Nigerian Tech Founders Urged to Partner With Regulators

Nigerian entrepreneurs are building billion-dollar ideas in one of the world's most unpredictable business climates, but a recent gathering in Lagos offered a roadmap out of the chaos.

At the Zikoko Citizen Townhall on February 28, tech leaders gathered at Four Points by Sheraton to tackle a question that keeps founders up at night: how do you innovate when the rules keep changing? Their answer challenged conventional wisdom about staying under the regulatory radar.

"The government doesn't understand disruption," explained Oswald Osaretin Guobadia, Managing Partner at DigitA, a policy development firm. "What they see is displacement." Without understanding what new technology actually does, officials default to what they know: bans, restrictions, and emergency measures that can kill promising startups overnight.

Douglas Kendyson, CEO of e-commerce platform Selar, remembers that fear vividly. The 2021 cryptocurrency ban hit his industry like a shockwave, leaving founders scrambling to protect their businesses and users.

But the solution isn't to hide. Amaka Okechukwu Opara, Founding Partner at Weav Capital, put it bluntly: "If you're a fintech company and you're not already going to the Central Bank of Nigeria regularly, then you're doing something wrong."

She's not talking about courtesy visits. Opara argues that proactive regulatory engagement should be as routine as payroll, treating policymakers as partners rather than threats.

The Ripple Effect

This shift in mindset could unlock more than just smoother operations for individual companies. Opara pointed to earlier success stories where collaboration changed the game for everyone.

Lagos became a model for fiber optic deployment and right-of-way regulations, innovations that helped create the thriving tech hub in Yaba. Other countries actually sent teams to Lagos to learn how they did it.

That progress happened because someone took the time to explain the vision to decision-makers. The same approach could work again, even as exchange rate volatility and economic instability make Nigeria one of the toughest places to build.

Guobadia emphasized that founders creating amazing ideas need to find ways to engage government and policymakers on what they're trying to achieve. The gap between innovation and regulation isn't inevitable, it's often just a communication problem waiting to be solved.

Kendyson offered perspective that reframed the entire relationship: "Regulation is not there to cloud businesses. The honest idea is that they're there to protect the citizens." When both sides understand they share the same goal of building a better Nigeria, collaboration becomes possible.

The message from Lagos is clear: the next generation of Nigerian tech success won't come from outrunning regulators, but from inviting them to the table.