By Chimezie Godfrey
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isah Ali Ibrahim Pantami, has revealed that over 863,372 Nigerians have benefited from various digital skills programmes organized by the Federal Government within the last one year.
Pantami disclosed this at the “Digital Nigeria Day 2022” on Tuesday in Abuja, also revealed that agreements with leading global tech companies like Microsoft and Huawei, to train millions of Nigerians on various ICT skills.
According to him, boosting citizens’ digital literacy skills is paramount as citizens are the greatest assets for any kind of economy, including digital economy.
He also revealed that they had agreements with leading global tech companies like Microsoft and Huawei, to train millions of Nigerians on various ICT skills, adding that they are championing a paradigm shift that lays emphasis on ICT skills, in preference to merely having a degree or any kind of academic certificate.
He said,”The signing of the Nigeria Startup Act as a principal legislation is a major achievement that will significantly enhance the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Nigeria.
“Some of the other policies developed include:
National Digital Economy Policy & Strategy 2020-2030 (NDEPS), November 2019;
Roadmap for the Implementation of the NDEPS, November 2019;
SIM Card Registration Policy, February 2020;
Nigeria National Broadband Plan 2020-2025, March 2020;
National Policy on VSAT Installation Core Skills for Nigerians, March 2021;
National Policy for the Promotion of Indigenous Content in the Telecommunications Sector, May 2021; Revised National Digital Identity Policy for SIM Card Registration, May 2021;
National Policy on Digital Identity for Internally Displaced Persons, May 2021;
The Rule Making Process Regulation of NIPOST, May 2021;
and National Policy on Fifth Generation (5G) Networks for Nigeria’s Digital Economy, September 2021.
“Others
are the National Policy on Virtual Engagements in Federal Public Institutions, 2021;
National Policy on Device Management System, 2021;
National Policy for the Management of the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, November 2021;
National Digital Innovation & Entrepreneurship Policy, June 2021; National Policy on the Nigerian Government Second-Level Domains, February 2022; National Dig-Once Policy (Stakeholder Engagement Ongoing); and
National Policy on Communication Satellite (Draft).
“Over 863,372 citizens benefited from digital skills programmes and “we have agreements with leading global companies like Microsoft and Huawei, to train millions of Nigerians”.
Speaking earlier at the event, the Director General, DG, National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa
noted that technological advancement has expanded the frontiers of the country’s digital transformation, adding that digital transformation and sustainability are inter-twined.
Inuwa declared that Nigeria is leading globally when it comes to digitization of the financial sector, adding that the Nigerian Eco-system is the most vibrant in Africa.
He said,”Technological advancement in artificial intelligent, robotics, blockchain, and related innovations are expanding the frontiers of digital transformation.
“Digital transformation is not technology, it is about designing people technology and process, to deliver results the way you want it, when you want it and how you want it seamlessly.
“Digital transformation and sustainability are strategically important and inter-twined full of promises and pitfalls. To achieve sustainability we need a strategy to realize the promises, while avoiding the pitfalls.
“This administration under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari and the Honourable Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Ibrahim Pantami designed our approach to succeed in digital economy.
“The Minister built a 3 approach plan; firstly is the effort to make Nigeria a legal digital economy, secondly ,we have initiatives to strengthen the policy and legal frameworks and thirdly, we have the initiative to tidy up the Defence. Under the Defence we used exploitation, we have initiative to exploit technology to enhance our processes. That is why we have initiative around e-Government master plan, initiative around digital infrastructure, connecting the unconnected, and also promoting other sectors to digitize.
“Today in Nigeria we have so many sectors that are fully digitized. Like the financial sector, we are leading globally when it comes to digitization of the financial sector. Under the processes and policies. In 2019 the President started by renaming and expanding the mandate of our ministry to cover the scope and the Honourable Minister formulated the National Digital Economy Policy and strategy which is a foundational policy to position Nigeria to create sustainable digital economy. We have achieved a lot in that yesterday the Honourable Minister shared our modest achievements within 3 years. And lastly, the President signed the Nigeria Start-up Bill to become the Nigerian Start-up Act, which is providing the legal instruments to make Nigeria a Start-up nation.
“To position ourselves to disrupt not to be disrupted, because it is through start-ups that you can come with disruptive ideas to create innovation driven enterprises. And we have implemented several initiatives under our ministry to achieve that. Recently we just finished the MIT week program, we are working with JICA on IHATCH program, we have so many initiatives on that to stregthen the eco-system. That is why the Nigerian eco-system is the most vibrant eco-system in Africa.
“Out of the 7 Unicorn Companies in Africa, 5 originated in Nigeria and we have 3 more to join.”
Inuwa added,”We have a lot we are doing trying to position ourselves like in the area of talent because technology has two components, the technology and the people side of it. Talent is the people side of the technology.
“We have several initiatives to position Nigeria to become the global talent supplier. Just recently the Honourable Minister signed an MoU with Microsoft to train 5 million. Nigerians. We have other. initiatives like one million developers initiative. We want to train one million developers in the next 18 months. We are doing all these to position Nigeria so that so it can bridge the global talent gap.
“If we can harness talents we don’t anything in Nigeria.Talent alone is $8.5trn market, and Nigeria has the capacity to fill that global talent gap. We have done it in the music industry and we are going to do it in the tech industry.
“We are also exploring how to use emerging technologies to create a capital value from it that is why we establish the national centre for artificial intelligence and robotics. We have the blockchain adoption strategy, and tomorrow we are going to add a block chain day to position Nigeria to capture value from blockchain, because all these emerging technologies they are foundational technologies. They cut across so many sectors and they are going disrupt a lot.
“So, we are here today because we believe digital transformation needs collaboration.We need everybody on board. Government has its different role to produce policies to intervene in terms of regulations and legal framework. And you all have your own role to play. The academia you produce the human capital, We need the innovators to come with innovative ideas. We need the eventual capitalist to invest.We need you our guests from abroad. We also need you to learn from. you what you are doing in your country and also we hope to share our own experience with you. That is why today we have about eighteen international speakers that are going speak to us in this 3 days conference.So, at the end of this, we are looking ideas that will help us to promote and consolidate on what the government is doing so that Nigeria can have a sustainable digital economy.”
Also speaking the Chairman, Senate Committee on ICT, Senator Yakubu Useni declared that the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy is the round peg in the round hole.
He said,” It is not only Microsoft that we have MoU with. By the 5million Nigerian youths are trained we will all enjoy the benefit.
“I appreciate my colleagues and the ICT committee, and the leadership of the National Assembly for speedy passage of the Start-up Bill. I want also appreciate Muhammadu Buhari for the speedy passage of the Bill.
“The Minister in collaboration with the National Assembly, we believe we will create the awareness and the opportunity for the benefit all Nigerians.
Other dignitaries at event include the Minister of Information and Culture, Bon. Minister of Communications and Digital Economy , Gambia, the Chief Executive Officer, Blockchain for All, the MD Galaxy Backbone, among others.