One vital box needed to be checked first before the Nigeria Startup Act of 2022 could fully come alive, that which ties with setting up a portal where businesses providing technological services can be onboarded.

An X tweet late Tuesday by Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani let it known that this objective has been sorted out and so there has been an invitation sent out to innovation centres and tech hubs to come along and register. When the bill was enacted by the immediate past President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari on 19 October 2022, it was to shred bottlenecks hindering smooth operation in the technology ecosystem into pieces.

Under this new arrangement, there is an opportunity to groom more startups that would ease the burden of job creation for youths. Dr Tijani shared further about what this could possibly mean in the tweet that partly reads, “The startup portal will drive the identification and aggregation of Nigerian startups, venture capital companies, hubs and innovation centres in order to facilitate engagement and support for ecosystem players.”

An element of the Nigeria Startup Act is the existence of a multi-membered council that would help shape meaningful policies. Even though Nigeria possesses more Unicorns than any other country on the African continent, it still trails other world regions when measuring the number against the population.

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We are pleased to announce the launch of the Startup Support and Engagement Portal, https://t.co/QecVXWpEKI, a key requirement for the implementation of the Nigeria Startup Act.

The startup portal will drive the identification and aggregation of Nigerian startups, venture… pic.twitter.com/ZCpMizHLz3

— Dr. 'Bosun Tijani (@bosuntijani) November 21, 2023

When registrations have been achieved, there is to be a portal register that shows all the businesses that are to retain their startup label for a period of 10 years. Under this timeline, it is expected that a tech business would have benefitted from the support that the Act can provide and then maybe would have moved up to the Unicorn status and therefore, a totally different reality and Nigeria finally maximising its economic potential.

According to the minister’s X post, Nigerian startup venture capital companies, hubs and innovation centres who want to be part of the opportunity can register at the portal https://startup.gov.ng, and their journey into the government grooming programme can then start off immediately.

The establishment of a ₦10 billion Startup Investment Seed Fund would cater to the participants and would ensure support for them keeps coming. Other incentives such as tax relief, easy repatriation of foreign investors’ funds and the development of accelerators or incubation schemes have been aimed at making this initiative attractive.

Ayodele Johnson

Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.