Nigeria Digital Economy Comparison: Who Leads on Which Measure
Nigeria’s digital economy does not tell a single story. It trails all three peers on electricity access and government digital services, and it has the lowest account ownership and digital payment figures among the three countries with comparable data.
It also has more recorded startup deals than Kenya or Ghana, though that figure moves faster than any other in this comparison: it comes from a single year of funding data, and two reports of the same year have already given different totals.
On internet use, Nigeria sits ahead of Kenya and Rwanda. That makes a simple “which country is ahead?” question misleading, because each measure ranks the countries differently: Kenya has the highest account ownership and digital payment figures, Ghana the highest internet use and electricity access, and Rwanda the strongest online government services.
This Nigeria digital economy comparison uses Kenya, Rwanda and Ghana as the peers, and Nigeria’s own targets and delivery are covered in NDEPS Progress in Nigeria.
The Rules of Comparison
The comparison follows three rules. Each measure comes from a single source, so the definition is the same for every country, and each figure carries its year. When a source leaves a country out, the table says so instead of borrowing a figure from elsewhere. That is why Rwanda has no 2024 Findex value, and some measures cover three countries rather than four.
Some figures that often appear in comparisons are left out because the data cannot support them: nationally reported broadband penetration, 5G rollout, digital identity registrations, startup counts, payment volumes, enforcement figures and the size of the digital economy.
The Four Countries at a Glance
The table gives every measure with data for at least three of the four countries. The sections that follow explain what the differences mean.
| Measure (source, year) | Nigeria | Kenya | Rwanda | Ghana | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adults with an account (Global Findex, 2024) | 63.3% | 90.1% | No 2024 data | 81.2% | Three of four |
| Adults owning a mobile phone (Global Findex, 2024) | 84% | 93% | No 2024 data | 88% | Three of four |
| Adults making or receiving a digital payment (Global Findex, 2024) | 54% | 89% | No 2024 data | 80% | Three of four |
| Individuals using the internet (ITU via World Bank, 2023) | 39.2% | 35.0% | 34.2% | 69.9% | All four; trends affected by series breaks |
| Access to electricity (World Bank, 2023) | 61% | 76.2% | 63.9% | 89.5% | All four |
| UN e-government index (rank of 193, 2024) | 0.481 (144th) | 0.631 (109th) | 0.580 (118th) | 0.632 (108th) | All four |
| UN online services index (2024) | 0.537 | 0.777 | 0.821 | 0.608 | All four |
| UN telecommunication infrastructure index (2024) | 0.484 | 0.590 | 0.372 | 0.728 | All four |
| UN e-participation index (rank of 193, 2024) | 0.370 (115th) | 0.521 (83rd) | 0.753 (42nd) | 0.534 (82nd) | All four |
| Government AI readiness position (Oxford Insights, of 195, 2025) | 72nd | 65th | 75th | 85th | All four; external index |
| Tech funding, equity and debt (Partech, 2025) | US$572M | US$1.04B | Not named | US$90M | Three of four; totals vary by provider |
| Funding deals (Partech, 2025) | 102 | 91 | Not named | 23 | Three of four |
Reaching People
The clearest gap between Nigeria and the countries with 2024 Findex data is in digital payments. The World Bank’s Global Findex, a survey of about 145,000 adults in 141 economies, found that 54% of Nigerian adults made or received a digital payment in 2024, against 80% in Ghana and 89% in Kenya, according to EFInA’s reading of the report for Nigeria and Businessfront’s for Kenya and Ghana. Rwanda has no 2024 figure.
Account ownership follows the same order: 90.1% in Kenya, 81.2% in Ghana and 63.3% in Nigeria, up from 45% for Nigeria in the 2021 edition, according to the World Bank’s country ranking and Nairametrics. Phone ownership is much closer, at 93%, 88% and 84%, according to EFInA and Businessfront.
