Why Nigeria’s digital economy lack strong female flavour

…How cost of data, smartphones, lack of digital skills exclude women

…Just 35% used internet, compared with 52% of men – GSMA report

…Only 14.8% of rural females have Internet access – NBS

By Juliet Umeh

For many Nigerian women, owning a smartphone should be a gateway to opportunity -digital banking, online shopping, e-commerce, remote work, online learning and government services.
But for some, the smartphone in their hands remains little more than a device for making and receiving calls.
Nigeria’s digital economy is expanding rapidly, yet millions of women are still struggling to cross the gap between owning a phone and being able to use technology meaningfully.
The 2025 GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report found that 91 percent of adult women in Nigeria owned a mobile phone, but only 47 percent owned an internet-enabled phone. Just 35 percent used mobile internet, compared with 52 percent of men.
The implication is stark: the challenge is no longer simply connecting women. It is ensuring that they can afford smartphones and data, acquire digital skills, obtain identity documents and confidently use online services.

‘I have a smartphone but don’t know what it can do’

At a business centre in Aba, Abia State, Mrs Abigail Maduka has witnessed the problem repeatedly.
She said women with expensive smartphones still come to her shop to perform simple transactions they could handle themselves if they had the skills.
“I have many women with big phones who do not even know what their phone is capable of doing aside from receiving calls,” she said.
Maduka said some women regularly visit her centre to recharge their electricity: “The truth is that they don’t even have the idea that it is what they can do on their phone to start with. They don’t know they can download the app and do it on their own,” she said.
The dependence, she added, is sometimes so severe that women call her at night asking her to recharge their electricity.
“Many people are with smartphones but the only thing they know is just to answer calls, that’s all,” Maduka said.
Her experience exposes an important distinction: phone ownership is not the same as digital inclusion.

‘Educated illiterate’

Sarah Nwokeoma, not her real name, a senior staff member of the Secondary Education Management Board, Aba Zonal office, said the problem is particularly noticeable among older women working in rural schools.
She described some as “educated illiterate” – women who have formal education but lack the digital skills required in today’s workplace.
Nwokeoma recalled a female principal of a rural secondary technical school who struggles with basic digital tasks.
“She does not even know her right from her left. She is still living in the past. They have been cheated all the time,” she said.
According to her, the woman sometimes depends on others to perform tasks she should handle herself.
“Even what they are supposed to do on their own, people will charge them to do it for them and junior staff will just be insulting them because they don’t know what they are expected to do,” she said.
Some women, she added, travel from rural communities to cities simply because they cannot access information sent digitally.
“There are some things they may be expected to do with their phone but because they are not internet savvy, they will even enter a bus from the village school where they are and come to the city to receive information already passed on a platform or in the mail,” she said.
The problem, therefore, is not always literacy. It can be digital confidence and practical skills.

The cost of staying connected

Mrs Bukola Olawale, secretary of women fellowship in a Methodist Church in Nigeria, said financial limitations prevent some women from even owning smartphones.
“A lot of our members don’t have an Android phone and when I send a message on the platform, I normally assume that everybody is on the same page,” she said.
She has had to send important information by SMS to women who cannot access the digital platform.
“However, it is not illiteracy that is the cause but lack of financial power,” Olawale explained.
Even women who own smartphones can struggle with data costs.
“Most times, some of them do say that they are always offline because they can’t afford data,” she added.
The experience mirrors findings from the World Bank and GSMA, which identify affordability and digital skills among major barriers to women’s internet use. GSMA’s 2025 report also found that women in low- and middle-income countries were 14 percent less likely than men to use mobile internet.

