Lagos might be Nigeria's undisputed tech capital, but what about the other 35 states? The Federal Government has finally decided it's time to spread the innovation love — and it's starting with a major clean-up of the country's 339 innovation hubs.

As first reported by cbinews.tv, the Federal Government, through the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), is developing a brand-new National Innovation Hub Standards Framework to bring order, quality and sustainability to Nigeria's booming — but chaotic — hub ecosystem.

So, what's actually happening?

At the National Innovation Hub Standards Framework Validation Workshop in Abuja this week, NITDA's Director General, Kashifu Inuwa, let the cat out of the bag.

According to him, Nigeria now has over 339 innovation hubs dotted across the country. Sounds impressive, right? Well, here's the catch — the vast majority are crammed into Lagos, Abuja and about 10 other states. If you're in Kebbi or Ebonyi, your chances of bumping into a proper incubator are still pretty slim.

The new framework is meant to fix that. It's not about shutting hubs down or handing them a rigid rulebook. Instead, think of it as a maturity test — a structured pathway to help hubs assess where they are, spot the gaps, and level up.

Inuwa broke it down nicely:

“Innovation does not happen in isolation; it happens in an ecosystem. And that ecosystem does not happen by accident; it happens by design.”

The draft framework has seven key dimensions and about 35 assessment categories that hubs can use to score themselves. Some hubs outside Lagos and Abuja, he admitted, are still basically glorified computer training centres. This framework should help them transition into full-blown incubation and entrepreneurship centres.

A bit of background — how did we get to 339?

If you've been following Nigeria's tech story, this moment has been a long time coming.

NITDA itself was created way back on 18th April 2001 under President Olusegun Obasanjo's National Telecommunications Policy — the same policy that brought GSM and MTN into Nigeria. Back then, an "innovation hub" wasn't even a thing.

Fast forward to 2010-2011, Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) in Yaba, Lagos opened its doors and kick-started the whole movement. What followed was an explosion. By 2018, NITDA was already talking about building eight world-class IT hubs across the six geo-political zones, and by 2022 it had commissioned its first ICT Innovation Hub in Katsina.

NITDA says it has also rolled out over 1,500 IT Centres, 222 smaller digital centres in schools and 18 community centres to democratise access.

And yet, the growth has been lopsided. A recent report by cbinews.tv put Lagos alone at over 20 active hubs, while many other cities have been building quietly for a decade without the spotlight. That Lagos-only narrative is exactly what this framework wants to correct.

There's also big money moving in. Earlier this year, the Federal Government signed a $30 million grant deal with JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) — $9.9 million for a dedicated Startup Hub to be run by NITDA, and $21 million for social startups via NSIA.

The bigger picture: government can't do it alone

Here's where Inuwa got real. He was blunt that government funding alone will never be enough to sustain startups. Nigeria needs risk capital — proper private sector money.

He listed four pillars for a functional ecosystem: talent, risk capital, big corporates, and government. Without all four talking to each other, we’re just going in circles.

He also called out universities. According to him, our higher institutions need to stop being certificate factories and start acting like real innovation partners — pushing research, entrepreneurship and digital skills. NITDA, he said, is already working with the Federal Ministry of Education to bake digital skills into the curriculum.

This thinking isn't happening in isolation. The UK-Nigeria Tech Hub and The Nest Innovation Technology Park just launched the Nigeria Innovation Cluster Exchange (NICE) — a pilot programme funded by the UK Government's Digital Access Programme to connect all those fragmented Entrepreneurship Support Organisations (ESOs), research labs, and startups into one national network. The goal is the same: stop duplication and start collaborating.

What you should know

NITDA insists this is still a draft. The agency is calling on hub founders, investors, development partners, academia and government to tear the document apart and make it better before it becomes policy.

If it works, we could finally see innovation ecosystems built around local strengths — agritech hubs in Benue, creative tech in Anambra, solid minerals tech in Plateau — rather than trying to copy Yaba in every state.

And for young Nigerians outside Lagos? That could be a game-changer.

This report draws from original reporting by cbinews.tv with additional backgrounding and context.

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