difference between the activities and the impact. Talking about impact, satellites are being used in Africa for various applications by different countries. The usage cuts across agriculture, disaster monitoring, security, telemedicine, even education services, etc.

Now the problem is sometimes the government can have a tool they can use to address a problem and they just ignore the usage of that tool. An example is the security situation in Nigeria, and this is something I have been saying since 2017. I remember a few weeks ago, the director of Nigeria’s Space agency went on national TV to say that they need money to build a new set of satellites but the point is the ones they had, did they make use of them, the truth is, no.

Is there a cheaper way to do this though? I mean can Nigeria rent commercial satellites from private companies instead of building new ones?

There are different ways to do it. It depends on what makes sense to a country. You can choose not to own a satellite and buy data from commercial companies but that may not make sense in the long run because of the cost.

Also, sometimes when you have one satellite, it may not be able to provide enough service for your needs. An example is the Nigeria issue that we are talking about, their best satellite has a resolution of 2.5 meters. You

can’t use that to address the problem of security, that resolution is not great. But you can get a good resolution like 0.4 meters, with that you can almost see a human being and you would be able to trace people in like a forest. But the country can buy that service from commercial providers or they can decide to build a new one that can offer that service.

It’s hard to think the government wouldn’t have explored the satellite option for the terrorism fight by now.

Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Let’s trace it back to the Chibok girls issue. They were kidnapped and taken to a forest, If you have a satellite up there that can trace everything going on, you can see where they are. These are basic security details that some countries take seriously. But in Africa, that’s probably like out of the box.

If the Space agency works directly with the security, they can analyse the radius they suspect the girls are with satellite images. But are they doing that? No. The fundamental question is, do they actually want to solve the problem? I feel like the Nigerian government is very powerful. If they want to solve a problem, they will. But it doesn’t look like they want to solve the security problem.

As someone who has an understanding of the workings of the Space industry, what are you doing in terms of advocacy for the proper use of satellites in Africa?

First of all, we are working with a lot of government. We provide policy advisory services to different African countries. An example of this is when the new director for the Nigerian Space agency was announced, the first thing we did was to develop a brief report that details the fundamental problems that we were seeing in the space program with recommendations on how to solve them.

Do you want to highlight these problems?

We’ve talked about a few of them. An example is, there are too many people working in the agency, the Nigerian space policy is outdated and there is massive corruption going on in the agency. For example, they have been trying to build an assembly and integration testing facility for probably a decade now, with funding every year, and the building is just wasting away.

The Nigerian space agency is now over 20 years and it’s extremely embarrassing that they cannot manufacture a simple nanosatellite. And you’ve got more than 3000 people that wake up every day and say they work for the agency. If I was appointed the director of the agency, the first thing I’d do is probably sack everyone. South Africa space agency has only 150 employees and their agency is about five times more efficient than Nigeria’s. When you speak to the top officials of the Nigerian space agency, they always brag about how they have more than 100 Ph.D. holders. The question is what are they doing? In fact, in the past, we have provided a policy brief to the Nigerian National Assembly on the issue of the Nigerian Communications Satellite (NigComSat).

One of our recommendations to them was that they should sell the company. They’ve invested more than like a billion-dollar on that company and the company generates less than $5 million every year for them. Sadly, the government still gives the company about $10 million in the yearly budget. They’re just wasting taxpayer’s money on a company that is not productive.

We have also worked with so many other Africa countries like Angola, Gabon, etc. to point them in the right direction. And it’s up to them to follow that right path. Currently, we’re working on a study with the African Union that would shape the Africa Space agency that the Union is trying to set up. So this is like some of the works we are doing and it’s my way of giving back.

Your company, Space in Africa, raised pre-seed funding in 2019, what was the funding for?

We were at the very early stage then and we ran out of money. Actually, I ran out of my savings and I needed external funding. We got an investor from the US who was interested in what we were building and decided to invest. Since then, we’ve not had any reason to raise money. We’re doing fine now.

Why did you establish a Space company in an environment that barely values it? Why not run abroad where it seems you stand a better chance?

You set up a company to address a problem. We saw the problems and we decided to proffer solutions, that was the logic.

To be honest, before 2018, it was worse. Now you guys are writing about Space in Africa. And in the past two years I have spoken to the biggest media houses in the world – BBC, CNN to Forbes, etc. Everyone is now trying to cover Space programs in Africa. That never existed before we established the company. As we are doing more work, there is more interest and that’s why the industry is experiencing more growth.

A lot of businesses outside Africa are now looking at the continent for opportunities. We are now seeing new startups in the ecosystem. The dynamics will be very different in the next 5 years.

A space company in South Africa, Dragonfly, just got acquired a few months ago. So there is a massive opportunity to solve a lot of fundamental African problems with Space technology.

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