Rural women face a double disadvantage

NBS data further show how geography compounds the problem.
The National Bureau of Statistics’ General Household Survey Panel Wave 5, conducted in 2023/24, found mobile-phone access of 66.0 percent for males and 66.8 percent for females, showing virtually no national gender difference in phone access.
Internet access, however, was much lower: 21.6 percent for males and 21.1 percent for females.
The urban-rural gap was considerably wider. Internet access was 38.7 percent for urban males and 37.8 percent for urban females, compared with only 15.5 percent for rural males and 14.8 percent for rural females.
This means a rural woman can face several barriers simultaneously such as poor connectivity, inadequate electricity, expensive smartphones, data costs and limited access to digital training.

Nigeria’s data boom — but who is benefiting?

Nigeria’s growing appetite for mobile data shows how deeply the internet has become embedded in everyday life.
But national growth can conceal unequal participation.
While digitally connected Nigerians use the internet to trade, work remotely, learn, make payments and access services, women who cannot afford regular data may remain offline or depend on intermediaries.
That dependence has economic consequences.
For a trader, it can mean losing customers who shop online.
For a teacher, it can mean missing an official instruction sent through a digital platform.
For a small business owner, it can mean losing access to digital payments or online markets.
For an unemployed woman, it can mean missing a remote-work opportunity.

Financial inclusion is also at stake

The digital divide is closely linked to financial inclusion.
EFInA’s 2023 Access to Financial Services survey found that financial inclusion in Nigeria rose to 74 percent, from 68 percent in 2020, while formal financial inclusion reached 64 percent. Yet women continue to experience significant disparities.
EFInA’s Women’s Economic Empowerment analysis found persistent gender disparities in financial inclusion and highlighted women’s continued reliance on informal financial services.
The organisation has warned that digital financial services can fail to close the gap if products are not deliberately designed around the realities of excluded women.
This is important because digital finance increasingly requires a smartphone, data, identity verification and the confidence to navigate applications.
A woman lacking any of these can remain financially excluded even when a digital service is technically available to her.

Identity creates another barrier

Nigeria’s digital economy is also becoming increasingly identity-dependent.
Banking, telecommunications and government services increasingly require identity verification through systems such as the National Identification Number and Bank Verification Number.
For women who lack documentation or struggle to reconcile identity records, these requirements can become another hurdle.
Digital identity is important for security and inclusion, but its benefits will only be realised if women can obtain and use their identities without depending on intermediaries.

Starting with girls

Stakeholders say closing today’s digital gender gap must also begin with preparing girls for tomorrow’s economy.
At the 13th Girls in ICT Day celebration in Lagos, Convener and CEO of eBusiness Life Communication Limited, Mrs Ufuoma Emuophedaro, urged girls not merely to consume technology but to create it.
“Do girls use technology? Yes! But that is not all we want. Apart from using, we want them to create technology,” she said.
Head, Cybersecurity and Compliance Advisory, Digital Encode, Bisola Oladejo, identified limited STEM education, inadequate access to internet and ICT gadgets, gender bias, low funding and cyberbullying among factors limiting girls’ participation in ICT.
She called for deliberate government initiatives and stronger partnerships with NGOs and the private sector.
The message is supported by global evidence. GSMA says affordability, digital skills and safety remain major barriers to women’s meaningful mobile-internet use.

Beyond owning a smartphone

For Atiku Ibrahim from Zamfara State, the digital divide is painfully personal.
His mother does not own a smartphone because she cannot afford one.
“If I want to reach her and speak with her, I call my sister,” he said.
“Most women in my place don’t have smartphones. Most of them can’t afford it and when they buy for them, they’ll not be able to operate it,” he added.
For women like his mother, digital exclusion determines who they can communicate with, what information they receive and whether they can access services independently.
The solution, therefore, cannot be reduced to putting smartphones into women’s hands.
Nigeria needs affordable devices, cheaper and reliable connectivity, practical digital-skills training, accessible identity systems, safer online spaces and financial services designed around women’s realities.
The real measure of digital transformation should not be how many Nigerians own phones.
It should be how many women can use those phones to earn, save, borrow, trade, learn, access government services and make decisions independently.
Until that happens, Nigeria’s digital economy may continue to grow, while millions of women remain locked outside its most valuable opportunities.