n order to identify and build the teeming talents in Nigeria’s creative industry, the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa CCIE, has said that Federal Government will partner with Africa Creative Market to train them on how to use emerging technologies, create talents and boost the region’s creative capabilities as well as strategically place it at the forefront of technologically driven business in the African continent.Inuwa made this known in Lagos while giving a Keynote Address on “The Importance of Tech in the Creative Industry”, at the Africa Creative Market (ACM) event.He stated that emerging technologies are disrupting the way humans produce, distribute and consume content, and that the creator of content remains central to everything.The DG affirmed that Federal Government through NITDA, Inuwa confirmed is ready to partner with ACM to create talents and train them on how to use emerging technologies to excel and thrive in all they do, and plans are already underway to train one million app developers in the next 18 months.”We are partnering with ACM after this Summit to train you on Metaverse, Artificial intelligence, Blockchain and many more. We are identifying people that need the training and we will get the best trainers in the world to come and train the trainers,” he noted.The DG challenged African creatives to be part of the crop of people who will create Metaverse, as the days of playing the catch-up game by Africa are over. He said, “the creation of Metaverse will help achieve three things. Firstly, it will ensure ownership and protect copyright. Before now, you can do your work and someone can take it and share it online without even making reference to the owner of that content at all. But with emerging technologies such as Blockchain, NFT, etc, it will help you to be recognized for your work. If anyone buys that work or shares, he will see the owner of the work”.”Secondly, it will create a source of income for you. Unlike before, well, I can see even now in the most part of the world, when an art work is created, they sell it to one person and that’s it. But with technology, you can earn from every sell; with NFT, you can collect royalties, whenever your product sells in the market you will get some percentage from it and thirdly, it will take you to the global stage”, Inuwa maintained. Emphasizing on the value emerging technologies come with, Inuwa encouraged the audience to position themselves toward creating value from them.”There is a lot of research saying that Metaverse will add between five to thirteen trillion US dollars to the global GDP by 2030.

So how are you positioning yourself to capture value from this. That’s why we are here today and that’s why the government is partnering with you to help build talents and support the course of building the Metaverse, because it is going to be basically driven by creativity”, the DG said.The Internet, Inuwa noted, enables viewing of things but affirmed that with the Metaverse, users will have the sense of emersion, and it will help Africans in telling their indigenous stories to the rest of the world while also capturing the needed value.”According to research, the creativity market or the creative economy is valued at almost six trillion US dollars but Africa is perhaps capturing only 1.4 percent of that value; today in the world African music is one of the best, if you want people to dance, you’d have to play the African music, so why are we not capturing value from it? It is because we don’t own the platforms. So, the only way we can capture the needed value is to be creating and being part of those platforms and allowing African characters to be seen on the platforms,” he added. While making reference to a report of the United Nations World Mental Health report which says that about one billion people are suffering from mental health, the DG opined that the best medicine for mental health is creativity, as such sued for more creative minds to take up the challenge in innovating for posterity.”When you create non-digital art work, you can only sell it in a shop or a particular place but with the digital means, you can sell it in anywhere in the world, that’s the power of digital technologies”, the Director-General averred. He enumerated other emerging technologies which include Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Augmented and Virtual Reality, noting that they will all change everything and create value.The 2022 ACM programme focused on training and empowering youths in creative technologies and covered different areas including: animation, games and metaverse.

The Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), is very excited to hear of the remarkable contribution of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2022 (Q2 2022). The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) stated this in the ‘Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product Report’ for Q2 2022, released on the 26th of August, 2022.The Digital Economy sector under Professor Pantami has continued its trend of playing a key part in the growth on Nigeria’s economy. The Report by the NBS indicated that the ICT sector contributed 18.44% to the total real GDP in Q2 2022. This is the highest contribution of ICT to the GDP and is truly unprecedented and marks the third time that the sector has achieved an unprecedented contribution to Nigeria’s GDP during the tenure of the Honourable Minister- in Q1 2020, Q2 2021 and now Q2 2022.The oil sector contributed 6.33% to the total real GDP in Q2 2022, which was lower that the contribution in Q2 ‘2021 and Q1 ‘2022, where it contributed 7.42% and 6.63% respectively. The non-oil sector’s contribution grew by 4.77% in real terms, resulting in a 93.67% contribution to the nation’s GDP in the Q2 ‘2022, higher than Q2 ‘2021 and Q2 ‘2022, where it contributed 92.58% and 93.37% respectively.The Honorable Minister notes that the growing contribution of the ICT sector to the GDP is as a result of the commitment of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR to the development of the digital economy. The diligent implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) for a Digital Nigeria, stakeholder engagement and creation of an enabling environment have all played an important role in this achievement. The support of President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, has contributed immensely to the impressive developments in the sector. The unprecedented contribution of ICT to Nigeria’s GDP can also be attributed to the dynamic and results-oriented leadership of the sector. The GDP Report has shown how critical the ICT sector is to the growth of our country’s digital economy and, by extension, the general economy. The Honourable Minister congratulates all stakeholders in the digital economy ecosystem for this cheering news. He also renews his call to all sectors to take advantage of the Federal Government’s new focus on the digital economy to enable and improve their processes through the use of ICTs. This would enhance the output of all the sectors of the economy and boost Nigeria’s GDP.

