Lungi Sangqu warns Nigerian leaders: Tech fails without human-centric strategy

Lungi Sangqu, founder of Africa Digital Success, shared insights from nearly four decades shaping digital systems across 49 African countries in banking, rail, logistics, and higher education. She stressed that technology often fails not due to technical flaws but because leadership delegates strategy solely to IT departments, ignores human-centric design, and loses sight of the actual problem being solved. For Nigerian enterprises, this means millions in tech spending can go to waste if systems do not improve service delivery, staff productivity, or decision-making quality.

Sangqu’s lessons are directly relevant: successful digital transformation requires executives to own tech strategy, start with the problem rather than the product, and involve end-users early. She urged organizations to evaluate local technology on its merits—reliability, security, affordability, and suitability—rather than dismissing it based on origin. With AI reshaping workplaces, leaders must define specific operational problems, verify data integrity, ensure human oversight, and plan workforce transitions by reskilling employees for higher-value roles instead of viewing automation only as cost-cutting.

She also warned against "shadow IT" where staff bypass approvals, creating security risks, and advised making internal processes clear and practical. The true measure of success is not launching technology but sustaining change and delivering tangible improvement for the people served.

Will your next tech investment be measured by platform count or by actual impact on customers and citizens?

SOURCE: https://techcabal.com/2026/10/02/lungi-sangqu-people-digital-transformation-success/