A Nigerian academic, Dr Wadzani Dauda, has abandoned plans to settle abroad after helping researchers secure more than $2.5m in competitive grants, with his initiative now targeting $1bn in funding for its members.
Dauda, who left Nigeria for India on a doctoral fellowship, disclosed that he had initially planned to remain abroad after completing his PhD at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-IARI).
He said the decision changed after securing four international offers, including reaching the final interview stage for an Assistant Professor position at a United States university.
According to him, the university’s Head of Department had expressed interest in his research and proposed positioning him as a preferred candidate for a subsequent recruitment exercise.
However, Dauda said he later withdrew his interest to focus on helping academics and career professionals develop their research and secure funding, particularly in Nigeria and across Africa.
The decision led him to the Academic and Grant Writing Enclave (AGE), a non-profit educational organisation where he serves as Pioneer Director of Training and Development.
Dauda said AGE had trained 92,289 participants across 97 countries since 2023.
He disclosed that the organisation prepared more than 2,000 Nigerian researchers in 2024 for the N5bn TETFund National Research Fund, while 4,043 researchers from 14 countries participated in its 2025 NRF masterclass.
He added that researchers trained by AGE secured 62 competitive grants in 2024 and 2025, valued at more than N3.5bn, while the organisation’s broader grant impact had surpassed $2.5m.
Dauda stressed that the funds were awarded directly to researchers, their projects, laboratories and universities, rather than to him or AGE.
He said the impact of the initiative had reinforced his decision to remain in Nigeria, noting that a foreign academic position could have improved his family’s circumstances, but his work had supported dozens of research projects.
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“Japa is a valid choice, and for many people it is the right one. I will keep helping people who leave,” he said.
The academic also announced the launch of Grantgator, a platform designed to help researchers discover relevant funding opportunities, monitor deadlines and develop competitive grant proposals and budgets.
The platform is scheduled to go live on November 30, 2026, with an initial cohort of 100 founding members.
Dauda said each founding member would receive 52 weeks of free grant-writing training during the beta phase.
He said the initiative’s long-term ambition was to build the Unicorn Grant Community, targeting more than $1bn in grants secured by its members over the next decade.
“I left to learn. I stayed to build,” Dauda said.
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