Dr Femi Adeluyi

Technical Assistant (Research and Development) to the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy

27th August 2022

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR), has today, Friday 26th August 2022, commissioned

the Gombe – kaltungo highway in Gombe state North-East Nigeria. Representing the President at the ceremony,

the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) described the sixty six kilometer road as a strategic project aimed at improving the nation’s road infrastructure, supporting the ease of doing business, creating jobs and entrenching a prosperous economic environment, in line with the administration’s commitment to eradicate poverty among its citizens.

“Today, we are commissioning and handing over a 66.10km road, which links Gombe with the neighbouring Taraba and Adamawa states. The road connects three North Eastern states, which makes it a critical component of our national road network. This road has been built to the highest quality of design and workmanship and if properly used, will last for the designed service life”.Speaking further, the President while commending the capacity and patriotism of Nigerians who put in their best talent and resources in the construction process, also urged citizens to avoid the abuse and misuse of the infrastructure and observe all road regulations particularly, the maximum speed limit of one hundred kilometers per hour. Also in attendance at the ceremony were the Gombe state governor, His Excellency, Alhaji Inuwa Mohammed Yahaya and members of his cabinet, the representative of the Minister of Works and Housing, royal fathers, heads of federal and state parastatals and a horde of appreciative Gombe state citizens.

Uwa Suleiman

Spokesperson to the Honourable Minister of communications & Digital Economy.

With various studies conducted globally indicate that by 2030 there would be a short fall of expertise in Information Technology, (IT) skills throughout the world, the Nigeria government has concluded arrangement to carry out research on IT talent gap in the country with the view to bridging the gap the short fall would create and position the country to be competitively prepared for it. The research, which is commissioned behalf of the Federal Government by the National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA) is to be conducted by Co-creation Hub within six months of its launch. The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Pantami while speaking as the special guest of honour at the virtual ceremony put together to launch the commissioning of the research yesterday opined that it has become imperative to carry out the assessment gap in order to build on the “modest achievements the sector has recorded in the last three years.”Prof Pantami maintained that, “The digital economy sector in Nigeria has been the crown jewel of the economy and it has been blessed with so many achievements and gains particularly in the last three years.” Citing the National Bureau of Statistics’ data, the Minister stated that the sector remains the fastest growing sector of the economy and the only sector that grows in double digits in recent time. He noted that there are many opportunities the digital economy sector offers globally and Nigeria must be well positioned to benefit from them adding that at the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a report that says 90 million IT jobs were created and with the population of the country, Nigeria ought to have contributed three to four million of jobs being created. He said, “This initiative will guide us to know the opportunities we have locally; the opportunities we have globally and what we need to do to ensure we bridge the gap that exists.” He added that, “There are 1,995 ICT companies in Nigeria and this research will take this into consideration and I hope at the end of it, we will have excellent report that if implemented, would guide our country to make informed decision for the sector. While commending the initiative, the Minister observed that the research will make the small, micro and medium enterprises very effective because they are the bedrock of Nigerian economy. “Whatever we do is very important and we should accommodate our small, micro and medium enterprises because of their prominence to our economy particularly looking at the gap that exists in relation to their adoption of innovations,” he said.Prof Pantami also stated that the Nigeria Start Up Bill is in the process of transmission to President Muhammed Buhari for his assent and believes that if the bill is assented to, it will avail the start-ups many opportunities because most of the challenges encountered by the start ups have been effectively addressed in the bill. While urging NITDA to keep him posted on the progress report of the research, he encouraged both the Agency and CC Hub to ensure success of the “important project.” Earlier in his remarks, the NITDA’s Director General, Kashifu Inuwa stated that the research on IT Talent Gap Assessment is to be carried out in line with Mr. President’s desire to diversify the Nigerian economy and also in alliance with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, NDEPS. He added that the outcome of the research would also help in attaining the 95 per cent digital literacy target being provisioned in the NDEPS. “The gap analysis will let us know where we are so that it will help us come up with the right strategies to adopt in achieving the 95 per cent target on digital literacy. And in addition to that, there are also global talent shortage and we see this as an opportunity to position Nigeria to create and capture values in this global talent pipeline”, the DG noted. Inuwa stated that the outcome of the research will offer the nation the opportunity to have its national talent strategy that would look at the demand and supply sides, train people to have their own start ups with already-to-market products. “We decided to partner with CC-Hub because it remains the right partner due to of its coverage and experience. And we are enjoining you not to use arm chair theory but go to the field and collect data. Within six months of this commissioning, we wish to have information about the talent gaps in the country and identify areas we can have competitive advantage. In his presentation titled “The Importance of Technology Talent Gap Analysis in Nigeria, the co-founder and Head of Research, CC-Hub, Dr Oluseun Adepoju stated that there was no better time to carry out the research than now because of the position of Nigeria as a very robust country when it comes to technology. He said the importance of the research is to move in accordance with the pace of the technological advancement which he said “keeps growing in geometrical rate.” According to him, “the issue we have been facing is that we are not able to build talent that can catch up with technological advancement.Dr Adepoju declared that with the vibrance of our IT ecosystem, “there are loopholes and gaps we need to fill and this research will give us the insights into where the loopholes are existing.He said the country could not afford to be late because there is new investment to be built in the IT talent demand and supply scale “because the future is highly definitive.” While enumerating the strength of the country in relation to the research, he maintained that the nation’s strength lies in “leadership talent in technology, investment in technology ecosystem and youthful population.”On the opportunities the research could also offer, he said it will avail the country to identify the knowledge gap on specific technological skills deficiency; identify other government parastatals’ involvement in technology talent development; identify knowledge gap on technology talent expert pipeline and identify gap on the impact of tertiary education institution of technology programs on general technology talent ecosystem in Nigeria. The research which would be conducted in all the six geo political zone with two states per zone would collect data from one federal university, one private university and one federal polytechnic using both quantitative and qualitative triangulation sampling method.

