After the National Assembly had passed the Startup bill for several months, President Muhammadu Buhari signed it into law on October 19, 2022. According to several social commentators and public affairs professionals who shared their thoughts on the law on virtual platforms, the president and his cabinet members have done poorly. According to the numerous perspectives collated and analyzed by our analyst, enacting legislation would not improve the startup environment unless existing economic challenges are addressed. The majority of people saw the signing as part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s regular governmental functions since 2015.
Our analyst believes that these and other opinions posted by Nigerians on online forums are pointless because no startups have ever been able to successfully navigate Nigeria’s challenging business environment throughout the years toward both sustainable success and abrupt failure. According to our analyst, the Act, which aims to strengthen the nation’s technology ecosystem and enable the sector’s rapid growth, will significantly help non-technology businesses as well, particularly in the areas of accessing funds, platforms for exchanging skills and knowledge, and adequate protection of their intellectual property and rights.
The signing keys into our analyst’s earlier suggestion that to increase innovation ecosystem, African leaders need to ensure sustainable patent and intellectual property protection. This is highly imperative in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and other countries where failure to file patent and trademark is reducing innovation output. This submission was based on analysis of innovation output and intellectual property in Nigeria and other select African countries.
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The outcome of the analysis indicated that there was no significant difference between the innovation output of Nigeria and South Africa in 3 years [2017 to 2019]. However, there was a significant difference between Kenya and Uganda’s innovation output during the period. There was a significant difference between Nigeria and South Africa intellectual property protection during the period as well. South Africa has better intellectual property protection environment than Nigeria.
Our analyst notes that the absence of the rule of law has been one of the primary issues preventing Nigeria from scoring well in several regional and global ranking indexes throughout the years. The examination of many rankings suggests that South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, and other nations with a modest number of startups have ranked ahead of Nigeria in some categories during the last five years due to a solid legal framework.
Our analyst observes that the regulation is necessary for entrepreneurs in Lagos, Port-Harcourt, Ibadan, Kano, and other places with a strong startup ecosystem. When strictly followed, it should assist these cities in improving their ranking status in upcoming regional and international rankings.
