The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has identified significant investment opportunities in Nigeria’s healthcare, financial services and technology sectors, highlighting gaps between demand for digital services and actual access to them.
The findings are contained in the Nigeria Tech Outlook Report and Dashboard, launched by NITDA Director-General, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, on the sidelines of the Digital Nigeria International Conference and Exhibition (DNICE).
Presenting the report, Abdullahi disclosed that although more than 80 per cent of Nigerians had used telemedicine at some point, fewer than 20 per cent had actually accessed the service, indicating considerable unmet demand for digital healthcare.
He identified health technology as an attractive investment area, particularly given Nigerians’ willingness to pay for quality healthcare services.
The report also revealed that while more than 80 per cent of Nigerian adults had bank accounts, fewer than 20 per cent had accessed digital credit.
According to Abdullahi, technology could bridge the trust and information gaps preventing small businesses from securing loans, as digital records and transaction histories would enable financial institutions to better assess the activities and creditworthiness of small and medium-sized enterprises.
He said the report would provide investors with reliable information on market potential, unmet demand and underserved areas, reducing the resources required for preliminary market research and helping them assess investment risks before committing capital.
The NITDA boss explained that the initiative was also designed to address the longstanding shortage of credible, locally generated data on Nigeria’s technology sector, noting that the country had largely depended on information from the World Bank and other international institutions to guide policy decisions.
He stressed the need for Nigeria to establish its own reliable baseline data to support effective planning, regulation and investment in the digital economy.
Abdullahi disclosed that NITDA had been working with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to develop a comprehensive understanding of the sector, adding that sustained collaboration between both institutions was essential to tracking the country’s digital transformation.
He also argued that conventional measurements of the digital economy, which largely capture the contribution of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), fail to reflect technology’s growing influence across other sectors, including finance and the media.
He said a broader measurement framework was necessary to accurately assess technology’s contribution to economic activities and identify emerging opportunities for innovation.
Abdullahi announced that the Nigeria Tech Outlook Report would become an annual publication, with the second edition expected to be ready by June 1, 2027.
He added that NITDA planned to develop the report into an interactive portal where citizens, investors and other stakeholders could explore information, provide feedback and suggest improvements, supported by real-time data exchange among regulatory institutions.
“We are going to continue working with the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS). We also want to work with other regulators to ensure we exchange real-time data so we can always have an up-to-date portal for people to go and interact with. So, this is the reason we are doing this report, and we hope to hear more from you on how to improve it,’’ Abdullahi declared.
Also speaking, the Statistician-General of the Federation, Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, described the report as a significant intervention in addressing Nigeria’s longstanding technology data gap.
He said it provides, for the first time, a consolidated source of credible evidence on how Nigerians and institutions across the country access and use technology, providing a reliable foundation for understanding the country’s digital development.
Adeniran disclosed that the NBS collaborated with NITDA to conduct a nationwide telephone survey using Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI), covering 2,147 households and 539 primary healthcare facilities across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
He said the exercise demonstrated how digital tools could modernise official data collection, reaffirming the NBS’s commitment to working with NITDA to produce reliable statistics for national planning and development.
