Daniel Yakmut, Chairman of COMDICT-NTI
Across many Nigerian campuses today, the dream of digital learning is exciting — but for thousands of students, it remains a dream they can barely afford. At the 2025 COMDICT-NTI Conference, held in Abuja, this painful truth hung in the air as ICT directors, vice-chancellors, and experts discussed Nigeria’s push toward a fully digital tertiary education system.
Beneath the technical presentations and policy speeches, one disturbing reality emerged: many students are being quietly left behind.
Chairman of COMDICT-NTI, Daniel Yakmut, told a story that captured the mood in the room — a student from a northern polytechnic who attends online classes only at night because that is when data costs are cheaper. Another student reportedly walks three kilometres daily to a community centre just to charge her phone before logging in to her virtual lectures.
“These are not isolated cases,” Yakmut said softly. “They are becoming the norm.”
The conference theme, *“Accelerating Digital Transformation in Nigerian Tertiary Education,”* suddenly felt both urgent and ironic. Nigeria is eager to join the global digital education movement, yet the path is scattered with obstacles: painfully slow broadband, unstable electricity, high device prices, and skyrocketing data costs.
“For some students, one month of data costs more than their feeding,” an ICT director from a federal university lamented. “How can we talk about digital classrooms when many cannot even afford smartphones?”
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Jos, Prof. Tanko Ishaya, reminded participants that COVID-19 was the country’s rude awakening — a moment that exposed the cracks in the system. During the lockdown, students without laptops or data simply disappeared from online classes. Many never returned.
“Digital education should not be a privilege,” he said. “It must be a lifeline that every student can access.”
Across panel rooms, speakers stressed that the transformation Nigeria seeks must first put human beings at the centre. Technology is important, yes — but equity is critical. Without deliberate policies to make data, power, and devices affordable, digital education will widen the gap between the rich and the poor.
As the conference ended, a quiet consensus emerged: Nigeria’s future classrooms may be online, but unless the nation tackles the real human costs, millions of students will be watching their dreams buffer endlessly on the screen.
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