Benjamin Babine, Abuja
The Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has urged Nigerian technology experts to prepare for new innovations and ideas after the world eventually defeats COVID-19.
Abdullahi made this call as a panellist during the Africa Tech Leaders Webinar Series organised by Digital Jewels with the theme ‘COVID-19 Pandemic: The Africa Leaders’ Outlook’. The DG said that, with all that has happened during coronavirus crisis, African countries should still key into technology to digitise its processes.
According to him, this will boost the continent’s economy after the pandemic.
He went on to note that through policies and regulations, Nigeria has already laid a foundation on which digital services can help revive economies that were ravaged by COVID-19 globally. Inuwa revealed that NITDA, since the outbreak, has come up with different programmes to cushion the effect of COVID-19 in Nigeria.
“For me, the promising silver lining in this pandemic is accelerating technology trends and shaping the future of digital economy and digital transformation in general,” he said.
He added: “When President Muhammadu Buhari came into power in 2015, he promised to make drastic changes in Nigeria, particularly in the economic sector. The government then set up a committee on Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), which identified ICT as a key enabler.”
“We took digital transformation as a journey, and it started some years back. President Muhammadu Buhari redesignated our ministry from Communications to Communications and Digital Economy. This is a giant step in achieving our target in transforming Nigeria into a digital country.”
“The Federal Executive Council set up a policy that will be cascaded to MDAs and NITDA is issuing regulatory instruments that can help any MDAs to perform its work better. Also, we issued guidelines, standard and framework for government policymakers and other stakeholders to deliver their technological services efficiently,” he maintained.
While answering questions on a recently concluded Nigeria COVID-19 Innovation Challenge, Inuwa said that the idea was to find a solution to the effects of the coronavirus using technology measures.
“We initiated the Nigeria COVID-19 Innovation Challenge that brought innovators together to ideate digital strategy and how to contain the spread of the virus and prepare us for the post-COVID-19 era. During the opening of the challenge, we received over 1,500 applications from different Ministries, Agencies, the Presidential Task Force on COVID -19 and the Private Sector,” Abdullahi said.
“At NITDA, we came up with different initiatives to prepare the way for digital transformation, among others. We have developed and implemented as follows: Nigeria e-government master plan, Nigeria e-Government Framework, Nigeria e-Government Enterprise Architecture, Nigeria Cloud Computing Policies, Digital First initiative and Nigeria Smart Initiative Policy Framework. These initiatives have been helping us all during this COVID-19. They will continue to assist us even after the pandemic,” he said.
The NITD DG noted that the agency has been clearing IT projects from different Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria to ensure quality service is rendered.
“NITDA makes sure all IT projects from MDAs are being cleared by NITDA as stipulated in the law. We check the value for money and local content compliance which aligns with our National e-Government Masterplan. We also conducted extensive capacity-building training for MDAs and citizens in general on how to adopt and embrace digital technology.”