10th AfriLabs Annual Gathering (AAG 2025) In Nairobi, Kenya On 13/10/2025

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REMARKS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, IMMEDIATE PAST VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AT THE 10TH AFRILABS ANNUAL GATHERING (AAG 2025) IN NAIROBI, KENYA, ON THE 13TH OF  OCTOBER, 2025

Protocols

I must say that I’m extremely excited to be here at the 10th annual gathering of AfriLabs, and I still remember hosting AfriLabs back in 2021 in Abuja, where there were about, that was the 10th anniversary of the founding of AfriLabs, not the 10th anniversary of the gathering, which is this gathering. And I recall then there were, you know, a couple of hundred people, but the energy, even then, the energy in the room, just the sheer force of all of those people in the room.

But today, when you look at it, it’s almost like a thousand times the energy, the buzz, the creativity, and everything that’s in here is almost a thousand times what we saw in 2021. So congratulations, everyone!

I must say it’s a real privilege also to be in this room with over 600, I’m told, and I’m told even closer to 700 brilliant innovators, creators and partners from around the world.

AfriLabs has been a very powerful ally of Timbuktoo. And as you heard from Anna a few moments ago, they have walked this path of Timbuktoo practically from the beginning. Timbuktoo, as you know, is the Africa Innovation Fund, home to what may be the largest single fund supporting innovation ecosystems across Africa.

So huge congratulations to the AfriLabs family for this milestone. And a special shout-out to Anna Ekeledo, the unstoppable force leading this amazing movement. So I’m just going to reflect for a few minutes on the theme of the gathering, which is Africa’s Innovation Future, Policy Partnerships and Progress.

And some may ask, some of the innovators here may simply ask, well, what’s my business with policy? I’m not the one who does that or who makes policy. But I think it’s very important that every innovator must also see themselves as policy advocates. And the simple reason is that you are the one who knows what is best in terms of the policy you want to see and the policy that will shape the future of your business, the policy that will shape the future of your innovation.

I think there is every reason why each and every one of us here should be a policy innovator, a policy advocate. As a matter of fact, in Nigeria, I recall when we were still thinking about how to accommodate the payment systems, the very many payment systems that were showing up, the FinTechs that were showing up, there was a group of young men and women, about four of them, who met with me and we met with the Central Bank of Nigeria to take a second look at the sort of licencing regimes that we had in order to be able to accommodate the FinTechs, who at the time, of course, were taking the lunch of the table of many of the banks.

So it was these young innovators who ended up being the policy advocates who saw to it that our policies changed and we were able to accommodate FinTechs. It was Fred Swaniker, the founder of the African Leadership Academy, who observed that by 2030, Africa will have the largest workforce, will have a larger workforce, he said, than China. And by 2050, Africa will have the largest workforce in the world. One billion people will need to have, well, jobs. And they will be sitting on a ticking time bomb, not just for Africa, but for the entire world, if we are not able to find jobs and opportunities for this number.

And let me add that a worse disaster is if that workforce is not trained in the relevant skills. But the numbers that he spoke of tell a simple truth also. And it is that Africa’s future depends on innovation. And we heard Anne a moment ago saying that the bridge between potential and prosperity is innovation. I thought that was so well said.

But not just that, increasingly, the future of global innovation will depend on Africa. And that simply is the truth. With the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population, Africa holds immense potential to leapfrog into new frontiers of technology, green growth, and digital transformation.

And if we do, combined with the sheer force of numbers, it will be the greatest technological revolution that the world has ever seen. So, the choice before us is unmistakable. We can either allow this vast reservoir of energy and talent to dissipate into unemployment and instability, or we can channel it into innovation that drives innovative growth and creates millions of jobs and positions.

So, Africa as a force shaping the global economy is more or less something that we should take for granted. But the real question is not whether Africa can innovate; it is already innovating, and that is why we have here with us this huge number of innovators doing all sorts of amazing things. But the question is whether we will build the right environment for innovation to thrive, to scale, and to transform lives.

Innovation clearly requires fertile ground. And that ground is policy, good forward-looking policy. We heard a moment ago about Kenya’s M-Pesa. It’s become a global FinTech revolution because the regulators allowed mobile money to flourish rather than stifle it.

And I just spoke a moment ago about Nigeria’s unicorns, six unicorns in six years, between two recessions, because the Central Bank liberalised its licensing policy, creating cheaper licences to enable payment systems and payment processing companies to function.

Rwanda’s Centre for Fourth Industrial Revolution has been benefiting from forward-looking digital policies and is already embedding artificial intelligence, blockchain, and the Internet of Things into its National Tech Strategy. And there are so many great examples.

But no single country or company can unlock Africa’s innovation future alone. Partnerships, local, regional, and global, are the bridges that will connect ideas to impact. And this event, this AfriLabs Annual Gathering, convenes hundreds of innovators, policy makers, and investors here and online and creating a continental platform for collaboration.

And there are so many partnerships that are possible here. Partnerships are the arteries through which innovation circulates. And the results of these efforts are already visible.

