• Nigeria created a new office to coordinate digital health and health data systems
• The agency aims to improve interoperability and unify fragmented health information platforms
• The reform supports Nigeria’s push to modernize healthcare through digital technology

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu approved the creation of a new government body on Friday, June 26, to coordinate national digital health and health data initiatives. The new entity, the National Health Technology and Data Analytics Office (NHTDAO), will be headed by Obi Adigwe, who was appointed national coordinator. It will report to the Office of the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare.

According to a presidency statement, the NHTDAO will be responsible for implementing Nigeria’s national digital health architecture, approved by the National Council on Health in November 2025. The office will promote interoperability among health information systems, establish technical standards for data exchange, and coordinate public and private stakeholders across the sector. The presidency said the new office would “strengthen, not replace,” the statutory functions of existing departments and agencies.

The new office comes as fragmented health information systems remain a long-standing structural challenge in Nigeria. A scoping review published in July 2025 in the scientific journal PLOS Digital Health, based on an analysis of 31 studies conducted between 2014 and 2024, identified interoperability as one of the most persistent barriers to integrating digital health technologies in the country.

At the 6th Africa Digital Health Summit, held in Abuja in June 2026, Minister of State for Health Iziaq Adekunle Salako, who also serves on the NHTDAO steering committee, said Nigeria would need 500 billion naira (about $362.4 million) in investment over five years to move from fragmented pilot programs to integrated nationwide platforms.

WHO Highlights Economic Benefits of Digital Health

At the continental level, the World Health Organization (WHO) has quantified the economic benefits of digital health. In a report on the African region, the organization said health systems could achieve efficiency gains of up to 15% by 2030 through greater digitalization, with the resulting savings reinvested to improve access to healthcare. The report also identified fragmented health information systems as one of the main factors limiting the performance of health systems across the WHO African Region.

WHO’s Regional Office for Africa also found, in an assessment covering West Africa, that only 6.6% of countries in the subregion had an operational digital health strategy, compared with 16.7% in Southern Africa and 60% in East Africa. The figures underscore the gap that remains in West Africa’s digital health transformation.

Source: Agence Ecofin