India’s digital partnership opens way ahead for Nigeria: Report

MoUs with Nigeria on sharing digital technology provide the African nation with an opportunity to emulate the successful experiment already carried out in a 1.4 billion strong country in delivering social welfare services, education and the creation of jobs.

The MoUs were signed in New Delhi when Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, agreed on two key frameworks: one with India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and another with the Central Square Foundation, an Indian EdTech focused organisation.

“For millions of young Nigerians who dream of building the next African tech giant, or for parents who simply want their children to access better education and services, the digital technology partnership Nigeria signed with India in 2023 was not just a dry diplomatic agreement; it was a quiet but powerful turning point,” according to an article in India Narrative written by Chukwudi Okeke, a Startup Mentor and co-founder of Nigeria Innovation Hub in Lagos.

India did not just build a digital economy; it rewired how a billion people interact with government, banks, and schools. Nigeria, with its own vast population, youthful energy, and struggling infrastructure, now has a rare opportunity to learn from that experience, adapt it to local realities, and turn digital transformation into tangible progress for ordinary Nigerians, the article states.

The MeitY agreement focuses on sharing digital solutions, particularly in e governance, digital identity, and public service delivery, while the Central Square pact targets technology enabled education and digital learning infrastructure in Nigeria’s public schools and training institutions.

Together, these agreements lay the groundwork for structured technology transfer, joint pilot projects, and institutional exchanges between Nigerian and Indian agencies. Nigeria’s ambition is clear: we want to create one million digital economy jobs by 2025 and raise digital literacy levels among our youth.

Choosing India as a partner is deliberate, because India’s experience shows that digital transformation can be done at scale if it is planned, funded, and executed with political will, the article points out.

India’s digital state architecture offers Nigeria a near ready made template for how to build public tech infrastructure without reinventing the wheel. India’s Aadhaar based digital identity system, combined with India Stack and its Unified Payments Interface (UPI), has turned a paper based economy into one where hundreds of millions of people can open bank accounts, receive government payments, and make real time payments from a mobile phone, the article states.