Nigeria’s booming population is one of the fastest adopters of mobile technology and social media worldwide. Yet, despite the country’s growing appetite for digital platforms, it remains largely a consumer, not a creator, of global apps and technologies.
Across the country, young people are glued to smartphones. WhatsApp dominates communication, Facebook drives social interaction, Instagram and TikTok shape youth culture, and platforms like Uber and Bolt redefine urban transport. Yet, none of these apps originates from Nigeria.
“We download but don’t upload. We are good at downloading other people’s apps, other people’s content, but we are not uploading our own. That is a travesty. If you do a quick survey of the apps on your phone, 90 to 99 percent are American. Perhaps one or two are Chinese. But where are the Nigeria’s apps?” Admire Mare, associate professor in the department of communication and media at the University of Johannesburg, asked, at the fourth edition of the MTN Media Innovation Programme summit, organised by MTN Nigeria, the University of Johannesburg and Nigeria’s Pan-Atlantic University in Johannesburg.
This issue is not just Nigeria’s issue as it also affects other African countries, Mare averred, even as his critique aligns with broader discussions on Africa’s digital dependency, where local innovation is stifled by reliance on foreign platforms.
Globally, new centers of technological power are emerging. The United States still dominates, but China’s rise in areas like artificial intelligence, 5G, and super apps has reshaped the digital landscape. Even smaller nations like Qatar and Turkey are carving out niches in the global tech race.
Mare warned that while these players contest for dominance, Africa risks being sidelined entirely.
“China has built equivalents for every major American app. From Google to Facebook to PayPal. But Africa has none. We are left consuming whatever the rest of the world produces,” he lamented.
Africa’s dependence on global apps comes at a cost. By relying on platforms controlled by foreign corporations, the continent surrenders data, narratives, and economic value. Advertising revenues from African users flow to Silicon Valley or Beijing, with local economies capturing minimal shares; for instance, TikTok and Facebook dominate markets but repatriate profits.
“When TikTok or Facebook dominate African markets, the advertising dollars flow back to Silicon Valley or Beijing, not Lagos or Nairobi. Our youth generate content, but most of the profits go elsewhere,” Mare explained.
This imbalance not only stifles local innovation but also shapes how Africa is perceived globally. By consuming rather than creating, Africa’s digital identity remains defined by others.
UNCTAD warns that without addressing the digital divide, inequalities in technology diffusion will exacerbate social divides, with data economies dominated by a few advanced nations.
X discussions, like @AsianDawn4’s post on patent royalties hampering African projects, highlight how barriers from Europe, East Asia, and the US prevent tech independence. This dependency, he argued, also extends to how Africa frames its stories.
He cited global conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the Central African Republic which are often narrated by CNN, BBC, or Al Jazeera, while lamenting that African media rarely drive these conversations.
The Brookings Institution’s Foresight Africa 2024 report reinforces this, warning that without bridging infrastructure and skills gaps, Africa could be excluded from the next industrial revolution, with over 80 percent of digital media content hosted and monetized by US and European platforms.
For Mare, this imbalance is not just a matter of convenience but a reflection of a deeper structural weakness. “Africa, Nigeria inclusive, is a net user of technology, not an active participant in the global innovation race. This imbalance leaves the continent dependent on foreign platforms while sidelining its own talent and resources,” Mare averred.
He pointed to the contradiction at the heart of Africa’s tech paradox, where the continent supplies many of the raw materials powering the global digital economy (from cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo to rare earth minerals used in semiconductors), yet it produces few homegrown digital solutions.
Africa extracts over 70 percent of the world’s cobalt, essential for batteries in electric vehicles and smartphones, but beneficiation remains limited, with raw exports dominating trade. “The continent is at the core of global technological breakthroughs. Our minerals power artificial intelligence, mobile phones, and even electric cars. But instead of turning these resources into finished products, we sell them as raw materials. Where is beneficiation in all this?” he asked.
Why Africa struggles to innovate
Experts say several factors contribute to Africa’s innovation gap, including limited investment in research and development (R&D) as most African countries spend less than one percent of GDP on R&D, far below global averages.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s average is around 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent as of 2023, with calls from the IMF and AU for strategic increases to support diversification.
Weak infrastructure was cited as an obstacle as erratic power supply, poor broadband penetration, and high internet costs hinder tech startups. Only 43 percent of Africans have reliable electricity access, with frequent outages in countries like Nigeria and South Africa; fixed broadband costs average 14.8 percent of GNI per capita, exceeding the UN’s two percent benchmark. Internet penetration varies widely, from 92 percent in Morocco to under 10 percent in Burundi and Chad as of February 2025. The GSMA reports Sub-Saharan Africa’s widest global usage and coverage gaps at 59 percent and 15 percent, respectively.
Regulatory hurdles often discourage investors and innovators. The World Bank’s Digital Economy for Africa (DE4A) initiative stresses the need for stable policies to enable digital enabling environments. Worst still, many skilled African developers and engineers migrate abroad for better opportunities.
With 54 countries and diverse regulations, scaling apps across the continent is a challenge. X user @eajene notes that Africa’s 1.5 billion consumers and $3 trillion GDP are fragmented into mini-markets, leading to duplicated costs and barriers to scale. The AU recommends harmonized regulations under Agenda 2063.
Despite these obstacles, Mare believes solutions lie within Africa itself. “The rest of the world has an agenda for Africa. But Africa does not have an agenda for the rest of the world. That is our tragedy,” he said.
He acknowledged signs of progress. Tech hubs in Lagos, Nairobi, Cape Town, and Kigali are producing promising startups in fintech, healthtech, and agritech. Companies like Flutterwave, Paystack, and M-Pesa show that African innovation is possible and can scale globally.
In 2024, African startups saw over 25 acquisitions, with fintech leaders like Flutterwave and Paystack attracting major deals; Flutterwave’s $3 billion valuation and Paystack’s acquisition by Stripe for $200M+ exemplify success, while M-Pesa continues to drive financial inclusion. However, funding fell 41.7 percent in Q3 2023, pushing mergers for scale. The African Development Bank notes over 600 active tech hubs in 2024, fostering climate-smart solutions like SunCulture’s solar irrigation.
The Nigerian government’s 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme, launched in 2023, directly addresses this gap by training 3 million Nigerians in high-demand skills like AI, software development, and cybersecurity by 2025, aiming to create 2 million digital jobs and position Nigeria as a net talent exporter.
Recent developments include Cohort 3 enrolling 90,000 fellows in November 2024, with innovations like AI agents in the Wokkathon 1.0 hackathon (August 2025), telemedicine apps for rural healthcare, and the DeepTech_Ready upskilling in AI/Data Science supported by Google.org (launched January 2025, first cohort ongoing).
Partnerships with MTN (N3 billion grant, June 2025), Microsoft (AI certifications, August 2025), and BPO firms (117,000 jobs targeted, August 2025) enhance employability, with fellows building projects like NHED Smart Glove for sign language translation and agritech dashboards.
The programme’s Innovation Challenge awarded N6M to six teams in March 2024 for societal solutions like 24 cybersecurity tools and AI for creativity
“We cannot continue to be a continent that only downloads. We must upload, create our own apps, tell our own stories and build our own platforms,” Mare argued.