Three years? Yes, three years as the Director General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and it is heartwarming to note that growing corps of well-educated, world class technocrats are coming to the public domain to help change the narrative in public service.In these three years, Kashifu Inuwa, CCIE defines diligence, hard work and dedication. His penchant for IT growth and vision-driven initiatives to see Nigeria grow its economy through digital technologies are unprecedented. He has demonstrated the purpose of encouraging Nigerians to embrace IT and use it as an enabler for their economic activities. He believes that IT as a source of inspiration, can be harnessed to develop new business value propositions.As the Director General of NITDA, Inuwa has proved that Nigeria can be Africa’s largest digital economy. Since ascending the leadership of NITDA in August 2019, there has been an impressive implementation of the Agency’s Strategic Roadmap for the development of Nigeria’s IT sector envisioned by Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), Honourable Minister, Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, as well as implementation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s core vision of Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) through Information Technology.Kashifu has been steadily building upon the foundation laid by the previous occupants of that office, driving the Agency to fulfil its core mandate in consonance with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) of the Federal Government.To put Nigeria on a path to effectively operate a digital economy, NITDA, under the stewardship of Kashifu Inuwa mapped out a Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP 2021-2024), identified by the Agency as the fulcrum digital economy development.In his numerous public presentations, Inuwa has spoken extensively about the pillars captured in the SRAP, namely Developmental Regulation; Digital Literacy and Skills; Digital Transformation; Digital Innovation & Entrepreneurship; Cybersecurity; Emerging Technologies; and Promotion of Indigenous Content.Undoubtedly, his achievements as Director General of NITDA especially in implementation of IT Regulation in the sector in the last three years are unprecedented. He walks the talks by ensuring that Nigeria maintains an automated IT Project Clearance (ITPC) and creation of user accounts for Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), thus, saving the Nigerian Federal Government billions of naira.It is on recorded that Kashifu continued with the visionary leadership of Prof. Pantami of facilitating the implementation of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR), which resulted in the establishment of the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau (NDPB). This action further introduced NITDA to international stage thereby earning the Agency the position of Vice Chair of the African Union Policy and Regulatory Initiative for Digital Africa (PRIDA).Inuwa knows the ICT global terrain deeply and he is very aware of the challenges, limitations and constraints keeping Nigeria – a nation of about 200 million people – lagging behind in the evolving world of digital economy. Against all the odds Nigeria’s IT sector faces, the NITDA DG has shown his indefatigable vision and passion to take Nigeria into the comity of nations, running on digital economy.Under his watch, the Agency has developed several regulatory frameworks for IT development, majority of which have been published both in hard and soft copy.The Agency embarked on the development of two regulatory frameworks for Information Technology development in government establishments. The project is to give rise to digital skills in educational institutions and rural areas of the country. In addition, Information Technology (IT) knowledge is integrated into the underserved areas and cities so as to develop human capital and provide universal access to knowledge with the aim of creating a knowledge-based economy.Early 2020, just few months after his appointment, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic presented a major challenge to Nigeria and other countries across the globe, and the distinguished strategist faced the challenge by constituting a Tech4Covid Committee that explored measures to be deployed in cushioning the economic effect of the Pandemic on Nigeria’s digital enterprise. The Committee crafted a strategy that would later ensure the retention of about 100,000 ICT jobs and the creation of additional 30,000 jobs in the Post COVID-19 era.With the needed strategy in place, the Agency has succeeded in programming, developing and mapping out digital processes to cushion the effect of Coronavirus since it is outbreak globally; the Nigeria COVID19 Innovation Challenge, an online innovation challenge that was set up to meet the challenges our society faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Creative minds across the country came together, experimented and built software solutions that helped address this crisis.Furthermore, NITDA developed various digital educational contents that can be accessed remotely by thousands of Nigerians who were on lockdown, as well as strategies to assist the