That pairing is the clearest signal in the data. In Kenya, phone ownership and digital payments are four points apart (93% and 89%), and in Ghana, eight (88% and 80%). In Nigeria, 84% of adults own a phone, but 54% make or receive digital payments, a gap of 30 points. The much larger gap in Nigeria suggests that phone ownership has not translated into digital-payment use as fully as in Kenya or Ghana.
Mobile money is where the other two countries stand out: 87% of Kenyan adults used it in 2024, and 78% of Ghanaian adults, according to The Outlier. Banks, not mobile money, dominate account ownership in Nigeria, so similar levels of phone ownership sit on different payment systems.
For a business selling online, the gap shows up at the checkout more than in the audience. A customer with a phone may still pay by cash on delivery or an offline bank transfer, so a business can reach many Nigerians online and still lose sales at the payment step. The more useful number is how many adults already pay digitally: about half in Nigeria, four in five in Ghana and nearly nine in ten in Kenya.
Nigeria’s own surveys use a broader definition of formal financial services, and the Central Bank of Nigeria cites 26% of adults as financially excluded in 2023, so the two sets of figures should not be mixed.
Getting Online and Staying Powered
Internet use is the one access measure where Nigeria sits in the middle. The ITU’s figures, published through the World Bank’s data portal, put Ghana well ahead at 69.9% of the population in 2023, with Nigeria at 39.2%, Kenya at 35.0% and Rwanda at 34.2%.
The Findex offers a second measure, but it is not interchangeable with the ITU’s. It reports internet use among adults, while the ITU reports it across the whole population, possibly explaining part of Kenya’s gap: the Findex puts Kenya at 60% of adults, according to Businessfront, against the ITU’s 35.0%. The figures are useful for different purposes, but they should not be combined into one ranking.
Owning a phone is also not the same as using the internet. Within the Findex, 84% of Nigerian adults own a phone, but only 38% had used the internet in the previous three months, against 93% and 60% in Kenya, according to EFInA and Businessfront. In both countries, a business can therefore reach more customers by phone than through a website or app.
Power is where the countries differ most plainly. Ghana had 89.5% electricity access in 2023, Kenya 76.2%, Rwanda 63.9% and Nigeria 61%, according to the World Bank’s Tracking SDG7 series. The UN’s telecommunication infrastructure index, one part of its e-government index, tells a partly similar story: Ghana scored 0.728, Kenya 0.590, Nigeria 0.484 and Rwanda 0.372.
Ghana records the highest figures on all three infrastructure measures in this section: internet use, electricity access and the UN’s telecommunication infrastructure score. For a business, the numbers point to three separate questions: access is whether customers can get online, reliability is whether they stay connected, and operating conditions are what a business can run on top of both.
Cloud systems, payment terminals and remote teams all need connectivity and power. With electricity reaching 61% of the population, the lowest of the four, reliability is the condition a Nigerian business has to design around.
Government Services
On the UN’s 2024 e-government index, which scores all 193 members on one scale, Ghana (0.632, 108th) and Kenya (0.631, 109th) are almost level; Rwanda follows (0.580, 118th), and Nigeria is further back (0.481, 144th), according to the UN’s E-Government Knowledgebase. The index averages three components: online services, telecommunication infrastructure and education levels.
Rwanda shows why the average hides more than it reveals. Its overall position, 118th, is third among the four, yet it has the best online services score, 0.821; the weakest telecommunication infrastructure score, 0.372; and it also leads on e-participation at 0.753 (42nd). The overall index combines these components, so a strong result in one can be offset by a weaker result in another.
Nigeria’s pattern points the other way. Its infrastructure score, 0.484, is above Rwanda’s, yet its online services score, 0.537, is the lowest of the four, as is its e-participation score of 0.370 (115th). Infrastructure alone does not determine how well a government delivers digital services: Rwanda scores far higher on services with a weaker network, and Nigeria scores lower with a stronger one.
For a business, the quality of government digital services can affect activities such as registration, licensing, and tax filing, regardless of the state of the network. Nigeria’s e-invoicing rollout, which began with large taxpayers in 2025, is bringing tax administration closer to business records, as TheCable reported.
