Nigeria has taken another small but significant step in its desire to become a digital economy as the country hopes to leverage digitalisation to build a trillion-dollar economy by 2030. Tomorrow, Monday, 10 November 2025, the National Digital Economy and E-Governance Bill, 2025 (NDEEG Bill) will formerly open to be publicly debated at the National Assembly, according to the Senate and House of Representatives Joint Committee on ICT and Cybersecurity.

What exactly is NDEEG Bill

The NDEEG Bill seeks to enhance the use of digital technology to grow Nigeria’s economy. To create an enabling environment for fair competition to promote innovation, growth, and competitiveness for the Nigerian digital economy. To create export-oriented capacities in Nigeria’s digital economy to improve Nigeria’s balance of trade and services. To mandate, promote and enable the digital transformation of public institutions and government processes for efficient and effective service delivery. To encourage and improve service delivery, openness and accountability for delivery of public or citizen digital services. To provide a legal framework to support international digital trade and investments using digital means. To create a framework for the enhancement of digital economy governance amongst the ministries, departments and agencies.

The Bill’s objectives are quite extensive. But the bottom line is that it is designed as a legal framework to support Nigeria’s digital economy and e-governance agenda. What that means is that it hopes to give legal recognition to digital transactions, contracts, signatures; enabling government services to be delivered digitally; regulating emerging technologies; and supporting innovation. The minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, believes the bill would help raise the contributions to GDP of the ICT sector from the current 18% to 21% by 2030.

The key features of the bill

The bill sought to build the foundations for digital transactions and fintech operations. The bill will make electronic communications, digital signatures, and contracts legally operative and enforceable. It will also help set the rules for integrity and retention of electronic records. This feature of the bill is highlighted in Parts I–III: Validity of electronic transaction, Electronic Contracts, Electronic Signatures.

NDEEG will allow electronic transferable records to replace paper negotiable instruments such as control, endorsement, transfer of possession through control. This is imperative for digital bills of lading, digital payment rails, tokenized assets, and trade finance. This will allow fintechs, for instance, to build services that rely on these legal instruments.

The bill will equal ensure consumers are protected and vendor obligations clearly highlighted. For instance, service providers must publish a privacy policy, keep vendor information transparent, provide cancellation/refund rules, and hold responsibility for consumer data when transferring it to third parties. That affects merchant onboarding, dispute handling, and chargeback rules.

On data protection and privacy, the bill contains a section for consumer’s personal information. It requires public privacy policies, confidentiality, limited collection (only what’s necessary), separate consent mechanisms for online opt-ins, and contractual responsibility when transferring data to third parties.

The bill also addressed the adoption and usage of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other emerging technologies. It seeks to mandate the use of AI or other emerging technologies in compliance with regulations issued by the regulatory authority. The government is desirous to regulate AI use. That is expected. But regulation will require the building of AI governance framework now such as documentation, model risk assessments, human review, accuracy checks, and so on.

The impact of the bill

The bill seeks to change government ministries, agencies, and departments’ reliance on paperwork to a more digital and paperless operation, one that will not only boost the productivity of the MADs but also bolster transparency, efficiencies and reduce costs, as well as reduce the famed bureaucratic bottlenecks that public institutions or the civil service is known for. A paperless operation will no doubt also contribute to the ease of doing business in the country as businesses or organisations that engage with the civil service can do that mostly online, electronically, with less human involvement.

A digitised civil service will also bring government services closer to the populace. This will grant easy access to Nigerians to public services. The bill also seeks to link the civil service across states and the federal government as it mandates the creation of the Nigeria Data Exchange (NDE), a secure centralised platform that will enable MADs to collaborate seamlessly in terms of data sharing and access. The NDE, when created, will be pivotal to data consolidation and integrity in the country. What we currently have is data fragmentation where each agency of government collects its own data, leading to duplicity. The Federal Road Safety Corps, National Identity Management Commission, and Nigerian Immigration Service are a few public institutions that collect and warehouse citizens’ data.

We are encouraged by the bill and the promise it holds for citizens in terms of access to government services, better protections for digital transactions, and inclusiveness in digital economy participation; the promise it holds for businesses in terms of legal certainty, and the promise it holds for government and governance in terms of cost reduction, efficiency, and transparency.

What will happen when the bill becomes law?

Some of the areas addressed by the NDEEG are already well articulated in the Evidence Act 2011 (as amended). However, a clash is not likely to occur between the two due to the supremacy clause in the NDEEG. The clause states: “Where the provisions of this Act conflict with any other law on matters relating to the use, management, or governance of digital and electronic records, the provisions of this Act shall prevail.” The drafter of the bill already envisaged an overlap and have expertly dealt with that by given preeminence to NDEEG. Over time, as the NDEEG becomes operational, we are likely to see an amendment or repeal of the Evidence Act 2011. Section 84 of the Evidence Act 2011, which has remained problematic over the years for litigants, will become obsolete once NDEEG kicks in.

Another likely impact will be the need for courts and registries to upgrade procedures in line with the new framework. So, for instance, procedures on certified digital judgments, e-filing, online service of process, among others must be restructured to harmonise with NDEEG. Perhaps a most profound impact of NDEEG will be its reshaping of the regulatory balance between the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and CBN. Before now, the CBN makes all the rules for the financial services industry. This is about to change once the NDEEG comes into effect.

The bill effectively codifies NITDA as the central implementing authority for Nigeria’s digital economy and e-governance framework. Under Parts IX–XII of the bill, NITDA will set standards for: Digital platforms and interoperability; electronic records and signatures; trust services; digital identity frameworks; AI and emerging technology governance; and cybersecurity standards for e-governance. It also gets oversight and coordination powers over MDAs’ digital service adoption and private-sector conformity with prescribed standards. What this means is that NITDA’s role has become law-backed and binding, in an expanded mandate for the body. It now has direct oversight on fintechs in terms of compliance with digital standards, data integrity, and interoperability thus whittling down CBN’s influence in the financial services industry.

Major drawback

The National Digital Economy and E-Governance Bill, 2025 has been hailed as a great step in the right direction. Experts believe the bill is comprehensive enough and seems to address all aspects required to fully integrate a digital economy. However, the dreaded infrastructure challenge such as poor electricity, absent of data centres, and so on will likely mitigate the positive impact of the bill.

Implementation will also be a problem. The country does not lack quality policies but what we often see missing is the implementation of such policies. One hopes this will be different considering the huge promise the NDEEG holds for our economic transformation.