Nigeria Must Stop Importing Its Odds, Exporting Its Royalties, Says Innovation Minister

At the Enugu Gaming Conference 2026, Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Dr Kingsley Tochukwu Udeh challenged Nigeria’s gaming industry to confront its dependence on imported technology, measure the billions potentially leaving the country in licence fees and royalties, and begin building the systems that power the sector at home. Nseobong Okon-Ekong reports

The most provocative question at the Enugu Gaming Conference 2026 did not come from a gaming operator, regulator or investor. It came from the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Dr Kingsley Tochukwu Udeh.

“How much does this sector remit abroad each year in platform licence fees, data feeds and royalties?” he asked. Then came the uncomfortable admission. “I cannot tell you today, and I would be surprised if anyone in this hall could tell me with confidence either.”

The question, delivered as part of the Minister’s keynote address at the two-day conference in Enugu, went beyond the familiar conversations about taxation, regulation, responsible gaming and market expansion. It forced the industry to confront a less discussed dimension of its rapid growth: who owns the technology beneath Nigeria’s gaming economy, and how much does the country pay to access it?

The minister’s address, delivered by the Director-General of the Project Development Institute (PRODA), Enugu, Prof Peter Ogbobe, placed technology at the centre of the gaming industry’s next phase of development.

“Almost every line of code beneath this industry touches on my mandate,” Udeh declared. “The platform your sportsbook runs, the licence you pay for that platform and the foreign exchange you send abroad to pay for it. The research that could replace it. The young engineer in Nsukka or Awka who could write the replacement. The player protection system that will decide whether this industry keeps the public’s confidence or loses it.”

For an industry that has become one of the most visible components of Nigeria’s digital economy, the minister’s intervention offered a different way of looking at growth. The issue, he suggested, is no longer simply how large the gaming market can become, but how much of the technology supporting that market can be owned, developed and commercialised within Nigeria. “The states decide who may operate it,” Udeh said. “This ministry stands on the question of what you operate, who built it and where the money goes when you pay for it. I  do not regard that as a small question.”

The foreign technology question

At the heart of the minister’s argument is the technology transfer agreement. According to Udeh, whenever a Nigerian sportsbook uses a foreign provider for its sportsbook engine, odds or data feeds, casino integration, risk management system or certification services, the arrangement potentially constitutes a technology transfer agreement requiring registration with the National Office of Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP). He pointed to Section 8 of the NOTAP Act, noting that where such an agreement is not registered, the fees and royalties payable under it cannot be remitted to the foreign party through the Central Bank of Nigeria or a licensed Nigerian bank.

“NOTAP already sits on the foreign exchange pipeline of this ministry,” he said. “It holds something of value to you and something of value to this country, a record of what Nigeria is buying from whom at what price.”

But the minister acknowledged a significant information gap.

“What NOTAP holds is the registered agreements and the fees contracted under them, which is a floor rather than a full account,” he explained. “A floor is still a great deal more than nothing.”

His proposal was straightforward: put the data held by NOTAP alongside information gathered from gaming operators and the Enugu State Gaming Commission.

“Bring your figure. Let the Commission gather it from its licensees and let us set the two numbers beside each other,” he challenged. “If they agree, we would have settled a question that has been argued on assertion for years. If they differ, that gap will be the most useful thing this conference produces.”

The significance of the exercise, he argued, is that Nigeria cannot intelligently discuss replacing imported technology without first understanding the scale and cost of what it currently imports.

“You cannot build a case for making something you never priced,” he said.

From imported software to Nigerian solutions

The minister’s intervention also exposed the tension between the sophistication of Nigeria’s gaming market and the relatively limited indigenous technology infrastructure supporting it. The modern gaming ecosystem depends on a complex chain of technologies: sportsbook engines, payment systems, odds feeds, fraud detection tools, customer verification systems, risk engines, casino integrations, geolocation systems and player-protection platforms.

Many are sourced from international technology companies. Udeh does not advocate abruptly shutting out foreign providers.

“I am not asking anyone here to stop licensing foreign technology,” he said. “That would be unserious. I  am asking that we measure it honestly, and then agree what it would cost to build some of it here.”

That distinction was central to his argument.

Nigeria, he said, already has a gaming industry. The strategic question is whether the country will develop the technological capacity to support it or remain permanently dependent on foreign systems.

“Nigeria should not be a nation that imports its odds and exports its royalties,” he declared. The line became perhaps the defining statement of the Minister’s keynote.

The research opportunity

Udeh subsequently turned the industry’s attention to Nigeria’s research institutions.

He identified fraud detection at transaction speed, real-time risk scoring, geolocation integrity, payment reconciliation across multiple providers and behavioural models capable of identifying vulnerable players as examples of problems that could be tackled by Nigerian researchers and engineers.

“These problems are shaped by the Nigerian payment rails, Nigerian network conditions and Nigerian players,” he said. “They are ours, and the case for solving them here is not a sentimental one.”

