Itana, Nigeria’s—and Africa’s—first absolutely digital free zone, situated in Alaro Metropolis inside Lagos State’s Lekki Free Zone hall, is reimagining the idea of particular financial zones by shifting the main focus from manufacturing to providers, expertise, and innovation.
At its core, Itana is a response to the pressing have to modernise how Nigeria and Africa allow enterprise progress in a worldwide digital economic system. Conventional free zones throughout the continent have lengthy revolved round industrial manufacturing and export-oriented manufacturing. However, as Adetayo Oduwole, Director of Enterprise and Compliance at Itana, explains, that mannequin unnoticed an more and more dominant a part of the economic system: providers.
“We’ve left the service sector underexplored for too lengthy,” he stated in an interview with TechCabal. “With the way in which the world goes, powered by expertise, Africa should faucet into commerce in providers or threat falling additional behind.”
That realisation drove Itana’s founding imaginative and prescient: to create a digital-first jurisdiction the place corporations can remotely incorporate, scale, and serve international markets with out being sure by Nigeria’s traditionally inflexible regulatory infrastructure. Impressed by fashions like Delaware within the U.S. and Dubai’s Web Metropolis, Itana capabilities as a particular administrative enclave tailor-made for digital companies. It leverages Nigeria’s present 30-year-old free zone rules to keep away from the bureaucratic delays of reinventing laws.
The zone permits startups to register with a $2,000 incorporation charge and a yearly $1,150 renewal, together with entry to an official handle for mailing, doc processing, and collaborative actions. “We’ve streamlined every part,” Oduwole says. “From incorporation to regulation, the method is digital and international from day one. You possibly can arrange from Nairobi, London, or Yaba.”
However past paperwork, Itana can also be anchored in place. Its first district, a 72,000-square-meter mixed-use space in Alaro Metropolis, is already below development with backing from the Africa Finance Company (AFC), which dedicated $100 million to section one. The zone provides 24/7 energy from gas-fired crops, piped fuel, twin fiber-optic web, clear water, and environment friendly metropolis administration. Oduwole calls it a “live-work-play” surroundings, with startup campuses, co-living areas, out of doors work areas, and even biking trails to foster neighborhood and productiveness.
Crucially, Itana isn’t simply infrastructure but additionally coverage innovation. It’s additionally the primary free zone in Nigeria to prioritise regulatory assist for the digital economic system. The venture companions with Future Africa, an early-stage enterprise capital agency based by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, co-founder of Flutterwave, to fund and speed up early-stage startups. The ensuing ecosystem brings founders, regulators, coverage advocates, and potential prospects below one roof.
This multi-stakeholder strategy is very essential for Nigeria’s rising tech sector, which regularly struggles with inconsistent regulation, advanced taxation, and an absence of infrastructure. With greater than 60% of Africa-bound enterprise capital flowing to Nigeria whereas solely a fraction of startups scale past native boundaries, Itana is positioning itself as a bridge between native expertise and international alternative.
From mind drain to expertise export
One of the forward-looking elements of Itana is its alignment with the African Continental Free Commerce Settlement (AfCFTA). By enabling Nigerian-registered service suppliers to ship merchandise throughout Africa with out relocating their operations, Itana faucets into an enormous alternative: a unified market of over a billion individuals. “Scaling throughout Africa is difficult,” Oduwole says. “Completely different international locations, totally different guidelines. We’ve constructed a framework that allows you to provide providers throughout the continent whereas remaining rooted in Nigeria.”
Expertise is central to this plan. By means of partnerships with Nigeria’s Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Funding and the Nationwide Expertise Export Programme (NATEP), Itana helps to match skilled Nigerian professionals with international employers. The aim: create 100,000 jobs within the subsequent 5 years and set up Nigeria as a pacesetter in cross-border service supply, together with enterprise course of outsourcing (BPO), software program improvement, and digital design. “This isn’t about mind drain,” Oduwole stated. “It’s about expertise export—conserving Nigerians right here whereas connecting them to international markets.”
The platform additionally addresses among the structural points plaguing Africa’s labour markets: job fraud, poor job matching, and insufficient coaching. By working with a number of training and coaching suppliers, Itana shouldn’t be solely inserting expertise, nevertheless it’s serving to develop it. “We’re centered on ensuring that when corporations come into Itana, there’s a prepared pipeline of expert, credible expertise,” says Oduwole. “And we wish to do this with integrity.”
Whereas it’s nonetheless early days, Itana is beginning to see some outcomes. Regardless of broader narratives of corporations exiting Nigeria, Oduwole says Itana has seen robust curiosity from each native and overseas corporations, together with African startups trying to broaden, overseas buyers exploring new markets, and Nigerian corporations in search of simpler methods to scale. “You’d be stunned what number of overseas corporations are coming to us asking if they’ll discover expertise, if they’ll scale right here,” he says. “It’s a complete shift in mindset.”
What units Itana aside is not only its infrastructure or regulatory mannequin, however its ecosystem-building philosophy. Slightly than replicate itself throughout Nigeria, Itana’s aim is to construct a working prototype—an African Delaware—that others can be taught from. “We don’t want Delawares throughout Nigeria,” Oduwole says. “We want one good mannequin, examined and optimised, that others can construct on in their very own approach.”
With Africa’s youth inhabitants projected to double by 2050 and international demand for digital providers skyrocketing, Itana’s timing is important. Because the world races to digitise, Nigeria now has a possibility to steer, not by copying others, however by designing one thing that works for its distinctive context.
“Itana is not only a zone. It’s a sign,” Oduwole stated. “That Nigeria is open for digital enterprise, and this time, we’re not taking part in catch-up. We’re setting the tempo.”
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