President Muhammadu Buhari has signed the Nigeria Startup Bill into law, with a stern warning to security agencies to stop arresting Nigerian youths with laptops.
This follows the passage of the Bill by the two chambers of the National Assembly, on July 20, 2022.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, announced this on Wednesday after a meeting with the President at the presidential villa, in Abuja.
Patanmi disclosed that the bill was initiated by the executive arm and seeks to create an enabling environment for tech-based startups in Nigeria.
Pantami further revealed that the law which holds huge benefits for the Nigerian economy, adopted an approach to allow startups to identify business challenges and voice them out.
Based on the provisions of the law, the Federal Government plans to set up a 10-billion-naira fund of startups in the country.
The new law provides that: a startup’s headquarters and its place of incorporation should both be in Nigeria; to qualify as a startup in the NSB the company must have been operating in Nigeria for no longer than 10 years; an NSB startup must have at least 51 per cent of its shares held by Nigerians and at least 15 per cent of expenses going into research and development; and the employees of the NSB startup should not exceed 100, excluding contract workers, consultants, and outsourced personnel.
