Nigeria · Open market · Operating partnership
Access on this page: Signed: Nigerian Sign Language — pending How this page is tested
This page in sign language
Signed end to end by a Deaf creator, credited by name. International Sign on the global site; your national sign language on your country page.
ally is a platform where creators make sign language, captions and audio description — and one API delivers it to any screen. We are looking for the partner who will build the Nigerian operation with us.
Why we are looking for a partner
One partner video — spoken, captioned and signed by a creator we already work with. It is shared across every open-market page. We do not fake a local signer to look established here.
The people
Nigeria's Deaf community signs Nigerian Sign Language (NSL), alongside regional languages such as Hausa Sign Language. The Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act was signed on 23 January 2019 after nine years of campaigning, created a National Commission to enforce it, and set a five-year transition that expired in January 2024. In 2024 the Commission published the Act in NSL.
In plain words
Below is who lives here and what reaches them. Every number on this page is a research seed, not an audited claim — we mark them, rather than publish numbers we cannot yet stand behind.
Why captions alone do not close this gap → Why sign language
The mandate
signed 23 January 2019 after nine years of advocacy; prohibits disability discrimination, creates the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, and set a five-year transitional period for accessibility that expired in January 2024.
the Minister of Information directed the National Broadcasting Commission to enforce the Code provision requiring television stations to deploy sign-language interpreters on their major news bulletins; at the time only the NTA had one, in one news hour; reinforced October 2021.
the National Commission and The Leprosy Mission Nigeria published simplified versions of the Act in Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo and Nigerian Sign Language.
Obligated buyers: every television station under the Broadcasting Code provision directed in February 2021, public buildings and services past the January 2024 transition, and every entity the Act reaches through the National Commission.
The gap
Nigerian compliance is a deadline that has passed. The 2021 ministerial directive that every station carry an interpreter on its major bulletin found one broadcaster doing so, for one hour. Population estimates for the Deaf community run from the hundreds of thousands to over a million, and none is official — the market is measured by the size of the gap, not by a census. Subtitles assume reading fluency in English; NSL is the community's first language.
What we bring
These are patterns, not promises — each one happened somewhere, and each carries its source. The place is abstracted because the pattern is what transposes.
Pattern
A replicable template: the ordinance language, the budget logic and the service behind it travel together. Any city can copy it.
Two city ordinances — one on healthcare accessibility, one on cinema accessibility — have passed first reading, with ally as technical partner.
Receipt: Parañaque City Council records
Pattern
The platform exists before the first contract. Buyers pay for a service, not for research.
ally's pre-operating research and development was supported by a national science research grant and a city government grant.
Receipt: company fact
Pattern
Real usage, real feedback, and the model for any school or district that wants signed content on what students already watch.
A telco-funded 2021 pilot brought the platform to a Deaf school community of about 800 users.
Receipt: company fact
We publish our signals — including the zeros — on the impact page.
The partnership
The structure is a licensed market operation, built with the local community. Terms are discussed directly.
The playbook
The partner
Operators with standing in accessibility, media, telecom, or government services. Deaf-led organisations and entrepreneurs are explicitly welcome — the best operator of an accessibility market may come from the community itself. Investors are welcome alongside an operator, or to introduce one.
Why now
The moratorium ended in January 2024 and the Commission now has an Act to enforce with no supply to point to. A partner who can deliver NSL at scale, in the country with the most people and the most films in Africa, sets the pattern for the continent.
Next step
Write to us — by form, by email, or with a signed or spoken video message. From there: an introductory call, an NDA, the Nigerian market dossier, then terms.
Questions