Omodele Adigun

In its bid to attract more foreign exchange revenue  into the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has unveiled plans to generate hard currency from Artificial Intelligence and software development.

This comes as the bank has split the Bank Verification Number (BVN) scheme to fast track financial inclusion.

Briefing the media Saturday in Ogere, Ogun State, after the Bankers’ Committee Retreat, the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, said the initiatives  are in consonance with theme of the event, ‘Delivering increasing Growth through Digital Finance for the Nigerian Economy.’

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According to him, in “an attempt to rediscover Nigeria’s export potential and support accelerating non-oil export revenues, we are going to have people who are going to take on Artificial Intelligence as well as the design and sale of software. And we do think there are more opportunities for more foreign exchange to be earned through this avenue so as to shore up Nigeria’s GDP and also improve our export earnings.”

Delving more  into the Creative Industry Financing Initiative(CIFI) of the Bankers’ Committee, Emefiele said: “The Bankers’ Committee appreciated President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval  of the improvement and redevelopment of the National Theatre and the development of what we call a creative village or a creative industry first for Lagos and after this, we would go to Kano, and thereafter  maybe one either in Port Harcourt or in Enugu.  We thought that one way (of creating 100million jobs in 10 years)  is to unleash the creative industry talent of our youths to ensure that they are able to create jobs, not only for themselves but also for others. And these hubs will be in areas of fashion, music industry  and in the areas of IT where we are going to have people who are going to take on Artificial Intelligence, design and sale of software.

Like some of you already know, there are young Nigerians in different parts of the country, particularly, I understand there is a group in a hub in Yaba (Lagos) that deals in the development of software that is sold abroad. These are young people who have this creative talent and these innate skills that we think we need to do more of this to (make them ) earn revenue, not only for themselves, because some of them are already earning foreign exchange.