Digital economy to generate more revenue than oil — 4DG

Nigeria as a nation will soon  reach the stage where the digital economy will generate more revenue than oil, Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi has said.

According to him, Nigeria is in the process of realizing its goal of digital economy, where the country will generate more revenue from Information Communication Technology (ICT) than crude oil.

Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi spoke in Kaduna 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.

The engagement  meeting was organized in collaboration with the Kaduna State Ministry of Business, Innovation and Technology.

It brought together Technology Solution Experts, Business Owners, Non-Governmental Organizations and Academics among others.

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.$

“We are in the process of realizing our dream of a booming digital economy. You can see that, our ministry’s name was changed from communication to communication and digital economy. It is not just for the sake of changing name, but to ensure we achieve all forms of digitization in this country.”

“In addition to that, there is policy document that has been developed at  NITDA headquarters called STRAP 2021-2024, that is our Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan. The document will serve as the guide to the agency in the mandate of digitization in Nigeria.”

“The agency deemed it necessary that it collaborates more with its stakeholders. So, that it can bring the development strides at the national level down to the states and local government levels.”

“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.

The Head of North-West Zonal office of NITDA, Mr Sheikh Abubakar Lawan said the Agency was putting measures in place to address fraudulent activities associated with Information Technology which, has being the fear of many stakeholders.

Stakeholders  at the event sought for close ties between the Agency and stakeholders in public and private sectors, towards ensuring speedy delivery of NITDA’s mandates.