Nigeria just put government services on WhatsApp
On Techpoint Digest, we discuss Nigeria's putting government services on WhatsApp, Paystack's addition of an AI brain to its dashboard, and a Kenyan court expanding what constitutes harm in data breaches.
Salam,
Victoria from Techpoint here,
Here’s what I’ve got for you today:
Nigeria just put government services on WhatsApp
Paystack just gave its dashboard an AI brain
Kenyan court expands what counts as harm in data breaches
Nigeria just put government services on WhatsApp
Photo by Mourizal Zativa on Unsplash
Nigeria’s government has officially entered its AI chatbot era, but instead of building another complicated government website nobody visits, it went straight to WhatsApp. On May 21, 2026, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy Bosun Tijani announced the launch of GovGuideNigeria, an AI-powered platform designed to help Nigerians access government information more easily across over 35 ministries and 60 agencies. The platform works on WhatsApp and the web and supports English, Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba.
The idea is simple: instead of spending hours trying to figure out which ministry handles what, users can just ask questions in plain language and get step-by-step answers instantly. While the platform is being described as an AI assistant for government services, no official WhatsApp number or verified WhatsApp access has been shared publicly so far.
The decision to build around WhatsApp is probably the smartest part of the entire project. Nigeria has more than 51 million WhatsApp users, and for millions of people, especially outside major cities, WhatsApp is already the internet. GovGuideNigeria is designed for exactly those users: people who may never open a government website but use WhatsApp every single day. The project was built through a partnership involving the National Centre for AI and Robotics, Meta, and Publica, meaning the same company behind WhatsApp is also part of the infrastructure helping power the experience.
What makes this crucial is that Nigeria’s bureaucracy has long functioned like an unofficial tax on ordinary people. Getting basic government services often means knowing somebody inside an agency, paying a middleman, or physically moving betwee...
