The Lagos State Government is considering legislation to commit a fixed proportion of its annual budget to research, development and risk capital, Deputy Governor Kadri Hamzat has disclosed, as the state seeks to build a more predictable funding system for home-grown technology and innovation.
Hamzat said the proposed law would help sustain support for researchers and technology businesses, arguing that Africa’s digital challenge was not a shortage of ideas but the failure to turn successful innovations into solutions that could reach millions of people.
He spoke on Tuesday at the fifth edition of TeXcellence, held at the Landmark Event Centre, Lagos, where he urged governments to move beyond supporting individual innovators and establish the infrastructure, financing and policies needed to scale their work.
“Africa does not have an innovation problem. We have a scaling problem. And scale is a systems question. The distance between a good idea and a system that works for millions is where the government lives,” the deputy governor said.
He argued that promising ideas developed by African entrepreneurs, researchers and communities often remained isolated successes because the systems required to expand them were inadequate.
“The real challenge is creating the infrastructure, policies, financing and partnerships needed to move those solutions beyond isolated success stories and make them accessible to millions,” he said.
“The government must therefore do more than support innovation; it must build the systems that allow African ideas to grow, endure and deliver meaningful impact at scale.”
In an address titled The Enabling State: What Government Must Become For Technology To Scale, Hamzat said government should act not only as a regulator but also as an enabler by providing shared digital infrastructure, supporting research and development and establishing institutions capable of sustaining technological progress beyond individual administrations.
The proposed innovation law would build on existing state support for researchers and technology businesses. Hamzat said the Lagos State Science Research and Innovation Council had supported 80 researchers and more than 75 start-ups, with approximately N1bn available in grants for innovators.
He did not disclose the proportion of the budget being considered for the proposed allocation or when the bill might be presented.
Hamzat also outlined the state’s investments in digital infrastructure, saying about 3,000 kilometres of fibre ducts and networks had been laid, while a further $22m had been invested towards developing a unified 6,000-kilometre network.
He added that more than 6.4 million residents had been enrolled in Lagos’s resident identity system, while digital reforms had streamlined public services, including physical planning permits and mortgage consent processing.
The deputy governor called for stronger partnerships between government and industry, with measurable commitments to accelerate digital transformation.
The Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of CWG Plc, Adewale Adeyipo, said African countries also needed to strengthen their control over the infrastructure underpinning their digital economies.
In his welcome address, Adeyipo urged governments and technology companies to prioritise digital sovereignty, local artificial intelligence infrastructure and sustainable technology deployment, rather than depend heavily on systems developed elsewhere.
He said the continent needed to invest deliberately in local computing capacity, affordable digital devices and digital literacy, while moving artificial intelligence applications beyond pilot projects into reliable and commercially viable systems.
TeXcellence, now in its fifth edition, brought together stakeholders to discuss the direction of Africa’s digital development and the policies required to support it.
The proposed legislation would mark a shift from grant-based support towards a potentially more predictable funding commitment.