The Execution Challenge in Nigeria’s Digital Literacy Push

The government has set an ambitious target, 70% digital literacy by 2027 under the National Digital Literacy Framework. Programs like the 3 Million Technical Talent initiative, NYSC-driven training, curriculum integration, and expanded digital infrastructure show strong intent. Still, the reality on the ground, an adult literacy rate of 63.1%, gender disparities, and patchy broadband access, makes delivery the true test. Other African countries prove that execution, not ambition, is decisive. Ghana has scaled youth and gender-focused training by tailoring delivery to community realities. Tanzania leverages local edutainment in familiar languages to reach millions in low-resource settings. Zimbabwe ensures inclusivity with free, accessible training for people with disabilities. These examples highlight how progress depends on models that adapt to context. For this target to succeed, the country must shift from declarations to execution, build accountability around measurable outcomes, and adopt delivery systems that work with its realities, not around them.

The Present Reality of Nigeria’s Digital Literacy Drive

The government has not been idle in its pursuit of digital literacy. The National Digital Literacy Framework sits at the center of the 70% target, and around it, a network of programs has emerged. Around it, other initiatives have taken shape, each meant to cover different layers of the challenge. The 3 Million Technical Talent program, for instance, focuses on building advanced skills for the future workforce and has already trained more than 300,000 people. The Digital Literacy for All campaign leans on the energy of youth, piloting corps-member-led trainings that bring basic skills into schools and communities. Digital Nigeria Centres, established under the Universal Service Provision Fund, physically place ICT hubs in rural areas, offering access where infrastructure has long been scarce. Alongside these, partnerships with companies like Microsoft and Cisco have created certification opportunities and pathways into the broader digital economy. On paper, the picture looks comprehensive. One program spreads awareness at the grassroots, another builds the technical depth for tomorrow’s jobs, while hubs and partnerships attempt to connect the dots in between. If all worked seamlessly, Nigeria would be on track. The reality on the ground, however, is more complicated. Many of the ICT centres established in rural schools stand idle once equipment arrives, often because of unreliable power supply or the lack of trained staff to keep them running. The cost of broadband and devices continues to exclude millions of low-income households, meaning that access is still concentrated among those who can afford it. Even where curricula are updated to include digital skills, the teachers expected to deliver them often have little training themselves. And perhaps the biggest gap of all is measurement. Unlike countries that monitor progress through consistent assessments and literacy indices, Nigeria still treats the number of people trained as the ultimate measure of success—an approach that makes activity easy to count but impact harder to prove. This is where ambition and execution begin to part ways. The scaffolding for 70% digital literacy exists, but without stronger coordination, sustainable infrastructure, and clear accountability for outcomes, Nigeria’s programs risk remaining a patchwork of good intentions rather than the engine of national transformation.

Execution Models from Other African Countries

Private-led edutainment platforms, donor-funded radio programs, and youth training initiatives exist, but they remain fragmented, small in scale, and rarely integrated into national policy. This is where comparison with peer African countries becomes instructive. Ghana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe have all moved beyond pilots into models that are mainstreamed, measured, and tied directly to economic outcomes. Their lesson is not that Nigeria lacks ambition, but that execution is what makes the difference between activity and transformation. Nigeria is not without ideas. Private-led edutainment platforms, donor-funded radio programs, and youth training initiatives exist, but they remain fragmented, small in scale, and rarely integrated into national policy. This is where comparison with peer African countries becomes instructive. Ghana, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have all moved beyond pilots into models that are mainstreamed, measured, and tied directly to economic outcomes. Their lesson is not that Nigeria lacks ambition, but that execution is what makes the difference between activity and transformation.

In Ghana, execution has meant designing training around visible economic outcomes. ALX Ghana has trained more than 100,000 learners in just two years. Soronko Academy has taken a gendered approach, teaching coding and design to women and girls while placing thousands of graduates into jobs, internships, and entrepreneurial ventures. By closing the loop between training and employment, Ghana’s digital literacy drive directly contributes to job creation, income growth, and greater female participation in the economy. Nigeria, by contrast, reports impressive training numbers through programs like 3MTT but does not consistently track or guarantee whether those learners convert into employed or income-earning individuals. Tanzania demonstrates how to scale learning by embedding it in formats people already consume. Ubongo, Africa’s largest edutainment producer, reaches more than 24 million households weekly with shows in Kiswahili and other local languages. Independent evaluations confirm measurable gains in early literacy and numeracy, proving that mass media can drive outcomes at scale. The long-term economic benefit is a workforce that enters school with stronger foundational skills, more prepared to absorb technical training and adapt to digital tools later. Nigeria has private edutainment initiatives, but they are scattered, short-lived, and not embedded into national delivery. Unlike Tanzania, which has institutionalized edutainment as part of its learning ecosystem, Nigeria treats it as peripheral. Zimbabwe’s approach highlights inclusion as an execution choice. Pan Afrodigital offers job-oriented courses in digital marketing, design, and SEO while deliberately lowering barriers for women and people with disabilities through scholarships and adaptive formats. This has enabled learners without traditional academic credentials to secure remote work and freelance contracts, pulling groups that are usually excluded into income-generating opportunities.