Instead of another round of broad memoranda of understanding, the minister proposed a commercially driven relationship between gaming companies and Nigerian research institutions. His ministry’s flagship commercialisation initiative, Energise Commercialisation Now (ECoN), which he said is championed by First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu, would provide a potential vehicle.

“Commission Nigerian research institutions through ECoN on a problem you actually have,” Udeh told the industry. Defined milestones, defined price, defined ownership of the resulting intellectual property. This ministry convenes the institutions and stands behind the arrangement. You fund the problem.”

He was emphatic about the difference between this approach and conventional government-industry partnerships, stating, “That is a far smaller thing than a memorandum of understanding. It is also the only version of this that has ever produced anything.”

NOTAP promises a review

The minister also acknowledged that the existing regulatory framework for technology transfer agreements may not fully reflect the way software is delivered in today’s digital economy.

“Software today is licensed in ways that were uncommon when these requirements were drafted: hosted remotely, sold by subscription, priced on revenue share and revised continuously rather than delivered once,” he said.

He announced that he had directed NOTAP to review its registration requirements as they apply to digitally delivered software and services and consult with the gaming industry during the process. He also directed the agency to establish how gaming-sector agreements are classified in its records and determine the aggregate value of the agreements registered.

“I have therefore directed NOTAP to do two things and report to me on both before the end of this quarter,” he said.

The minister called on the Enugu commission and gaming operators to nominate representatives to participate in the review, warning, “If you do not nominate, the review will proceed without you, and you will live with the result.”

The capital flight conversation

The minister’s concerns are not isolated. Last year, NOTAP intensified efforts to address foreign exchange outflows associated with payments by Nigerian gaming operators to overseas technology providers.

At a stakeholders’ sensitisation workshop on the registration of Gaming Technology Agreements, the agency identified the gaming industry as an emerging source of capital flight, with significant sums leaving Nigeria through royalties, licence fees and technology-related service charges. The workshop, facilitated by Azare Consulting Limited, was themed ‘Driving Compliance, Enabling Growth: Understanding NOTAP’s New Directives for the Gaming Sector’.

Representing NOTAP Director-General Dr Obiageli Amadiobi at the workshop, Deputy Director of the Technology Transfer Registration Department, Mr Victor Anih, explained the importance of registering technology agreements between Nigerian gaming companies and foreign original equipment manufacturers.

The agency’s position also included provisions to increase the participation of Nigerian technology companies in supporting foreign-owned systems.

Where an agreement between a Nigerian company and an original equipment manufacturer includes a support component, the foreign technology owner is expected to appoint a Nigerian company to provide local support, with the support fee shared on a 60:40 basis, with the Nigerian company receiving 40 per cent. For Azare Consulting, the objective extends beyond compliance.

The company’s General Manager, Mr Chibuzor Fagbule, described the firm as a local vendor approved by NOTAP to facilitate gaming operators’ technology transfer agreement registrations, provide compliance advisory services and support the domestication of technology through training and related interventions.

Who should build Nigeria’s player-protection technology?

The technology conversation became particularly animated during one of the conference panels.

A comment by Blessing Arowosegbe of the Kogi State Internal Revenue Service, suggesting that the Federation of States Gaming Regulators of Nigeria (FSGRN) had contracted an Indian company to develop a player-protection platform, triggered a heated exchange among panellists and members of the audience.

Messrs Pius Okigbo Jr. and Udukheli Izebuno strongly challenged the premise, arguing that Nigerian engineers possess the capacity to build the technology required by the industry.

The exchange captured one of the central questions running through the conference.

If Nigeria has the engineers, researchers and technology entrepreneurs capable of developing sophisticated digital products, why should critical infrastructure for a growing domestic industry continue to be predominantly imported?

The minister’s keynote effectively supplied an answer: the industry must create a commercial reason for Nigerian innovators to solve its problems.

Beyond regulation

The Enugu Gaming Conference therefore became more than a conversation about gaming. It became a conversation about technology ownership, intellectual property, foreign exchange, research commercialisation and the future of Nigeria’s digital economy.

Udeh’s challenge was ultimately directed at both government and industry. Government must create a regulatory and institutional environment that recognises the realities of modern software licensing.

The industry, meanwhile, must be prepared to identify the technology it needs, place a value on those needs and invest in local solutions capable of competing with imported alternatives.

The minister concluded by outlining commitments from his ministry: publishing the value of technology agreements registered by the sector, reviewing NOTAP’s framework for contemporary software licensing, connecting Nigerian research institutions with gaming companies through ECoN and keeping the National Research and Innovation Development Fund open to contributions from the gaming industry.

But perhaps the most important challenge had already been delivered.

“Nigeria will have a gaming industry either way. It already has one,” Udeh said. “The question is whether this country owns the technology beneath it or rents it in perpetuity.”

For an industry that has spent years debating regulation, taxation, market access and responsible gaming, that question may represent the beginning of a more consequential conversation: not merely how much Nigeria can earn from gaming, but how much of the technology, intellectual property and economic value generated by gaming can remain in Nigeria.