government in continuing its daily activities virtually. With all the challenges posed by COVID-19, Kashifu continues to provide able leadership to NITDA in discharging its duty of regulating, coordination, monitoring, evaluation and development of the growth of the Nigerian IT sector and digital economy.In these three years of Kashifu’s reign as Director General, the Agency uncovered unfolded the potentials in Nigerian farmers through Federal Government’s initiative of National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA), a project aimed at changing the face of the agricultural sector in the country.The National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture is an ecosystem-driven digital platform envisioned for the transformation of the agriculture sector in Nigeria. It is designed to help farmers and other agricultural ecosystem players navigate their journey across the agriculture value chain. This journey cuts across farm production to management, processing, harvesting, storage, marketing and consumption. Farmers were trained and empowered with digital devices and seeds funding, which also created direct and indirect jobs in the country.NITDA also launched the National Adopted School for Smart Education (NASSE) to promote digital literacy and skills. 500 students and 30 teachers at Junior Secondary School Karshi benefited from the pilot scheme. The Agency also supervised the training of thousands of Artisans across the 6 Geo-Political Zones on digital literacy and phone repairs.The Agency trained women on ICT and Entrepreneurship, People Living with Disabilities, each provided with Laptops (with pre-installed e-learning & graphics Software), Internet Dongles & Bag-Packs, direct jobs and indirect jobs were created; trained hundreds of Nigerians on Software, Mobile App & Web Development, and Entrepreneurship.In addition to making an effort in IT development as well as enhancing the IT capacity of the citizenry, hundreds of IT Hubs, IT Parks, and Community ICT Centres were established, furnished and equipped with world class facilities across the states of the federation. The Agency, through its strategic relations with Tecpreneurs, supported start-ups, IT hubs and ecosystem builders through Nigeria ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Vision (NIIEV). In the process, NITDA’s programmes have created employment for Nigerian youths.To ensure Nigeria’s pool of talents were not left behind, the Agency under his watch, established National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR), to drive and support research, development, and adoption of Emerging Technologies in Nigeria.The Centre is creating the required environment for Nigeria’s teaming youths; encourage innovation and indigenisation of technologies to help address the continuous reliance on foreign products and services which has negative impact on the country’s economy. It serves as a bridge between the government, industry, and the academia in providing research environment for creativity, idea integration, collaborative environment, development of ICT policies, processes and strategies.Kashifu commissioned Digital Fabrication Laboratory (Abuja FabLab 1.0), a unit within the Centre that serves as one of its revenue-generating components. FabLab offers training and capacity-building programmes for the Centre’s staff and external Agencies requiring such services. While the FabLab serves all the entities within the ecosystem, it also maintains an open-door policy to the public, hence encouraging all digital innovators and makers to drive their ideas from inception to impact. It maintains an open access policy to allow the laboratory to serve as a digital innovation accelerator for all innovators and makers. It allows open-production and public access to aid innovation and entrepreneurship activities.As a result of Kashifu’s commitment, Nigeria made history when it the Agency hosted the Key Generation and Handover Ceremony for Root Certification Authority (RCA) for Country Signing Certification Authority (CSCA) and Country Verification Certification Authority (CVCA) of the National Public Key Infrastructure (NPKI), signaling the commencement of Public Key Infrastructure Service Provision in Nigeria.As a results of NITDA’s high productivity, performance, excellence in service delivery and impact on the nation IT sector, the Agency received the prestigious National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) Award from the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR. The honour is for the Agency to do more in getting all Nigerians on board the digital journey of the Federal Government. Interestingly, NITDA is the only government Agency that was honoured with this award.These successes, certainly, have been achieved through the efforts of this distinguished personality who against all odds, leads his organisation to greater heights. As he celebrates three years in office, I join millions of Nigerians in congratulating him for these achievements. I also pray that the Almighty continue to guide him as he leads NITDA to greater heights and facilitates Nigeria’s transformation into a leading digital economy where citizens use digital technologies in creating wealth and prosperity.

By Mubarak Umar