Nigeria’s climate ambition is increasingly digital, but its data infrastructure is falling behind. Recently, the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Emomotimi Agama, identified a major challenge confronting the market: many listed companies still lack coherent, structured, and verifiable sustainability disclosures.
Beyond the private sector, Nigeria’s public data systems do not talk to each other. Different ministries, departments, and agencies often collect overlapping datasets independently, with limited interoperability, coordination, or data-sharing. Studies have shown that sharing data between government agencies reduces the high costs associated with multiple data capturing for similar services.
Companies may report sustainability information, but regulators cannot easily aggregate, verify, or operationalise the data for national climate governance.
Presently, companies disclose sustainability data through regulatory channels such as the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC) and the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX). FRC sustainability disclosures are not linked to the National GHG Registry, and NGX Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting systems are not connected to carbon credit Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems.
