What Nigeria can learn from America’s digital playbook

The United States government invests nearly 300 times more in its citizens’ internet access per capita than Nigeria does. This isn’t just a statistic—it’s the anchor holding back our digital economy, a silent tax on every entrepreneur, and the invisible barrier between Nigerian talent and global opportunity.

For anyone who has ever watched a crucial Zoom call freeze, switched between three different data plans in a single afternoon, or felt the sting of a client lost to a bad connection, this gap is a daily reality. It’s the cost of doing business in a nation brimming with digital ambition but starved of the foundational infrastructure to support it. Now, a stark comparative analysis of the US and Nigerian digital landscapes puts this frustration into blistering focus, revealing not just a gap, but a chasm forged by decades of divergent policies.

My paper, “Unlocking Innovation in the Face of the Digital Divide,” lays out a tale of two governments. It’s a story of how one nation treated the internet as a critical national project, while the other has treated it as an afterthought. The conclusion is inescapable: Nigeria’s digital future isn’t being held back by a lack of talent or ideas, but by a failure of investment and imagination. 

America’s national project approach

The internet in the United States didn’t just happen; it was built, deliberately and with immense foresight. The American playbook, as detailed in the report, reveals a strategy of consistent, long-term government support that began long before the dot-com boom. It started with the Cold War-era funding of ARPANET, the internet’s precursor, and continues today with massive injections of public capital like the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.

This translates to a staggering $144.64 per person in government spending on broadband initiatives in a single fiscal year. But the strategy wasn’t just about throwing money at the problem. It was about creating a fertile ecosystem for growth. The US government actively incentivised private companies to push into difficult-to-reach rural areas through programs like the Universal Service Fund (USF). It used deregulation and strong antitrust enforcement to foster a fiercely competitive market where giants like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon are forced to innovate and lower prices to win customers.

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“The competitive ISP market in the US encourages companies to innovate to attract and retain customers,” the report notes, leading to the rapid deployment of next-generation technologies like fibre optics and 5G. The result is a nation where 97% of the population has internet access, and high-speed broadband is increasingly seen not as a luxury, but as a basic utility, as essential as water or electricity.

The Nigerian Reality

In stark contrast, Nigeria’s per-capita government spending on similar initiatives amounts to a mere $0.50. This 300-fold disparity is the original sin from which all other digital challenges flow, leaving the nation with a broadband penetration rate languishing below 45%.

While the US built a superhighway, Nigeria has laid down a path riddled with obstacles. The paper identifies a three-headed monster hindering private sector efforts to bridge the gap.

First is the market itself. Dominated by a few behemoths like MTN, Airtel, and Spectranet, there is little room or incentive for smaller, nimble players to compete. “This market concentration can limit competition and reduce the incentive for smaller players to innovate,” the analysis finds, creating a landscape where prices remain stubbornly high and service quality stagnates.

Second are the regulatory hurdles. For any company brave enough to invest, the process is a bureaucratic nightmare. The report highlights “cumbersome import processes” with effective tariff rates that can soar to 70% for essential technology. Getting the necessary permits and approvals is a slow, opaque ordeal, and high licensing fees—up to ₦2,000,000 for an infrastructure license—create a formidable barrier to entry for startups.

Finally, there is the simple, crushing lack of investment. The government’s 2023 budget for the entire Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy was just $106.5 million—a figure that pales in comparison to the tens of billions being deployed in the US. This underinvestment leaves private companies to bear almost the entire risk and cost of expanding the nation’s digital backbone.

The Prescription

The situation is critical, but not hopeless. The paper concludes with a clear, actionable roadmap—an investment memo for unlocking Nigeria’s digital growth. It’s a three-point plan that moves from diagnosis to cure.

1. De-risk the investment. The government must shift from being a gatekeeper to a facilitator. This means cutting the red tape and making it financially attractive to build. The report suggests concrete steps: offer a 20% tax break for companies investing in underserved areas, create a “one-stop shop” to process all permits within three months, and slash the high fees that deter new entrants.
   
2. Fuel the market. To break the dominance of the incumbents, the government must actively foster competition. This involves lowering licensing fees for new ISPs by as much as 50% and, crucially, mandating infrastructure sharing. Forcing existing players to lease access to their networks at fair rates would dramatically lower the cost for new companies to enter the market and expand their reach.
   
3. Co-Invest for the future. The private sector cannot do it alone. Nigeria must significantly increase its public spending, with the report suggesting a target of at least 2% of GDP by 2030. This capital should be managed through a transparent “National Broadband Fund,” supporting public-private partnerships and subsidising deployments to the rural and underserved communities that need it most.

The success of South Africa, which boosted its internet penetration from 21% to 79% in a decade through focused initiatives like the SA Connect project, proves that this model works. It demonstrates that with political will and strategic investment, rapid progress is possible.

The time for ambitious but underfunded national plans is over. The choice facing Nigeria is stark: continue on the current path and watch a generation of talent get left behind, or embrace a proactive, comprehensive strategy to build the digital infrastructure the nation deserves. This is not about charity or catching up to America. It is about the single biggest economic lever Nigeria can pull to unleash the potential of its people and secure its place as a leader in the global digital economy. The blueprint is here. It’s time to start building.

Written by Munachimso Victor Nwaiwu. Munachimso is a Network Automation Engineer at Google, where he enhances infrastructure and streamlines processes through automation. He has worked on next-gen networking at Meta and Lenovo, holds certifications like CompTIA Network+ and CCNA, and is currently pursuing the CCNP Data Centre. A Cisco Champion, he shares insights on NetworksByMuna.com to make networking knowledge more accessible.