Nigeria courts private capital for healthtech, mirroring fintech
Nigeria's government is soliciting private investment to build a unified digital health sector, offering regulatory incentives in a bid to replicate the country's lucrative fintech success.
Nigeria has invited private investors and technology companies to finance its digital health infrastructure. This move signals a deliberate shift away from donor reliance toward a commercialised health technology ecosystem. The government aims to build a sector capable of rivaling its highly successful fintech industry.
Speaking at the 2026 Insights Learning Forum in Abuja, Muhammad Pate, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, challenged the private sector to outline the incentives required to expand their investments. The forum was organised by eHealth Africa under a theme focusing on investment and interoperability.
The government is currently drafting regulatory frameworks for artificial intelligence, telemedicine, and electronic health records. Pate, represented by Obi Adigwe of the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development, asked entrepreneurs whether they required state-backed data centre infrastructure or cloud services. He also offered to engage state governments to establish innovation hubs.
For investors, the government’s framing of the opportunity is direct: replicate the fintech boom. “The interventions that most likely will make the most money are those that solve the biggest problems,” Pate said. He noted that while technology companies dominate global market capitalisations, they succeed by addressing severe societal challenges.
A major historical barrier to scaling these investments has been market fragmentation. Nigeria already hosts multiple electronic health records, laboratory management systems, and disease surveillance platforms, but they operate in silos. To de-risk future capital deployment, President Bola Tinubu recently approved the National Health Technology and Data Analytics Office.
This new coordination body will harmonise digital health interventions across the country. Crucially for investors, it will ensure future investments adhere to security, interoperability, and data sovereignty. This provides a clearer, unified regulatory target for venture capital and corporate capital.
The pivot toward private capital is driven by macroeconomic necessity. Atef Fawaz, Executive Director of eHealth Africa, noted that shrinking global health financing and shifting geopolitical realities are forcing African institutions to fund sustainable, homegrown solutions.
With 15 years of operations across 25 African countries, eHealth Africa’s leadership argued that collaboration can replace the need for expensive physical infrastructure expansion. Ota Akhigbe, the organisation’s Director of Partnerships, warned that declining donor funding threatens previous health gains.
He framed the two-day forum as a mechanism to align governments, researchers, and development partners with investors. The goal is to convert discussions on digital health, climate resilience, and public health intelligence into practical financing commitments.