Africa’s technological capabilities nearly doubled in the past decade alone, rising from 25 percent to 41 percent. Here in Kenya, Kenya’s Silicon Savannah, as it’s described, is valued already at over $7 billion and is projected to reach $18 billion by 2032. Rwanda’s e-commerce sector is growing at 15 percent annually, while Nigeria adds one new mobile subscriber every second.

Across the continent, 570 million Africans are now online, more than double the number in 2015. These are not isolated achievements. They are signals of a continent in motion.

But I think that the true multiplier of Africa’s innovation future is the Africa Continental Free Trade Area, the largest trade area in the world by membership, encompassing 54 countries and a market of 1.4 billion people. The free trade area is not just about lowering tariffs. It’s about unlocking innovation at scale.

It creates a single continental market where startups can scale beyond borders. A FinTech solution that is born in Lagos can seamlessly serve clients in Nairobi, in Accra, in Johannesburg, and in Kigali. With its protocol on digital trade, the free trade area lays the foundation for cross-border e-commerce, digital payments, and data flows.

The free trade area’s digital innovation challenge is already helping small and medium-sized enterprises leverage technology to overcome trade barriers, reduce costs, and access markets. Jumia, Africa’s largest e-commerce platform, expanded from Nigeria into 14 African countries, increasing its potential customer base by 41% thanks to reduced trade restrictions. The free trade area is the infrastructure of innovation, transforming fragmented national markets into a continental launchpad.

The opportunities it unlocks are immense across sectors. In agriculture, which employs over 60% of Africa’s workforce, the trade area can harmonise standards for seeds, fertilisers, and agri-inputs, enabling agri-tech startups to scale solutions across borders. Twiga Foods, an agri-company in Kenya which connects farmers directly with retailers through digital platforms, is a model that can expand regionally under the free trade area, reducing food waste and stabilising prices.

The UN Economic Commission for Africa projects that agri-business will be worth $1 trillion by 2030, and the free trade area ensures African innovators can capture that value.

In health, where the continent faces a shortage of 1.8 million health workers by 2030, the free trade area’s digital trade protocols can enable telemedicine platforms to operate seamlessly across borders. Ghana’s mPharma, which manages prescription drug supply chains and now operates in multiple countries, shows how regional integration can reduce regulatory fragmentation and allow health tech solutions to scale continent-wide.

Cross-border health innovation is vital for pandemic preparedness and equitable healthcare delivery. In renewable energy, Africa holds 60% of the world’s best solar resources, yet it accounts for only 1% of global solar capacity. But the free trade area can remove tariffs on solar panels, on wind turbines, on batteries, lowering costs and accelerating adoption.

Morocco’s Noor Ouarzazate Solar Complex, which is one of the largest in the world, demonstrates that potential. And with the free trade area, surplus power could actually be traded across borders through regional power pools. The AfDB estimates that achieving universal electricity access by 2040 will require $120 billion annually, and the free trade area agreements can attract that investment and integration, the integration that is needed to meet the challenge.

But to truly reap the benefits of this technological watershed, Africa must take deliberate steps. And I think the excellent plan, a plan developed by Ambassador Ramkisson, who is an AU Ambassador for AI, Ethics, and Digital Transformation, lays out some of the crucial imperatives, namely that we must reduce the cost of internet and mobile data, because affordable access is really the gateway to the digital economy. A 50% reduction in data costs could increase GDP by as much as 2%. And this must be matched by building out broadband infrastructure to reach rural and underserved areas.

We must also expand energy accessibility, investing in solar, wind and nuclear energy to reduce energy poverty, fuel industries, and create up to 15 million jobs by 2035. We must lower the cost of intellect by accelerating local education in science and technology, while also attracting international talent to drive innovation.

We must ensure data reliability and transparency, building infrastructures that provide trustworthy information to local and international investors alike. We must coordinate regulations across the continent, simplifying frameworks so that businesses can scale more easily. And we should consider creating a resource or technological index focused on energy, on agriculture, natural resources and technology.

And this will be a progressive first step towards a fully-fledged continental stock exchange. This, of course, is a lower-risk approach and can build awareness, foster market infrastructure and establish the credibility needed for deeper financial integration.

Africa is not merely catching up; it is leapfrogging. Where others built at some point landlines, Africa went straight to mobile telephony. Where others are burdened by legacy banking, Africa pioneered mobile money. Where others debate the ethics of artificial intelligence, Africa is embedding inclusivity and responsibility from the start. And now with the AfCFTA and deliberate action on connectivity, on energy, on education, on data and regulation, Africa is building the world’s largest innovation marketplace. A place where ideas travel as freely as goods and where diversity becomes a competitive advantage.

I think we ought to act with urgency. We have to invest with courage and collaborate with vision. Let’s build an Africa where a young coder in Lagos, a farmer in Addis and a solar engineer in Marrakech are not isolated dreamers, but connected pioneers in a continental ecosystem.

Because when Africa innovates, the world progresses, and when the world looks for the future of innovation, it will find it right here in Africa.

Thank you.