Easybuy partners with WAWUAfrica to empower 10m Nigerian youths and women

Easybuy, Africa’s leading smartphone financing company, has partnered with WAWUAfrica to equip 10 million Nigerian youths and women with vocational skills and offer 10,000 sales jobs to program graduates.

The agreement was signed in Lagos, officially designating Easybuy as the Device Financing and Lifestyle Partner for the program. This initiative is supported by the Office of the Vice President through the Presidential Committee on Economic and Financial Inclusion (PreCEFI) and is managed by WAWUAfrica. Collaborating partners include the World Bank, the African Union, ECOWAS, and Nigeria’s ministries of Youth, Women, and Trade.

Training will cover five areas: digital and IT skills, financial literacy, creative arts and design, business and entrepreneurship, and hospitality and tourism.

The partnership is built around a specific problem that has quietly held millions of Nigerians back from the digital economy: they cannot afford a smartphone.

Think of a 22-year-old in Kano who completes a free digital marketing course but cannot apply for a single remote job because she does not own a device. Easybuy’s role in this programme is to close that gap, giving participants access to smartphones through flexible instalment plans so that the skills they acquire do not go to waste.

“Smartphones have become essential for participation in today’s economy, yet millions of Nigerians still face barriers to accessing the devices they need,” said Abdul-Gaffar Adesoji, Sales Director of Easybuy Nigeria. He added that Easybuy would provide up to 10,000 sales jobs for trained participants from the 10 million beneficiaries.

Why the Easybuy—WAWUAfrica partnership is important

The numbers behind the initiative reflect a wider problem. More than 120 million Nigerians are still offline, largely because smartphones remain too expensive for low-income households. Nearly 29 million adult Nigerians are excluded from the financial system entirely, and only about 52% of the population holds bank accounts. Rural and low-income communities bear the heaviest share of that gap.

WAWUAfrica CEO Emmanuel Lennox described the model as a “closed-loop system”, one where a participant receives a smartphone on credit, gets trained for free, and then uses both to generate income, including through Easybuy’s own sales network. “We are ensuring that participants are not just trained, but fully equipped to participate meaningfully in today’s digital economy,” he said.

The initiative is one of the larger skilling programmes announced in Nigeria this year, and its reach across government ministries, international bodies, and professional institutions like the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria suggests an unusually broad coalition behind it.

Its success hinges on execution, as few African programs have reached 10 million beneficiaries. However, its framework, which connects device access, free training, and a clear path to income, tackles the very obstacles that have caused similar initiatives to fail previously.

Similar read: Easybuy to hire 10,000 sales reps across Nigeria in 2026