Benjamin Babine, Abuja
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on Thursday mobilised stakeholders from across the public and private sector to deliberate on the strategy for the deployment of Blockchain Technology in Nigeria.
The conference which was held at the eGovernment Training Centre (eGTC), Public Institute of Nigeria (PSIN), brought together tech experts, security experts, people from the financial sector amongst others.
Giving his remarks at the event, the Director General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Abdullahi projected that by 2030, Nigeria can benefit up to $10billion from blockchain technology out of the total $1.76trillion that the entire world stands to gain.
The DG said: “there is a recent publication by PWC that says in the next ten years, block chain is going to contribute 1.76 trillion US dollars to the global GDP. Therefore we want Nigeria to be strategically placed to capture the economic potential of block chain that is why we are getting all the stakeholders together in one place to brainstorm and come out with a strategy for Nigeria to benefit from this block chain technology
“Based on the PWC analysis, China is going to get the highest net worth potential from this block chain. It is projected by 2030 China will capture around 467 billion USD from this. Looking at the Nigerian youthful population which is mainly digitally native and our strategic position in Africa we are looking at how to get at least 6 to 10 billion USD from this by the year 2030.
“This is doable because if you look at our payment and financial services is very huge and is strategically placed to capture this value. Nigerian is one of the hottest place when it comes to Fintech. so looking at this we are coming out with strategy that will help Nigeria to capture value from the financial services, land administration, education and health care become block chain is going to play a key role in terms of trading and tracing products and services.”
He further expressed optimism that the private sector would capture most of the values that would be created from the strategy because of the potentials in blockchain.
Also in attendance where representatives of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Securities and Exchange Comission (SEC) who pledged support towards NITDA on the deployment of blockchian in the country. Recall, the CBN since 2017 has partnered the government agencies to guide the adoption of the blockchain in Nigeria.