The Nigerian ruling political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has articulated five core ambitions for its technological roadmap heading into 2031.
The national Chairman of the party, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, who disclosed this in Lagos last week at the West Africa Convergence Conference (WACC 2026), organised by KnowHow Media, noted that the comprehensive strategy aims to reposition Nigeria as a dominant digital economy over the next several years.
The five core pillars for a New Digital Economy Compact, structured according to him, should be built on Predictability, Innovation, Investment, Talent, and Inclusion.
“The great nations of the twenty-first century will not be defined by the resources beneath their soil, but by the knowledge in their classrooms, the innovation in their laboratories, the connectivity of their networks, and the courage of their leaders. Nigeria has all four. Our task now is to turn that potential into common prosperity,” Yilwatda said.
While calling for a paradigm shift in how digital infrastructure is financed nationwide, Professor Yilwatda argued that, just as previous generations treated roads and ports as long-term investments, modern institutional capital must view data centers, fiber networks, and cloud platforms as a new national asset class.
To fund this transformation at scale, he outlined a multi-channel financing architecture designed to aggregate both local and international capital. This framework includes leveraging pension funds to activate Nigeria’s massive pool of domestic savings to back long-duration digital assets, which will yield steady returns for pensioners while directly funding local productivity. Additionally, sovereign-backed and infrastructure funds will provide catalytic, risk-reducing capital to crowd in private investors who might otherwise hesitate to fund large-scale tech deployments. The roadmap also calls for utilizing patient capital from international and local Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) to ensure rural connectivity and equitable digital inclusion. Finally, Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) will combine government policy certainty with private-sector execution capability and efficiency.
In this funding ecosystem, Yilwatda highlighted the strategic importance of the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI), noting that MOFI is uniquely positioned to bridge public assets and private capital, turning policy aspirations into structured, investable digital assets.
Concluding his landmark address, the APC National Chairman emphasized that the government cannot build this future in isolation.