The economic gain is not only more people trained, but more people actively participating in the digital economy. Nigeria has programs that mention inclusion, but there is no systematic mechanism to ensure women, rural learners, or people with disabilities are prioritized in delivery. The comparison is stark. Ghana has built employer pipelines that guarantee training translates into jobs. Tanzania has scaled low-cost access by embedding learning into national media. Zimbabwe has widened participation by structurally prioritizing inclusion. Nigeria, meanwhile, has touched on all three jobs, media, and inclusion but in fragmented, small-scale forms that remain disconnected from its national target. The missing link is not ambition, but execution choices that align programs with measurable outcomes, scalable delivery, and inclusive design.

Strategic Steps to Bridge Execution Gap

Government initiatives like the Digital Literacy Drive and private actors such as Afrilearn, Utiva, and Tech Herfrica have planted the seeds of progress. Yet, compared to Ghana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, where pilots have been mainstreamed into national frameworks and measured against clear economic outcomes, Nigeria’s execution remains fragmented. To shift from activity to transformation, five execution priorities stand out. The first is measurement. Success cannot be defined simply by the number of people trained; it must be captured through employment, entrepreneurship, and productivity outcomes. Ghana’s Soronko Academy and ALX publish data on graduate job placements, proving that training is not enough unless it connects to livelihoods. Nigeria should take a similar approach by establishing a Digital Literacy Outcomes Index, updated quarterly, to demonstrate whether digital skills are making people more economically active. The second is integration of delivery channels. Nigeria’s WhatsApp courses, community radio programs, and university modules remain scattered, without a unifying framework. Tanzania’s Ubongo shows the power of combining wide-reach media in local languages with community hubs that allow for practice and mentorship. A layered model could work in Nigeria: mass campaigns to create awareness and basic exposure, reinforced by hubs and facilitators who translate theory into skills that can be applied in real contexts.

The third is affordability. Training a person who cannot afford a device or reliable access to use their skills defeats the purpose. Zimbabwe has tackled this by coupling digital literacy programs with device financing and subsidized connectivity, ensuring that training does not end at the classroom door. Nigeria can follow this path by negotiating zero-rated data packages for educational content and providing micro-credit schemes tied to course completion. Without such measures, digital literacy risks remaining knowledge without utility. The fourth is infrastructure. Nigeria’s Digital Nigeria Centres often struggle with power shortages and sustainability, leading many to become dormant after launch. Ghana has avoided this trap by co-locating hubs with renewable mini-grids and structuring them to offer paid community services, such as printing or small business support, that fund ongoing maintenance. Nigeria must learn from this by turning its centres into assets that serve communities rather than liabilities that drain them. The fifth is inclusion. Women, rural communities, and persons with disabilities remain underrepresented in most of Nigeria’s current efforts, even though they stand to benefit the most. Zimbabwe’s Pan Afrodigital has made inclusion a deliberate design principle, setting participation targets and adapting delivery formats to reach women and persons with disabilities. Nigeria already has NGOs like W.TEC and Tech Herfrica showing what inclusion looks like at the grassroots, but this must now be embedded into national strategy, with clear accountability built into program design. Taken together, these shifts are not about reinventing Nigeria’s digital literacy programs; they are about refining and scaling what already exists with greater focus, discipline, and alignment. Peer countries have shown that execution is not an abstract idea but a set of deliberate choices about measurement, delivery, affordability, sustainability, and inclusion. For Nigeria, the 70% target will either remain a bold declaration or become a turning point for its digital economy. The difference will come from whether these choices are made and acted upon with urgency.

Shaping the Outcome

The lessons from Ghana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe show that digital transformation is never about the size of the ambition but about how deliberately execution is tied to people’s lives. Each country moved beyond pilots by embedding literacy into schools, communities, and workplaces in ways that could be measured and sustained. Nigeria is not short of raw materials for the same progress: a youthful population eager to learn, private-led edutainment platforms already reaching millions, and policy frameworks that acknowledge the importance of digital skills. What has been missing is a system that connects these pieces with precision and accountability. With less than three years to 2027, the task is no longer to announce targets but to structure delivery. That means shifting from fragmented programs to a national framework where progress is tracked, incentives align across public and private actors, and outcomes translate into real economic participation. The time horizon may be tight, but it is long enough to build momentum if the focus is on measurable