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By IT Edge News.Africa
Nigeria’s technology ecosystem has intensified its push to position Lagos as a gateway to Africa’s emerging intelligence economy, as technology enterprises, policymakers, investors and startups converged in the city for the second edition of GITEX NIGERIA 2026.
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The two-day Tech Expo & Future Economy Conference, which opened in Lagos on September 2, follows Monday’s Government Leadership & AI Summit in Abuja and brings together global technology companies, African innovators, investors and policymakers around the opportunities and challenges shaping the continent’s digital future.
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Held under the patronage of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GITEX NIGERIA is supported by the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy in collaboration with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). The event is endorsed by the Lagos State Government and organised by KAOUN International, the global organiser of GITEX events.
The Lagos edition features more than 400 exhibiting companies and startups, thousands of visitors and more than 200 investors managing approximately US$200 billion in assets.
Lagos Emerges as Africa’s Innovation Capital
The choice of Lagos as the host city for the Tech Expo underscores the growing importance of Nigeria’s commercial capital to Africa’s technology and startup economy.
According to the 2025 Dealroom Global Tech Ecosystem Index, Lagos was ranked the world’s fastest-growing tech hub, recording an 11.6-fold increase in enterprise value to US$15.3 billion and producing five unicorns. The city ranked ahead of 287 cities across 69 countries.
Lagos is home to almost 1,000 active startups, representing roughly two-thirds of Nigeria’s startup ecosystem. The city is also Africa’s highest-ranked startup hub and hosts 23 of the 28 Nigerian companies included in the Financial Times’ 2025 ranking of Africa’s fastest-growing companies.
For the Lagos State Government, however, the ambition extends beyond maintaining its position as Nigeria’s commercial centre.
Dr Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, Deputy Governor of Lagos State, said the city’s growing technology influence makes it strategically important to the future of Africa’s economy.
“GITEX NIGERIA is here because Lagos is consequential. What happens in this city sets the direction for a continent of around 1.4 billion people.”
Hamzat said Lagos wants to be recognised not only as Nigeria’s commercial capital but also as Africa’s innovation capital, stressing that such a position must be built through infrastructure, talent, policy and execution.
AfCFTA Pushes for a Single Digital Continental Market
Beyond Lagos and Nigeria, GITEX NIGERIA is also being positioned as a platform for addressing one of Africa’s most significant digital-economy challenges: how to transform innovation scattered across individual markets into commercially scalable businesses operating across borders.
Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, called for Africa to develop and control more of the digital infrastructure underpinning its economic transformation.
He argued that the continent should not simply import digital infrastructure and systems developed elsewhere when Africa possesses the talent, technical expertise and entrepreneurial capacity to build solutions aligned with its own development priorities.
Mene said Africa must connect its innovation ecosystem to a single digital continental market, enabling African businesses to operate, transact and expand across borders while converting digital innovation into meaningful trade.
The message places digital infrastructure and interoperability at the heart of the AfCFTA project, with digital identity, payments, trusted transactions, data systems and cross-border connectivity increasingly becoming essential components of continental trade.
NITDA: Nigeria Must Become a Builder of Technology
For Nigeria, the GITEX NIGERIA platform is equally about changing the country’s position in the global technology value chain—from a major consumer of digital products to a producer and owner of critical technological capabilities.
Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director General of NITDA, said Nigeria must deliberately create an environment where its young population can transform local challenges into globally competitive technology solutions.
He identified data sovereignty, cloud sovereignty, operational sovereignty and AI sovereignty as critical components of Nigeria’s digital future.
“We don’t want to be at the receiving end of technology; we want to be an active builder of the technology,” Abdullahi said.
His position reflects a broader shift in Nigeria’s technology policy conversation, where digital transformation is increasingly being linked to national competitiveness, local value creation, control over data and infrastructure, and the ability to develop indigenous capabilities in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Digital Identity Becomes Foundation for Digital Trust
The question of trust also featured prominently at the Lagos inauguration, particularly against the backdrop of President Tinubu’s signing of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Act 2026 in June.
The new legislation replaces the 2007 NIMC Act and establishes a modern framework intended to strengthen Nigeria’s digital identity architecture.
With the National Identification Number (NIN) reinforced as the country’s primary identity credential, the new framework is expected to support stronger interoperability, data protection, cybersecurity and access to public and private-sector services.
Abisoye Coker-Odusote, Director-General and CEO of NIMC, described digital trust as an essential foundation for Africa’s increasingly digital economy.
“Connection without trust breeds vulnerability.”
According to her, digital identity, public key infrastructure (PKI)-based trust and digital public infrastructure must be treated as interconnected components of the same digital ecosystem.
She noted that as AfCFTA develops the world’s largest integrated market, trade will increasingly depend on digital processes—including electronic contracts, identity verification and authenticated payments across national borders.
The implication is significant: Africa’s ambition for a genuinely integrated digital market will depend not only on connectivity, but also on whether businesses and citizens can securely establish identity and trust across jurisdictions.
AI-First Transformation Takes Centre Stage
The opening of GITEX NIGERIA’s Tech Expo also places artificial intelligence at the centre of conversations around the future of business, government and economic growth.
More than 400 companies and startups are showcasing technologies aimed at driving transformation across multiple sectors, while investors, technology leaders and policymakers explore opportunities for partnerships, funding and international expansion.
The concentration of more than 200 investors managing about US$200 billion in assets further strengthens the event’s investment dimension, providing Nigerian and African technology companies with access to international capital and networks.
For GITEX organisers, the objective is not simply to create another technology exhibition, but to establish connections capable of moving African innovation from local markets into the global economy.
Trixie LohMirmand, CEO of GITEX, said the event is designed to connect Nigerian and African innovators with international knowledge, partnerships, networks and opportunities.
“Nigeria has the scale; Lagos has the ambition and energy. We aim to grow collectively and put Africa at the top – not just as a consumer of AI, but as a globally competitive producer.”
From Connectivity to Global Technology Production
The Lagos edition of GITEX NIGERIA 2026 therefore arrives at a pivotal moment for Nigeria and the wider African technology ecosystem.
The conversation is increasingly moving beyond basic connectivity and technology adoption towards questions of who owns the infrastructure, who controls the data, who develops the intelligence and who captures the economic value generated by Africa’s digital transformation.
For Lagos, the challenge is to convert its growing startup density, investment appeal and technology talent into globally competitive companies and enduring innovation capacity.
For Nigeria, the challenge is broader: to turn its demographic scale, entrepreneurial energy and growing digital infrastructure into sovereign technological capabilities that can support economic growth and strengthen its position in the global intelligence economy.
And for Africa, the emerging imperative is to build a connected digital market in which innovation can move across borders as easily as capital, goods and services.
With GITEX NIGERIA bringing these ambitions together in Lagos, the event is increasingly becoming a platform for a much larger proposition: Africa should not merely participate in the next technology cycle—it should help shape it.
