The Federal Government is trying to solve a problem it quietly admits has been holding things back for years. Too many good ideas. Not enough coordination to make them work at scale.
That was the backdrop as the National Information Technology Development Agency inaugurated a Multistakeholder Coordination Group in Abuja, bringing government, private sector and civil society into one structure to push Nigeria’s digital governance efforts forward.
Speaking at the event, NITDA Director General Kashifu Inuwa said the move is coming at a time when Nigeria is receiving global attention for its progress in digital governance. However, he made it clear that recognition alone means very little without sustained delivery.
“Recognition comes with responsibility. If the global community recognises what we are doing, it means we must do more to sustain that progress,” he said.
Nigeria’s progress has been built on a series of policy and regulatory moves in recent years, including the National E-Governance and Digital Economy Bill, the Nigeria Data Protection Act, as well as technical frameworks like the Interoperability Framework and the Nigerian Government Enterprise Architecture.
These structures are designed to make government systems work together, reduce duplication and improve service delivery. Yet, Inuwa admitted that having frameworks in place is not the same as making them work consistently across institutions.
That gap is part of what the new coordination group is meant to address.
According to him, progress in digital transformation cannot be driven by isolated efforts. It requires alignment across agencies, shared standards and constant engagement with stakeholders who build, regulate and use these systems.
He also drew attention to a deeper issue that often gets overlooked when talking about digital growth. Access is still uneven.
Underserved communities, persons with disabilities, children and the elderly remain at risk of being excluded if digital systems are not designed with them in mind. For Inuwa, improving connectivity and digital literacy is not an add-on. It is central to whether these reforms will actually work.
Beyond access, he pointed to the cost of inefficiency.
Over the past year, NITDA reviewed IT projects worth more than ₦1.5 trillion across federal MDAs and saved over ₦319 billion by identifying waste and duplication. However, he revealed that more than 56 percent of government IT projects have historically failed to deliver expected results.
That failure rate is not technical. It is structural.
Poor planning. Weak oversight. Lack of standardisation.
To change that, NITDA is introducing stricter guidelines around system design, professional certification and quality assurance. The goal is to move from projects that exist on paper to systems that actually work in practice.
Still, Inuwa was careful to shift the focus away from individuals.
He warned that reforms tied to specific people rarely last. What matters is building systems that continue to function regardless of who is in charge.
“We need stakeholders to hold us accountable for what we promise to deliver,” he said.
That call for accountability was echoed by Gloria Ahmed, National Coordinator of the Open Government Partnership in Nigeria, who described the new group as a step toward stronger collaboration across the ecosystem.
She noted that Nigeria’s recent recognition at the 2025 Global Summit in Spain reflects progress, but also raises expectations around transparency, citizen participation and service delivery.
According to her, the country’s Fourth National Action Plan places digital governance at the centre of reform efforts, including the development of a Digital Public Infrastructure such as the Nigeria Data Exchange Platform.
The success of those plans, she said, will depend less on policy announcements and more on how well institutions work together to implement them.
That is the real test ahead.
Nigeria has frameworks. It has ambition. It has visibility.
What it has struggled with is alignment.
This new group is an attempt to fix that quietly persistent problem. Whether it succeeds will depend on something less visible than policy documents; consistency.
