Nigeria’s digital credit access below 20% — NITDA

The Director-General, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa

Fewer than 20 per cent of Nigerian adults have accessed digital credit, despite more than 80 per cent having bank accounts, highlighting a significant gap in financial services that technology investors could exploit, according to a National Information Technology Development Agency report.

The Nigeria Tech Outlook Report, launched by the NITDA Director-General, Kashifu Abdullahi, on the sidelines of the Digital Nigeria International Conference and Exhibition, also found 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, pointing to significant unmet demand in the country’s healthcare sector.

The findings identify healthcare, financial services and digital devices as areas with considerable investment potential, giving investors data on market opportunities, service-delivery gaps and the extent of technology adoption across the country.

Speaking at the launch, Abdullahi said Nigeria had long depended on data from the World Bank and other international institutions to inform decisions in the technology sector, stressing the need for reliable, locally generated statistics to support policy formulation, investment and regulation.

He said the country needed its own baseline data to understand the technology sector and guide its development, adding that NITDA had been working with the National Bureau of Statistics to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the industry.

The director-general said both institutions needed to continue co-creating the data required to track Nigeria’s digital transformation, noting that providing such information formed part of NITDA’s responsibility to create an enabling environment for investment and innovation in the technology sector.

Abdullahi also called for a broader understanding of the digital economy, arguing that conventional measurements, which largely capture the Information and Communications Technology sector’s contribution to gross domestic product, fail to reflect the extent to which technology now drives activities across other industries, including finance and the media.

He said a wider measurement framework was necessary to accurately assess technology’s contribution to economic activities and identify areas where innovation could address existing challenges.

Abdullahi identified health technology as a promising investment area, noting Nigerians’ willingness to pay for quality healthcare and the disparity between demand for telemedicine and access to such services.

He said digital technology could bridge trust and information gaps in the financial services sector, making it easier for small businesses to access loans.

He explained that digital records and transaction histories could give financial institutions better visibility into the activities and creditworthiness of small and medium-sized enterprises, potentially improving their ability to assess lending risks and extend credit to underserved businesses.

According to him, the report is intended to give investors a clearer picture of market potential, unmet demand and areas where existing services have yet to reach enough Nigerians.

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He added that access to such information would reduce the resources investors need to spend on preliminary market research, while helping them identify opportunities and assess risks before committing capital.

NITDA said the Nigeria Tech Outlook Report would become an annual publication, with the second edition expected to be ready by 1 June 2027.

Abdullahi said the agency would deepen its collaboration with the NBS and other regulatory institutions to ensure the timely collection and exchange of relevant datasets.

He also disclosed plans to develop the report into an interactive portal where citizens, investors and other stakeholders could explore information, submit feedback and suggest improvements, supported by real-time data exchange among regulators.

“We are going to continue working with the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics. 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 said.

Also speaking at the launch, 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 the publication provided, for the first time, a consolidated source of credible evidence on how Nigerians and institutions across the country accessed and used technology.

Adeniran said the report would establish a reliable foundation for understanding the country’s digital development and welcomed plans to update and expand it annually.

He stressed that measuring technology’s contribution to the economy must go beyond figures showing the performance of the Information and Communications Technology sector.

The Statistician-General disclosed that the NBS worked with NITDA to conduct a special nationwide telephone survey using Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews, 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 and reaffirmed the NBS’s commitment to its partnership with NITDA in producing reliable statistics for national planning and development.