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Nigeria has been ranked among the worst performing nations on the Digital Quality of Life (DQL) Index 2020, developed by Surfshark, a British Virgin Islands-based virtual private network (VPN) provider. The study, which was sent to Financial Nigeria last week by the firm, focuses on the quality of digital wellbeing in 85 countries (comprising 81 per cent of the global population). Nigeria ranked in the 81st position, with an index score of 0.32.

Out of all the African countries analysed in the research, Nigeria surpassed only Algeria, which is ranked 84th. Nigeria lags behind Kenya (77th), Morocco (70th), Tunisia (64th), South Africa (59th), and others.

The DLQ Index provides insights on the factors that have the greatest impact on the digital wellbeing of citizens and which areas should be prioritized in improving its potential. Thus, the countries are ranked based on five pillars that define digital quality of life, namely internet affordability, internet quality, electronic infrastructure, electronic security and electronic government.

Among the five pillars of the DQL Index, Nigeria recorded its best performance on e-security, ranking 70th globally. In terms of cybersecurity, a sub-indicator of the e-security pillar, Nigeria is ranked 53rd. However, the country has no data protection laws available, Surfshark said.  

The firm said, "a country's commitment to and the capabilities of its national cybersecurity are critical to the overall well-being of its citizens and economic growth. Strong electronic security grows in importance as the number of cases and the scope of cybercrime rises, consequently affecting the digital experience of every country’s citizens."

Nigeria recorded its worst performance (85th) on internet affordability where it is ranked as the country with the least affordable internet globally. It ranks below Columbia and Honduras in terms of internet affordability.

Surfshark said Nigeria – ranking 81st on the internet quality pillar – has a better quality of internet than only Peru, Algeria, Philippines and Sri Lanka.  

In terms of e-infrastructure, Nigeria is ranked 81st. On the ICT adoption sub-indicator, the country is ranked 82nd among 85 countries. Nigeria is also placed at the bottom of the e-government pillar (82nd). The report said the advancement of electronic government services highly influences people’s digital lives and it can provide better service delivery.

According to the report, seven of the top ten countries with the highest digital quality of life are in Europe – Denmark (1st), Sweden (2nd), France (4th), Norway (5th), Netherlands (6th), and Poland (10th). The remaining countries with the highest DQL are Canada (3rd), Israel (8th) and Japan (9th). The United States is ranked 22nd, while the United Kingdom is placed in 7th position, with the latter ranking atop the e-security pillar.  

The report also took into account the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on internet quality. The VPN provider said the stability of internet infrastructure has become of crucial importance during the pandemic as video conferences have replaced live meetings. Consequently, this has impacted the quality of people’s digital lives.