ACCESS IS NOT ENOUGH
Why digital safety is the missing half of digital inclusion
Built on the Data Shield for Impact research, a nine-organisation initiative under the Nigeria AI Collective, led by Legis360 and implemented through CJID.
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Authors: Raqibatu Zukaneni, Zul-Qarneni Zahira
Organisations came together with CJID for the AI for CSOs Workshop, building shared understanding and practical knowledge around responsible AI use before we began the research and wider DSI programme.
Why Access Alone Is Not Enough
The story we tell about digital progress in Nigeria is, for the most part, a story about access. More phones, more data, more tools in more hands. It is a good story, and a true one, but it is only half of it. The other half decides whether inclusion lasts.
Just over half of Nigerians are now online, still short of the national 70 percent broadband target. Artificial intelligence has spread even faster in everyday use. Yet governed, deliberate adoption remains thin: on Microsoft's continental diffusion measure, no African country has passed 20 percent.
The institutions meant to steward this shift are moving too, the African Union adopted a Continental AI Strategy in 2024, and the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 gave the country its first enforceable data protection law. The framework is catching up. The practice, as the evidence shows, has not.
What We Found
The Data Shield for Impact research, a nationwide survey of 94 Nigerian civil society and media organisations, set out to measure not what the sector believes about digital safety, but what it actually practises. The findings are sobering.
Source: Data Shield for Impact survey, 94 organisations across 15+ states, 2026
"Digital inclusion that stops at the download is a half-finished promise"
What the Numbers Tell Us
What the Numbers Tell Us
Four views capture the gap most sharply, the threats organisations already face, the safety net most of them lack, where their data lives, and what worries them about the AI they have adopted.
Security incidents experienced
Share of organisations reporting each incident type · multiple responses
Where sensitive data is stored
Primary storage locations · multiple responses
Data backup readiness
How organisations back up sensitive data
Top concerns about AI tools
Leading worries among organisations already using AI · multiple responses
The sector's most urgent need
Single most urgent training need identified
What Data Shield for Impact Did
What Data Shield for Impact Did
Data Shield for Impact (DSI) is a sector-wide initiative to strengthen digital security, data protection and ethical AI across Nigerian civil society and media. It runs under the Nigeria AI Collective, led by Legis360 and implemented through CJID, and The Nenis Foundation helped deliver every part of it.
DSI Team facilitating a step-down session, or the partner organisations together at the capacity-building workshop.
Why the Initiative Matters
Why the Initiative Matters
DSI was created to close a documented gap: organisations were adopting digital tools and AI far faster than they were protecting the data those tools touch. It set out to build a safeguarding framework, generate real evidence, and equip the sector to act on it.
How We Worked Together
How We Worked Together
As one of nine participating organisations, The Nenis Foundation worked alongside our partners to deliver the full programme together, from stakeholder mapping and the nationwide baseline survey to the framework, the training, and the community outreach that carried it further.
What We Helped Build
What We Helped Build
A safeguarding framework aligned to UNESCO and OECD standards; a research report on the sector; a five-module training toolkit and materials; and train-the-trainer capacity building for 20 CSOs to carry the training into their own organisations.
The Organisations Behind the Work
Representatives of the nine partner organisations that collaborated on Data Shield for Impact (DSI), strengthening digital security, data protection and ethical AI practices across Nigerian civil society and media.
Legis360 · HumAngle · Akin Fadeyi Foundation · Hope Behind Bars Africa · The Nenis Foundation · AFRICMIL · The Inclusive Friends Association · Webfala Digital Skills for all Initiative · News Central , under the Nigeria AI Collective, implemented through CJID.
What We Have Learned From Our Work
We have seen this pattern before, close up. In our grassroots work with women running micro-businesses in Abuja's markets, we watched capable entrepreneurs take on digital tools that were never designed for their realities, their time pressures, their unreliable power and network, the fast, relational way that trade actually moves. Access, on its own, changed very little. What changed things was building tools that fit the user, and giving people the confidence to use them safely. The lesson scales: access without safety simply transfers risk to whoever is least equipped to absorb it.
What Needs to Change
What Needs to Change
Treat safety as part of the tool: Any organisation extending digital access should build protection in from day one — a basic backup policy, free encryption for sensitive files, and a clear rule about what never goes into a public AI tool. This needs a decision, not a big budget.
Translate the law into practice: The data protection law is in force and reaches most organisations that collect personal data. Map what you hold, record why, and publish a plain-language privacy notice.
Invest in confidence, not just connectivity: The World Bank projects that foundational digital skills will account for the majority of digital skills demand across Sub-Saharan Africa. Helping people use what they have safely matters as much as getting them online.
Making Digital Inclusion Safer
Making Digital Inclusion Safer
Nigeria does not face a digital access gap alone; it faces a digital safety gap sitting quietly alongside it. Closing the first while ignoring the second only moves the risk downstream, onto the communities we are working to lift.
Inclusion is only worth the name when it is safe.
A digitally inclusive Nigeria is a promise worth finishing. Partner with The Nenis Foundation.
Sources: Data Shield for Impact survey (94 organisations, 2026); Nigerian broadband penetration and skills, TechCabal Insights / NBS; AI diffusion, Microsoft; African Union Continental AI Strategy; Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, KPMG; digital-skills demand, World Bank. DSI under the Nigeria AI Collective, implemented through CJID.
Images credit: Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID)
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