For more than a decade, Nigeria has told the world a remarkable story about itself through its culture. Our music sets the tempo in clubs from Lagos to London, our films travel further each year, and our writers, designers, and digital creators are shaping how a generation sees this country.
We have never lacked influence. What we have lacked is evidence about the machinery beneath that influence and the honest conversation that evidence makes possible. That is what this report sets out to provide.
The State of Nigeria’s Creative Economy 2026 draws on the lived experience of 377 creative professionals working across eight sectors, gathered in the weeks following NECLive 2025. We did not ask them what was inspiring. We asked them what was in their way. Their answers are consistent, and they are sobering.
The central finding is unambiguous: Nigeria’s creative sector is not held back by a shortage of talent. It is held back by the systems that surround that talent; the power and connectivity, the financing, the payment rails, and the training pipelines that mature creative economies take for granted.
Power outages rank as the single biggest daily obstacle, above funding, regulation, and piracy combined. More than eight in ten professionals lose over a tenth of every working week to non-creative administration. And when our creators try to reach the world, they are blocked not by the quality of their work but by the plumbing of international payments.
None of this is cause for despair. In fact, this report is a gift. A sector that can name its own constraints this precisely is a sector ready to be built. The State of Nigeria’s Creative Economy Report moves the conversation from dialogue to evidence and from evidence to a set of clear, actionable recommendations for government, investors, and the private sector.
At ID Africa and through NECLive, we have spent years convening the people who make Nigeria’s culture. This report, produced in partnership with Frontyard, is our attempt to convene the people who can resource it.
The talent has already done its part. It is time the systems caught up.
Read The State of Nigeria’s Creative Economy here
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Article origin: https://thenet.ng/nigerias-talents-done-part-its-time-systems-caught-up/
Original author: Ayomide Tayo
