₦airaland Forum

By all objective measures, Nigeria’s digital economy should be entering its golden decade. The country has talent, infrastructure, entrepreneurial depth, and international credibility.

What it lacks—fatally—is the kind of leadership willing to defend its domestic digital ecosystem from foreign capture.

Despite unprecedented trust and latitude from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the current custodians of Nigeria’s digital portfolio, Dr Bosun Tijani, (Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy), Dr Aminu Maida (Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission), and Kashifu Inuwa (Director General of NITDA)—have so far failed to articulate or enforce a Nigeria-First digital industrial policy.

The result is a creeping dependency that threatens to turn Africa’s largest digital market into a client economy—profitable, yes, but not sovereign.

Nigeria’s digital policy
Under this administration, Nigeria’s digital policy has lost coherence and strategic intent. There is no unified vision for nurturing domestic innovators, no guardrails to prevent market concentration, and no framework for managing the growing dominance of multinational platforms in payments, cloud services, and connectivity.

Where the previous administration—through the Central Bank of Nigeria—once took principled risks to empower local fintechs, today’s regulators have adopted a posture of quiet surrender.

It bears repeating that Moniepoint, Kuda, FairMoney, and PalmPay were not accidents of innovation. They were the product of deliberate policy decisions that restrained commercial banks and created space for new entrants. That boldness catalysed jobs, investment, and investor confidence.

Today, that spirit is gone. The new orthodoxy seems to be appeasement—an open-door policy for MTN, Airtel, and other multinational giants expanding unchecked into fintech, identity, and digital services.


These firms now occupy multiple layers of the digital stack—telecoms, finance, and infrastructure—while homegrown startups are left to compete in asymmetrical markets, often without regulatory protection.

Nigerian regulators as cheerleaders
Rather than acting as referees, Nigeria’s digital regulators have become cheerleaders, celebrating every new “partnership” with a global brand as a sign of progress.

These deals, often marketed as “innovation enablers,” too frequently result in the displacement of Nigerian companies, the offshoring of local data, and the quiet erosion of indigenous capacity.

The consequences are visible. Nigerian startups are scaling down or relocating abroad. International venture capital and domestic investors are drying up as confidence wanes. Government ministries increasingly procure foreign cloud and software services, marginalising local providers, while Telcos are consolidating dominance over payments, identity management, and data—core layers once led by innovators.

The silence from the ministry, the NCC, and NITDA is not neutrality, it is neglect. For those who believe regulatory passivity is harmless, Ghana offers a sobering case study. There, MTN Mobile Money became a gravitational monopoly that swallowed the country’s fintech ecosystem whole.

Innovation withered. Startups died. Market concentration deepened to the point where competition became theoretical.

Nigeria is drifting down the same path—only with a larger population and higher stakes. When policy timidity becomes the default, market monopolies become destiny.

Reclaiming Nigeria’s digital sovereignty
Nigeria must urgently reclaim control of its digital destiny through a Digital Sovereignty and Domestic Participation Policy.

The sector desperately needs a comprehensive framework that defines clear boundaries between telecoms, fintechs, and digital platforms, prioritises Nigerian ownership and equity in strategic technology sectors, mandates data localisation and value retention, and creates competitive safeguards to prevent vertical monopolies.

No economy achieves self-sufficiency by outsourcing its digital infrastructure. Every great digital nation—from India to South Korea—has used industrial policy to protect nascent industries before exposing them to global competition.

Nigeria must do the same, not out of isolationism, but out of realism. Without red lines, telcos will dominate infrastructure and innovation, without a national digital charter, Nigeria will become a user base, not a producer.

The harsh truth is that the digital economy is not about visibility. It is about vision, vigilance, and the willingness to make unpopular choices.

Dr Bosun Tijani and Idris Alubankudi Saliu have yet to articulate a coherent framework for digital sovereignty or startup protection. Same as Dr Aminu Maida’s NCC which remains reactive, allowing mobile network operators to expand into fintech without meaningful competition safeguards. It’s worth remembering that they (being a regulator) championed the tariff increase for telcos and word on the street is that they are likely to approve another in the coming months.

Kashifu Inuwa’s NITDA appears more focused on pilot projects and publicity than on confronting systemic vulnerabilities in the local innovation base.

Of course, these are failures of conviction, and they risk reducing Nigeria’s digital economy from a source of pride to a cautionary tale.

Nigeria still has the ingredients for greatness, world-class engineers, a thriving developer community, a global diaspora of innovators, and a resilient private sector. What it lacks is a state willing to defend its own future.

If we continue on the current trajectory, the next wave of African innovation will not emerge from Yaba or Abuja, but from Nairobi, Johannesburg, or Dubai. Nigeria will still have user, but zero ownership.

The digital economy is the new oil. But unlike crude, it cannot be exported raw. It must be refined, protected, and governed with foresight.

Until then, policymakers must understand that Nigeria’s so-called digital revolution will remain a story of potential squandered and sovereignty sold.


Ayodele Adio is the Managing Director of Adio Strategy and Communications

ntyce:
Bosun Tijani, the Minister in charge is just cruising in office.
Nothing to show ...
The guy is a huge disappointment considering his antecedents.

99thEnemy:
Bosun Tijani operates in a tougher economic climate than his predecessors.

He is performing very well when all factors are considered.

SouthSouth1914:
Propaganda won’t take you and your lots anywhere. His performance is abysmal and disappointing!

99thEnemy:
Propaganda abi fact?

If you think his performance is abysmal, list the specific failures. Let us see facts, not emotions.

99thEnemy:
Bosun Tijani operates in a tougher economic climate than his predecessors.

He is performing very well when all factors are considered.

spiSeyi:
Stop praising mediocrity how can digital economy thrive in an economy that lacks basic 24hrs electricity, where multiple taxation(unsolicited bank charges) is the order of the day, unchecked bank charges, low spectrum of 4G not to talk of 5G. Nigeria can't even boast of a domestic cloud company as we speak , and to cap it all poor education and lacks of expertise in core tech fields, lack of R& D funding.
To me Nigeria is not ready for digital economy the office of Bosun Tijani is worthless and there shouldn't be a ministerial position for such office in the first place till those basics are fixed

givedemwotowoto:
How you know a failed government is when they’re using parables to explain their economic progress. Example, when asked when Nigerians will see the benefits of reforms, the government’s answer is “The journey of a thousand miles start with a single step, we have taken that step and will soon reach our destination.”

In a working economy, you use data and forecasts, example: We have invested $12 billion into the non-oil sector, which is projected to grow by 8.5% next year and create 1.2 million jobs.”

“Inflation is expected to drop from 28% to 14% within 12 months as new refineries and agro-processing plants come online.”

Tinubu’s government is a complete failure. Vote them out if you want Nigeria to ever survive as a country beyond 2027.

99thEnemy:
Did you skip this "operates in a tougher economic climate" before comprehension?

fredoooooo:
Keep blaming thr leaders.. youre all Angels

ntyce:
Bosun Tijani, the Minister in charge is just cruising in office.
Nothing to show ...
The guy is a huge disappointment considering his antecedents.

fredoooooo:
Bush baby no be me rui ya life, dont come and Bite me ...