An Illusion of Entrepreneurial Competence in Robotics for Self-Reliance in Kogi State, North-Central Nigeria

This study critically interrogates the disjuncture between policy rhetoric and tangible outcomes in robotics-focused entrepreneurship development within Kogi State, North-Central Nigeria. Despite considerable public and institutional expenditure on robotics education, artificial intelligence infrastructure, and technology incubation schemes, the region exhibits a persistent failure to convert trained human capital into sustainable entrepreneurial ventures. Using a qualitative case-study approach grounded in secondary policy documents, institutional reports, and media coverage, the article argues that robotics entrepreneurship competence in Kogi State is largely performative symbolically enacted through official announcements and training certifications but materially unrealised owing to systemic infrastructural weakness, curricular irrelevance, institutional fragmentation, and deficient market linkages. Five interconnected obstacles are identified: erratic power and bandwidth availability; pedagogical models that privilege theory over practice; feeble university–industry partnerships; acute shortages of risk capital and accessible markets; and the absence of a cohesive ecosystem for technology venturing. The paper concludes by articulating a multi-pronged strategy to close the competence reality chasm, encompassing foundational infrastructure upgrades, curriculum overhaul, ecosystem orchestration, and locally attuned robotics applications. The analysis offers transferable insights for technology-entrepreneurship policy across sub-Saharan Africa, where similar mismatches between ambition and implementation are endemic.