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David Adeleke, 28, started Zeeh Africa in 2017 from the confined walls of his sizable room at a hostel in University of Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria.
As a teenager, he sought a way to bring in the financially excluded in his community and close the huge credit gap that divided them from loans due to a lack of data.
Today, 8 years later, Zeeh Africa helps businesses in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania to obtain access to credit and scale.
Adeleke is only one of many young Nigerian entrepreneurs steering the wheel in Africa’s digital economy by tapping into growing cross-border demand for digital services and using technology to scale their businesses.
According to the recent digital trade survey by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, 80 percent of the country’s digital businesses are led by entrepreneurs aged 25 to 44.
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These self-starters lead in fintech, ecommerce, and cloud-based services, as the country takes on its role as Co-Champion of Digital Trade under the $3.4 trillion African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) market.
Jumoke Oduwole, Nigeria’s minister of trade, shared these findings at the AfCFTA Digital Trade Forum in Lusaka, Zambia, noting that over half of Nigeria’s digital firms were founded in the last three years.
The pace reflects a fast-growing ecosystem, powered by platforms like Flutterwave and Moniepoint that are enabling paperless cross-border transactions and expanding Nigeria’s digital footprint across the continent.
Some insiders say behind the momentum is a resilient mindset amid concerning unemployment levels in the country.
“Jobs are no longer there,” said Femi Egbesola, president of the Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria. “Many youths today are driven by survival, not just passion. Entrepreneurship is becoming the only option.”
This reality, he explained, is steering many young Nigerians towards technology-driven sectors like fintech, digital services, and the creative economy, fields that require relatively low capital to start and offer flexibility to operate virtually.
Backed by data from the World Bank, these young founders, running startups or SMEs, form a new breed of digital entrepreneurs embedding technology into every facet of their operations.
Lanre Basamta, 43, started Optimus AI Labs in 2023 in IT Consulting, after 15 years working several jobs in IT, software development, financial and education technology across Nigeria.
According to him, the encouragement of tech entrepreneurship and the startup explosiveness over the last ten years pulled him into the business.
“2015 till now, we’ve had about five Nigerian startups that have met the threshold to be called unicorns. So everybody is seeing the evolution and it’s encouraging new startups,” he told BusinessDay.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) recently reported that digitally delivered services are now the fastest-growing segment of international trade, with global exports rising 8.1 percent annually between 2005 and 2022, outpacing goods and traditional services combined.
“Nigeria is not just participating in Africa’s digital revolution; we are helping shape it,” said Oduwole, who also revealed that registered companies make up 75 percent of the firms surveyed.
“These businesses are expanding more aggressively than sole proprietorships. It validates our push for formalisation and structured growth,” she said.
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The country’s strength lies in computing and infrastructure services, professional and legal consulting, and financial services, according to the survey.
Nigeria also leads in digital healthcare and edtech, with women founding 64 percent of digital health startups and 48 percent of education tech companies, even as men still head 73 percent of digital firms.
This innovation wave is finding strong markets in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, and Egypt. According to the ministry of trade, nearly 50 percent of all expansion efforts are in these economies, “forming a West-East-South corridor of digital growth, with Rwanda and Egypt.”
There is over $360 billion credit gap in Africa, Adeleke told BusinessDay. “These countries have very heavy numbers of people that are unbanked. The traders, the market women, the artisans. So that’s one of the major reasons why we focus on this market,” he said.
For Egbesola, it’s a response to both economic necessity and the evolution of business thinking. “Technology is a big enabler. You can’t sit in your shop and expect someone in Ghana to patronise you. You have to be online. E-commerce and social media platforms are now the lifeline for MSMEs,” he said.
Basamta, who runs Optimus AI Labs in the IT Consulting industry, says his biggest market is in the West, but knows better than to ignore the West African market. “Anybody who wants growth will always look for other markets, and West Africa is the closest to us. There’s a fusion there,” he said.
His company’s education product curriculum, built in Nigeria, seeks to penetrate the continent and cater to the needs of the region’s West African Examinations Council (WAEC) students in Gambia, Ghana, and Sierra Leone.
This shift is not just about visibility but viability. With the naira struggling and the domestic market becoming saturated, many small businesses are looking outward.
“Exports have become a survival strategy,” Egbesola said. “And the only way to make that work is through tech, e-platforms and e-marketing tools.”
That thinking has been reinforced by the growth of instant cross-border payment systems. Businesses get paid in dollars and receive naira within seconds. “It’s seamless.”
Government policies are helping this push. The CBN e-payments policy, as part of the broader “Cashless Nigeria” policy rolled out in 2012, laid the groundwork, then came the Nigerian Startup Act, signed into law in 2022, which provides a legal framework and incentives for digital startups.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Vision (NIIEV) estimates that ICT could contribute up to 25 percent of GDP this year, buoyed by a young population, widespread mobile penetration, and improving broadband infrastructure.
“Even the uneducated, those in the so-called informal sector, now accept digital. Almost everyone uses a smartphone, has an account or a digital wallet,” Basamta said.
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But it is not all smooth for businesses. Cross-border trade is still expensive for many entrepreneurs, and economic challenges persist.
“The economy itself is not promising in the sense that there is very low purchasing power from the users themselves. So we’re making good money. But when you scale into USD, it’s as though we are going backwards,” lamented Adeleke.
The National Economic Summit Group says that scaling digital opportunity will require investment and ecosystem partnerships. The WTO also called for updated policies to unlock funding for digital entrepreneurs, reduce adoption barriers, and support collaboration among startups, innovation hubs, academia, and government.
For its part, the trade ministry says it will prioritise market access, expand trade diplomacy, and roll out targeted interventions to support women-led firms and drive formal growth.
“Everyone now understands that if you must scale, you must go digital,” said Egbesola. “That reality has come to stay, and it’s reshaping not just how we do business, but where we do it.”
Bethel Olujobi
Bethel Olujobi reports on trade and maritime business for BusinessDay with prior experience reporting on migration, labour, and tech. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Jos, and is certified by the FT, Reuters and Google. Drawing from his experience working with other respected news providers, he presents a nuanced and informed perspective on the complexities of critical matters. He is based in Lagos, Nigeria and occasionally commutes to Abuja.
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