Oxford Insights placed Nigeria 72nd among 195 governments in its 2025 Government AI Readiness Index, whose revised report was published in January 2026. Nigeria's policy-capacity score was substantially stronger than its infrastructure and public-sector-adoption scores, while Channels Television reported that the country ranked fourth within Sub-Saharan Africa.
Oxford Insights ranked Nigeria 72nd among 195 governments in the 2025 Government AI Readiness Index. The report version published in January 2026 superseded an earlier December edition and assessed governments across 69 indicators, 14 dimensions and six pillars.
Channels Television reported on January 13 that Nigeria placed fourth within Sub-Saharan Africa, behind Kenya at 65th globally, South Africa at 67th and Mauritius at 71st. Rwanda followed Nigeria at 75th.
Policy capacity leads Nigeria's profile
Nigeria's pillar scores show why the aggregate rank needs context:
| Pillar | Score |
|---|---|
| Policy capacity | 80.50 |
| Governance | 65.63 |
| Public-sector adoption | 47.46 |
| Resilience | 43.48 |
| Development and diffusion | 40.42 |
| AI infrastructure | 33.65 |
Channels Television also reported that those results placed Nigeria 35th globally in policy capacity and 49th in development and diffusion. The report linked the policy result to domestic AI investment, policy documents and an intention to expand international collaboration. Oxford Insights separately highlighted the launch of Nigeria's AI Scaling Hub as an example of governments moving from strategy toward implementation.
What the ranking does and does not show
Oxford Insights frames the index around a government's capacity to harness AI for public benefit. Its 2025 methodology broadens the earlier emphasis on direct public-service implementation to include governments' roles as buyers, enablers and regulators.
For practitioners, the gap between Nigeria's policy-capacity score and its lower infrastructure and public-sector-adoption scores is more informative than the headline rank alone. It suggests that policy direction and governance foundations are developing faster than some of the systems needed for broad deployment. The index is a national comparison, not a readiness certificate for an individual agency or project. Teams evaluating public-sector AI work in Nigeria still need to validate connectivity, compute access, procurement, data governance, implementation skills and the operating conditions of the specific institution involved.
Key Points #
- 1Oxford Insights ranked Nigeria 72nd among 195 governments in the 2025 index; the cited report version was published in January 2026.
- 2Nigeria scored 80.50 in policy capacity but 33.65 in AI infrastructure and 47.46 in public-sector adoption.
- 3Channels Television reported that Nigeria placed fourth within Sub-Saharan Africa and ranked 35th globally in policy capacity.
Scoring Rationale #
The index offers useful comparative evidence on national AI governance and public-sector implementation conditions. Its relevance is strongest for practitioners evaluating government AI ecosystems in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa, rather than for model development or broadly deployed AI tooling.
Sources #
Primary source and supporting public references used for this report.
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