The Nigerian government has unveiled the draft National Innovation Hub Standards Framework aimed at decentralising startup support structures and strengthening the nation’s tech ecosystem beyond Lagos and Abuja.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, announced this at the validation exercise for the National Innovation Hub Standards Framework in Abuja.
Delivering his keynote address, Dr Tijani stressed the importance of strengthening the infrastructure and systems that enable innovation to thrive.
According to him, “Technology is central to the development and competitiveness of virtually every major sector of the economy, including agriculture, education and healthcare.”
He outlined three critical layers required for a functional technology ecosystem: foundational infrastructure, a technology stack that enables people and businesses to build solutions, and the application layer where innovators develop products and services.
According to him, investments in connectivity, digital identity, data systems and other foundational and intermediary infrastructure have helped create conditions for the emergence of successful Nigerian technology companies.
The minister, however, said investments in infrastructure and technology systems would not deliver their full potential without sufficient support for the innovators operating at the application layer.
He said expanding the foundational and middle layers of Nigeria’s digital ecosystem, alongside strengthening innovation hubs, would be essential to enabling more Nigerians to participate in the digital economy.
“There’s so much investment that is going into that first layer and the middle layer in the country. But if we leave the top layer, we can make all this investment, but it’s going to be impossible for our people to feel the impact of this investment if we don’t start from the top layer.”
He therefore called for greater investment in the quality and capacity of innovation hubs across Nigeria, saying stronger hubs would provide entrepreneurs with the support structures needed to turn ideas into businesses.
Speaking earlier, the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, said the frameworks were designed to create a more structured and supportive ecosystem for innovators, entrepreneurs and startups across the country.
The NITDA boss noted that the framework responds to research showing over 339 innovation hubs currently operate in Nigeria but are heavily concentrated in Lagos and Abuja.
According to him, the standard provides a self-assessment tools evaluating hubs across 7 dimensions and 35 categories, establishing a clear maturity pathway so local spaces in states like Zamfara, Yobe, Jigawa, and Osun can incubate high-growth startups without requiring founders to relocate.
“Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation; it happens in an ecosystem that must be designed intentionally. We are standardising hubs so you don’t need to travel from Yola to Yaba to grow your business.”
He added that NITDA was working with the Minister of Education to integrate digital skills into formal education, with the aim of producing graduates equipped with the skills required to participate effectively in the digital economy.
The initiative he said would also create opportunities for universities and other higher institutions to become more integrated into the country’s innovation ecosystem.
Also speaking at the event, the National Coordinator, Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation, Victoria Fabumi, said the framework was primarily intended to strengthen innovation hubs so they could provide better support to startups.
“The startups are the babies and the hubs are the mothers that nurture them. This framework strengthens the mothers so they can give young companies the required support to grow and scale nationally.”
She added that the initiative would also help break the concentration of innovation in urban centres and create opportunities for technology-driven entrepreneurship across the country.