Rules and Policy Conditions
The policy picture is different again. All four countries have data protection laws and national AI policy documents, but their startup legislation is at different stages.
| Framework | Nigeria | Kenya | Rwanda | Ghana |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data protection statute and regulator | Data Protection Act 2023; Nigeria Data Protection Commission | Data Protection Act 2019; Office of the Data Protection Commissioner | Law No. 058/2021; National Cyber Security Authority | Data Protection Act 2012 (Act 843); Data Protection Commission |
| Startup law | Startup Act in force since 2022 | Bill in mediation between the two houses since July 2025; not confirmed as law | No startup-specific law confirmed | Draft bill in consultation (September 2025) |
| National AI document | National AI Strategy, September 2025 | AI Strategy 2025 to 2030 | National AI Policy | National AI Strategy 2023 to 2033 |
Data Protection
All four countries have a data protection law, passed between 2012 in Ghana and 2023 in Nigeria, and a regulator, though the registration requirements differ by country. A business operating across these markets has to work across four data protection regimes and their respective regulators.
Enforcement cannot be compared because regulators publish different measures: Nigeria has reported registrations, audit returns, and fines, as Nairametrics reported, but no equivalent series was found for the other three.
Startup Law
Nigeria’s Startup Act was signed in 2022, and Nigeria Startup Act: What It Means for Founders covers its contents. Kenya’s Startup Bill passed the National Assembly in early 2025, but the Senate rejected the Assembly’s amendments on 23 July 2025 and referred the bill to a mediation committee. The Senate’s own bills tracker, updated as at 29 May 2026, records no result from that committee and no presidential assent.
Ghana announced nationwide consultations on a draft bill in September 2025, and no startup-specific law was confirmed for Rwanda. Nigeria is therefore the only country here with a startup law confirmed as enacted.
AI Policy
The Oxford Insights index of government readiness for AI places Kenya 65th of 195 governments, Nigeria 72nd, Rwanda 75th and Ghana 85th, as Channels Television reported. Kenya ranks highest of the four.
A national strategy is a first step, but the index does not measure how far it has been implemented. It also says nothing about how far businesses have adopted AI, so it serves as a policy indicator, not evidence that businesses in one country use AI more than those in another.
Startup Funding and Deal Activity
Startup funding reflects technology investment, not the size of a digital economy. In Partech’s 2025 figures, Kenya raised US$1.04 billion, against US$572 million for Nigeria and US$90 million for Ghana, while Nigeria recorded 102 deals to Kenya’s 91 and Ghana’s 23.
The contrast shows why deal count and capital raised tell different stories: Nigeria recorded more transactions, while Kenya attracted substantially more capital, driven by large debt rounds and four of the continent’s nine megadeals, according to AllAfrica.
Totals also vary by provider, another reason not to combine funding figures from different datasets: a July 2026 report gave ranges of US$934 million to US$1.04 billion for Kenya and US$343 million to US$572 million for Nigeria. Partech’s own figures exclude rounds under US$200,000, so they read as reported technology investment, not total startup funding.
What the Comparison Shows
The comparison does not produce one overall leader. Kenya records the highest figures for account ownership and payments, Ghana for internet use and electricity access, Rwanda for online government services, and Nigeria for startup deal count.
Nigeria’s own position moves from the top of the group to the bottom depending on the measure. It records the most startup deals of the countries with data and ranks second on the Oxford Insights government AI-readiness index, sits in the middle on internet use, and has the lowest account ownership, digital payment, electricity access and government digital services figures.
There is one comparison the available data cannot make reliably: overall digital-economy size. Nigeria’s Information and Communication sector stood at 11.74% of real GDP in the second quarter of 2026 after the 2025 rebasing, according to Leadership, but that share cannot be set against another country’s.
A widely cited regional estimate from Google and the IFC’s e-Conomy Africa is a 2020 projection and not an official measure. For how far a business’s own systems have moved in Nigeria, see Digital Transformation in Nigeria: Where Businesses Stand.
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