NITDA Predicts Robust Digital Future For Nigeria

The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has said Nigeria will soon hit the level its digital economy will produce more revenue than the oil sector.
According to him,  Nigeria is at the verge of realizing her goal of digital economy, where the country will generate more revenue from Information Communication Technology (ICT) than in crude oil.
He  spoke at a one day stakeholders engagement meeting organized by the Agency, to create understanding between it and its stakeholders, in pursuit of digitization and entrepreneurial evolution of Nigeria in Kaduna recently.
The Tide’s source gathered that the engagement  meeting, which was organized in collaboration with the Kaduna State Ministry of Business, Innovation and Technology,   brought together such key stakeholders as Technology Solution Experts, Business Owners, Non-Governmental Organizations and Scholars.
In an interview with journalists after the meeting tagged ‘Creating Opportunities, Breaking Boundaries: Towards Digitization and Entrepreneurial Evolution’, the Director-General of NITDA, who was represented by the Agency’s Director of Zonal Offices Directorate, Babajide Ajayi, said the meeting with the stakeholders cutting across the public and private sectors, the hubs, and every sector of the country was organized as part of efforts to realize the agency’s goal.
“We are engaging the vast stakeholders because we want to get to the level of the advanced countries, where we can generate more revenue from tapping into ICT than crude oil”, he said.
According to him,  there was policy document that has been developed at  NITDA headquarters called STRAP 2021-2024.
He also said it was its Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan, adding that the document will serve as the guide to the agency in the mandate of digitization in Nigeria.
“In addition to that, we also need to hear from them where we are doing well and where they think we are not doing well enough. We have had similar engagement meetings in Gombe, Bauchi, Lagos, and others and we are getting a good response, because there are things we didn’t even know about that, and we are taking these feedback back to Abuja to map out how we can have a better working relationship with the stakeholders,” he said.
On his part, the Head of North-West Zonal office of NITDA, Mr Sheikh Abubakar Lawan, revealed that   the Agency was putting measures in place to address fraudulent activities associated with Information Technology, which, has “been the fear of many stakeholders”.