The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said Nigeria needs regulatory coherence, consistent foreign exchange access and faster implementation of the Nigeria Startup Act to regain its position as Africa’s leading digital investment destination, after slipping to fourth place in 2025.
Speaking at the chamber’s ICTEL Expo 2026 in Lagos, LCCI President Leye Kupoluyi said Nigeria’s digital economy has become the fastest growing engine of its non oil sector, contributing over 10 percent to real GDP, but noted the country was overtaken by Kenya, South Africa and Egypt in start up funding last year despite its underlying connectivity gains, warning that infrastructure without policy certainty will not scale a single Nigerian tech company into a continental one. He said African tech funding overall rebounded 25 percent year on year to 4.1 billion dollars in 2025, with investors increasingly rewarding proven governance and revenue over hype, meaning regulatory coherence rather than regulatory volume will determine which markets scale.
Kupoluyi said overlapping levies, inconsistent foreign exchange access for tech payments and slow implementation of the Startup Act have raised the cost of scaling in Nigeria relative to peer markets, pushing some companies to redirect expansion capital to Nairobi, Cairo and Johannesburg instead, a trend he said Nigeria can no longer afford given the market access opportunity presented by the African Continental Free Trade Area’s digital trade protocol. He also called for treating broadband infrastructure as a public utility, noting Nigeria’s penetration remains below its 70 percent national target, and urged government to match private sector urgency with faster implementation.
