Nigeria Must Convert AI Investments Into Jobs, Local Technologies – Experts

Nigeria’s growing investment in artificial intelligence (AI), digital skills and technology infrastructure will have limited economic impact unless the country can convert the investments into locally developed technologies, competitive businesses, exports and jobs, technology stakeholders have warned.

The concern emerged at GITEX Nigeria 2026 in Lagos, where policymakers and technology industry leaders said Nigeria must move beyond consuming imported technologies and build the capacity to develop solutions capable of competing in local and international markets.

The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, said Nigeria must become a producer rather than a passive consumer of emerging technologies.

“We don’t want to be at the receiving end of technology, but we want to be an active builder of the technology,” he said.

His remarks highlighted a major challenge facing Nigeria’s digital economy: translating the country’s growing interest in AI into productive economic activity rather than allowing the market to become largely dependent on foreign platforms, software and infrastructure.

Chief Executive Officer of GITEX Global, Trixie LohMirmand, said about $1.85 billion had been committed to AI infrastructure in Nigeria, while initiatives were targeting the training of 700,000 Nigerians in AI.

She, however, stressed that investment and talent development alone would not guarantee economic returns without access to capital, customers and international markets.

“Talents need access to markets. Startups need access to customers. Innovation needs capital. Capital needs confidence,” she said.

LohMirmand said the next stage of Nigeria’s technology development should focus on enabling local companies to scale and compete internationally rather than simply increasing the size of the startup ecosystem.

“Consuming AI just makes for a market. When you start to create AI, it makes you a superpower,” she said.

The NITDA boss reaffirms the nation’s increasing government and private-sector interest in AI as a tool for economic diversification, productivity and job creation.

Inuwa said Nigeria’s technology strategy was increasingly focused on building the human and technological capacity required to participate in emerging areas, including AI, Internet of Things, robotics, blockchain, unmanned aerial vehicles and additive manufacturing.

He also pointed to the need for greater digital sovereignty, including capacity around sovereign cloud, data, cloud operations and AI.

However, the central challenge remains whether these investments can translate into businesses capable of generating revenue, creating employment and competing beyond Nigeria.

For a country with a large young population and expanding digital economy, failure to make that transition could leave Nigeria primarily as a consumer market for foreign technology companies, while much of the higher-value economic activity occurs elsewhere.

Commenting, Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Wamkele Mene, said the continental market also presented an opportunity for African technology companies, provided countries could address fragmentation in digital infrastructure.

He said interoperable digital identity systems, payment platforms, cross-border data flows and electronic trade documentation would be necessary to enable technology businesses and small enterprises to operate across African markets.

Mene warned that Africa could replace physical trade barriers with “digital fragmentation” if national digital systems were developed without the ability to communicate with one another.

The implication for Nigeria is significant. Even where local startups develop viable technologies, weak interoperability, limited access to capital and fragmented African digital markets could restrict their ability to scale.

Meanwhile, Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Abisoye Coker-Odusote, said digital trust would also be critical to expanding digital transactions.

She said trusted digital identity, authentication and electronic signatures could reduce transaction friction and improve security in interactions involving citizens, businesses and government.

“Connection without trust means vulnerability. Friction thrives. Transactions slow down, costs rise, and fraud risk multiplies,” she said.

For technology stakeholders, the emerging policy challenge is therefore no longer simply about expanding connectivity or increasing the number of people trained in digital skills.

It is about building the conditions under which those skills can be converted into intellectual property, products, businesses and jobs.

This includes access to affordable infrastructure, long-term financing, reliable electricity, computing capacity, research and development, digital markets and policies that enable Nigerian technology companies to scale.

Meanwhile, the challenge also extends to ensuring that AI investment produces measurable economic value, particularly in sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing, education, financial services and public administration.

Nigeria’s ability to achieve that transition will determine whether the current AI and digital infrastructure boom becomes a foundation for a stronger technology industry or simply expands the country’s appetite for imported digital products.

The Stakeholders noted that Nigeria’s AI opportunity will ultimately be judged not by how much technology it consumes or how many people it trains, but by how many technologies it builds, businesses it scales, jobs it creates and markets it captures.