In 2022, Nigeria’s tech-enabled startups collectively raised approximately $1.1 billion in foreign investment, a figure that underscores the immense ambition and ingenuity embedded in the ecosystem. However, this capital arrived in an environment that was not yet built to sustain it. Despite the momentum, founders were forced to navigate a landscape defined by fragmented policies and institutional gaps rather than an enabling business environment. This lack of structural support meant that much of the economic value was struggling to take root and multiply within the country.

 
Nigeria was not alone in recognising this gap. Across Africa, governments have begun to understand that startup ecosystems do not grow in a policy vacuum. Tunisia passed its Startup Act in 2018, establishing a dedicated legal framework to identify, label, and financially support startups, creating pathways for funding, intellectual property protection, and structured government engagement with the private sector.
Senegal, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Côte d'Ivoire followed with their own frameworks. The motive was that countries that would lead Africa's digital economy would be those that deliberately built the infrastructure for innovation.

Source: A session at the 10th AfriLabs Annual Gathering

What the Nigeria Startup Act Set Out to Do

Signed into law in October 2022, the Nigeria Startup Act (NSA) represents a landmark in Nigerian technology policy. The Act seeks to:

• Create co-created regulations that reflect the realities of the startup ecosystem, rather than imposing legacy frameworks that were never designed with digital businesses in mind.

• Establish a legal and institutional framework that provides startups with recognition, protection, and a defined relationship with government.

• Provide incentives and linkages — including tax relief, access to credit, and government procurement that make domiciling in Nigeria a competitive

• Invest in tech talent development, acknowledging that the long-term health of the ecosystem depends on the next generation of builders, not just the current crop of founders.

The Role of Advocacy

Good laws do not write themselves, and even well-written laws do not implement themselves. Research on policy reform across Africa consistently shows that legislation developed without meaningful stakeholder engagement struggles with implementation. 

This is particularly true in the technology sector, where the pace of change means that policies written in isolation can be outdated before they are even enacted. The Nigeria Startup Act needed to reflect what founders, hubs, investors, and educators actually needed. That required a structured process of listening, interrogating, and bridging coordination gaps.

The Digital Transformation Foundation (DTEF) led this process with a clear conviction that policy is only as strong as the voices that shape it. DTEF engaged in the kind of deliberate, multi-stakeholder advocacy that transforms a bill from a document into a framework people actually trust and use.

Early in the process, DTEF conducted needs assessments to understand what the ecosystem genuinely required.. This included identifying the key players whose voices were missing from the room and whose work was defined by the very problems the Act sought to address. DTEF facilitated socialisation sessions across these groups to invite their substantive input into the governance framework being designed. As the bill moved through drafting stages, DTEF advocated for ecosystem participation in the review process, engaging with the Ministry of Justice, and working with the National Assembly to ensure that technical realities were understood at the legislative level.

Most critically, DTEF invested in sensitisation through public consultations, focus group sessions, regional town halls, state rallies, MDA engagements, public hearings, and a sustained learning series, which helped translate the complexity of the Act into accessible, actionable knowledge for the stakeholders it was designed to serve.

The Larger Stakes

The passage of the Nigeria Startup Act is not a finish line. It is one that still requires interpretation, resourcing, and implementation to deliver its promise. Africa's digital economy is projected to contribute over $180 billion to the continent's GDP by 2025, according to the IFC. Nigeria, as its most populous nation and one of the most active startup markets, has an outsized role to play in that story. But that role will only be realised through a unified front where government institutions, innovators, and policy advocates operate not in silos, but as a cohesive engine of growth.