Software Engineering Practices and Code Quality in Open Source Contributions by Nigerian Developers

Open source software contributions by Nigerian developers have grown substantially, yet the software engineering practices and code quality standards applied in these contributions remain empirically unexplored. This study analyses software engineering practices and code quality in open source projects with significant Nigerian developer contributions, drawing on data from GitHub repositories and a survey of 90 Nigerian contributors. Repository analysis employs static code analysis tools including SonarQube and CodeClimate on 30 selected repositories, measuring cyclomatic complexity, code duplication, test coverage, and documentation completeness. Survey data examines contributors' software engineering backgrounds, coding standard awareness, and peer review experiences. Findings show that Nigerian developer contributions exhibit code quality metrics comparable to global OSS averages for complexity and duplication, but fall below median benchmarks for test coverage (22 percent versus a 45 percent global median) and documentation density. Regression analysis identifies formal software engineering education and prior corporate employment as the two strongest positive predictors of code quality scores. Qualitative survey data reveals that time constraints, lack of structured mentorship, and inadequate exposure to CI tooling in university settings contribute to quality gaps. Recommendations include tech community-led code quality bootcamps and integration of OSS contribution requirements into Nigerian software engineering curricula. Keywords: open source software, code quality, Nigerian developers, GitHub, software engineering