Why Nigeria must regulate digital platforms as public infrastructure
By Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi
At the core of Nigeria’s digital governance challenges lies a misguided notion, that piling on regulation will somehow restore trust. This assumption, while intuitive, ignores the complex realities of how digital ecosystems actually function in developing democracies and risks stifling the very innovation that has made Nigeria Africa’s fintech capital.
Nigeria’s digital landscape presents a fascinating paradox. Despite widespread concerns about misinformation and platform manipulation, the country has simultaneously emerged as Africa’s largest digital economy, with fintech revenues alone reaching $543 million in 2023, a 31% increase from the previous year. This suggests that Nigerians have developed sophisticated mechanisms for navigating digital risks that regulatory frameworks have yet to recognize or leverage.
The prevailing narrative positions platform regulation as essential protection against digital harm. Yet emerging research from the Oxford Internet Institute suggests that heavy-handed regulatory approaches in developing countries often create what economists term “regulatory capture” where large platforms can comply with complex requirements while smaller, locally-grown competitors cannot.
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In Nigeria’s case, this could inadvertently strengthen the dominance of foreign tech giants at the expense of homegrown solutions like Paystack, Flutterwave, and Andela that have thrived precisely because of regulatory flexibility.
Consider the e-commerce sector, where the article identifies fraud as a major concern. Data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) shows that electronic fraud losses actually decreased by 23% between 2022 and 2023, even as digital transaction volumes increased by 45%. This improvement occurred not through regulatory intervention, but through market-driven innovations in biometric authentication, machine learning fraud detection, and peer-to-peer verification systems developed by Nigerian fintech companies.
The #EndSARS example cited in the original analysis, while compelling, oversimplifies the relationship between digital platforms and social movements. Research by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) found that while misinformation did circulate during the protests, it constituted less than 15% of total social media content related to the movement. More significantly, the same platforms that allegedly spread dangerous misinformation also facilitated real-time documentation of police brutality, crowd-sourced legal aid, and coordinated medical assistance functions that traditional media and government channels failed to provide.
This dual nature of digital platforms simultaneously enabling both harmful and beneficial outcomes suggests that binary regulatory approaches may be counterproductive. Rather than treating platforms as inherently dangerous infrastructure requiring government oversight, Nigeria might benefit from treating them as complex adaptive systems requiring ecosystem-level interventions.
Perhaps most problematically, current regulatory discussions consistently underestimate the digital literacy and agency of Nigeria’s young population. The assumption that young Nigerians are “particularly susceptible to online manipulation” contradicts mounting evidence of their sophisticated digital navigation skills. A 2023 study by the University of Lagos found that Nigerian youth between 16 and 24 demonstrated higher rates of source verification and cross-platform fact-checking than their counterparts in more regulated digital environments like Germany or South Korea.
This suggests that Nigeria’s regulatory approach should build upon existing user competencies rather than assuming digital vulnerability. The country’s informal digital education networks from WhatsApp-based study groups to TikTok financial literacy content have proven remarkably effective at building digital resilience without formal regulatory intervention.
Instead of top-down platform regulation, Nigeria could pioneer a market-driven approach to digital trust that leverages the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. This would involve three key components:
First, competitive transparency markets where platforms compete on trust metrics rather than compliance checklists. Nigeria could establish a digital transparency index, scored by independent civil society organizations, that rates platforms on data practices, content moderation effectiveness, and user recourse mechanisms. Platforms would earn “trust scores” that users could access before engaging, creating market incentives for better behavior without regulatory mandates.
Second, distributed verification networks that harness Nigeria’s social capital rather than replacing it. Rather than centralized fact-checking, the country could develop blockchain-based reputation systems where trusted community members earn verification credentials through demonstrated accuracy over time. This approach would be culturally appropriate for a society where trust is often mediated through personal networks rather than institutional authorities.
Third, innovation sandboxes that allow Nigerian developers to experiment with novel trust mechanisms without regulatory pre-approval. Singapore’s fintech sandbox has generated breakthrough innovations in digital trust that have since been adopted globally.
Nigeria, with its combination of technical talent and market scale, could become the global laboratory for digital trust innovations appropriate for developing economies.
Unlike roads or power grids, digital platforms derive their value from network effects and rapid iteration. Treating them as infrastructure implies stability and standardization that could undermine their core benefits.
Nigeria’s digital economy has thrived precisely because it has avoided the infrastructure mindset that has hindered other African countries’ digital development. Kenya’s M-Pesa succeeded not because it was regulated as infrastructure, but because it was allowed to evolve as a market-driven innovation that gradually built trust through performance rather than compliance.
Nigeria’s path forward lies not in choosing between innovation and protection, but in developing adaptive governance mechanisms that can evolve alongside rapidly changing digital ecosystems. This means shifting from static regulatory frameworks toward dynamic oversight systems that can respond to emerging challenges without stifling beneficial innovations.
The country’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) could pioneer this approach by establishing “regulatory observatories” that monitor digital trends and convene stakeholders to address emerging issues collaboratively, rather than imposing predetermined solutions. This approach would position Nigeria not as a follower of Western regulatory models, but as an innovator in digital governance appropriate for complex, multi-ethnic democracies with young populations and entrepreneurial cultures.
Nigeria’s digital future need not be built on imported assumptions about platform regulation. By recognizing the sophisticated digital resilience already present in Nigerian society and building governance mechanisms that enhance rather than replace existing trust networks, the country could chart a uniquely African path toward digital prosperity one that other developing nations might follow rather than the reverse.
- Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi is the CEO of Do Take Action, a nonprofit focused on educational equity in Nigeria.
