Nigeria has, on paper, focused more on the digital economy than ever. People already register their businesses, apply for government services and manage their money through web and app platforms. The infrastructure behind those services has to level up with how the internet evolves, and available measurements suggest the country is lagging.
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has started moving government agencies towards IPv6 – the newest system of internet addresses. And, at a migration readiness workshop in Abuja, organised with the Nigeria IPv6 Council and the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC), NITDA’s DG, Kashifu Inuwa, urged ministry executives, departments and agencies to support the transition.
Represented by Oladejo Olawumi, Inuwa said, “Without having you on board, we cannot have a proper transition.” NITDA is funding certification for the technical staff who attended, and the training runs in two streams, one for senior officials and one for the engineers who will carry out the migration.
Yet national adoption metrics highlight a significant gap. A research platform run by the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) that measures global Internet technology adoption, such as IPv6 deployment, DNSSEC, and ISP market share, puts Nigeria’s IPv6 capability at 5.58%, compared with 6.56% across Africa, 8.78% in Western Africa and 43.63% globally. These figures estimate the share of observed users whose connections can use IPv6.
Nigeria has set a long-term goal of full IPv6 adoption by 2050. So, we tested eight government websites on October 21, 2026, to determine how ready the services behind that goal are. Audits show that day-to-day public infrastructure remains locked in legacy configurations. The testing tool marked six of them not ready, passed one and could not assess one.
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The internet upgrade most people never see
Your phone, laptop, server and website on the internet need an address so other devices can find it. Think of it like how a house needs an address for every delivery rider to find it easily. These are called internet protocol addresses, or IP addresses, and the internet uses two versions of them.
The typical address of the older version, IPv4, looks like four sets of numbers (like 192.0.2.1). That format allows ~4.3 billion unique addresses. The figure seemed gargantuan when the system was designed, but the world now has billions of phones, computers, tablets, cloud servers, and connected devices. So, the supply of IPv4 addresses has run short.
The new version, IPv6, was built to solve that problem. The addresses for the newer version are longer and mix numbers and letters (such as 2001:db8::1), and the format allows as many addresses as are unimaginable. So every device can have one in the foreseeable future – this is why the Internet Engineering Task Force – the organisation that develops and promotes voluntary technical standards that keep the internet running – developed IPv6.
To be clear, the two versions can run concurrently. So many devices remain reachable over IPv4 while networks and institutions prepare for the transition. For most people, IPv6 will remain invisible. Its value lies in the infrastructure of an ever-growing internet, which matters to an economy where agencies, banks, schools and businesses rely on digital channels. Data prices, mobile coverage, website speed and transfer failures depend on network capacity, service design, reliability and competition, so those problems will need their own fixes.
Ultimately, ignoring the transition creates real-world consequences for Nigeria’s digital economy:
- Network performance and latency: Because IPv4 addresses are exhausted globally, local telecommunications providers and cloud hosts must route multiple users through shared address translation systems (CGNAT). This workaround increases network latency, leads to frequent connection drops, and contributes to transaction failures during peak usage on banking and portal checkouts.
- Escalating infrastructure costs: Acquiring legacy IPv4 address space on global secondary markets has become increasingly expensive. Continued reliance on IPv4 drives up operating overhead for public institutions and private tech enterprises alike.
- Future compatibility and security: Global web platforms and cloud services are steadily phasing out IPv4 compatibility or assigning lower routing priority to legacy networks. As international services move toward IPv6-first architectures, non-compliant public portals risk isolation or degraded performance for international users and cross-border transactions.
We tested the websites behind public services
Condia tested eight Nigerian government websites for IPv6. The Lagos government website scored 100% and passed. The Nigerian Tax ID portal, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), and the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) each scored zero. Corporate Affairs Commission got 97.4% and was marked ‘not ready’. JAMB’s website timed out in multiple tests across several hours, so no result could be established.
A zero score indicates that the tool could not load the site over an IPv6-only connection. The same site can still load normally on a phone that uses IPv4. The sample is small and purposive, so the results describe these eight sites. The tests covered entry pages.
Each service depends on its own domain configuration, hosting arrangements and technical resources, so a national policy announcement cannot settle readiness for all of them.
NITDA and the agencies whose sites we tested did not respond to our requests for comment by publication time.
Moving beyond policy announcements
In August 2024, Communications Minister Bosun Tijani reiterated national ambitions to reach full IPv6 adoption by 2050, accompanied by NITDA’s white paper, Nigeria’s IPv6-driven Digital Public Infrastructure.
Setting a deadline nearly three decades away provides a generous runway, but long-term targets require intermediate, measurable checkpoints. Without mandatory annual milestones, such as requiring all core MDA domain entry points to achieve dual-stack functionality by a set near-term date, policy directives risk stalling at the workshop level.
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For everyday Nigerians, digital government should mean fast, seamless, and reliable access to public services. Ensuring that the invisible network protocols behind those services are built for the future is the first step in delivering on that promise.
NITDA and the agencies whose sites were tested did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.