By Seun Adams
As part of the roadmap towards the implementation of Nigeria’s National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS),
the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Ibrahim Pantami, on Monday launched the digital Nigeria portal and mobile app to enable Nigerians to acquire higher digital skills.
The launch attracted international investors and global ICT players, such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) and Microsoft, represented by Ebrima Faal, Senior Director, Nigeria Country Department, AfDB and Ghada Khalifa, Director for the Middle East and Africa, Microsoft Philanthropies among indigenous ICT players.
Pantami stressed that the trajectory of Nigeria’s digital economy commenced when President Muhammadu Buhari, approved the re-designation of the Ministry of Communications as the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
He added that this was then adopted by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on October and the implementation of the revised mandate of the ministry commenced on the 24th of October 2019.
The development of Nigeria’s national digital economy, he said is anchored on 8 pillars as stated in NDEPS document, which includes the developmental, regulation, digital literacy/skills, solid infrastructure, service infrastructure; and digital services development and Promotion.
The others are:
Soft infrastructure, digital society and emerging technologies; and indigenous content development and adoption.
The Minister acknowledged that the ministry recorded a number of unprecedented achievements since the implementing of NDEPS began, adding: “Are few of these include: the resolution of the lingering issues of excessive Right of Way charges and vandalism of telecommunication infrastructure, rapid broadband penetration, with an increase by about 10% in 11 months (with a value of 42.02% at the end of July 2020), instead of the average annual increase of about 1.7%, development and swift implementation of the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP), significant increase in the contribution of ICT to the GDP based on the Q2 2020 GDP – 17.83% – as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the promotion of digital services in government, including Virtual FEC meetings.
According to him, the effect of the digital economy is far greater than the ICT contribution shows, explaining that the digital economy encompasses ICT and all digital services, which includes all online activities in financial institutions, ecommerce, online tax payment, any form of online payment, online banking, etc. When we consider these, the contribution of the digital economy could be up to 45% or even more.
Today’s launch is towards the implementation of the Digital Literacy and Skills Pillar, which is a follow up to the President’s flagging off of the Digital Nigeria Programme on the March this year to support digital innovation and entrepreneurship training for Nigerians.
The Minister, added that the digital Nigeria programme will provide a national platform for improving the digital literacy of Nigerians and it will enable Nigerians from all walks of life to acquire high level digital skills.
“It will have a strong emphasis on skills for Jobs and will include Nigerians in all strata of society, such as youth, women, children, internally displaced persons, people living with disabilities, etc.
“We are championing a paradigm shift that lays emphasis on skills, in preference to merely having degrees without skills. Degrees are only meant to validate skills. This is a growing trend across the globe. For instance, China recently started the process of turning 600 of the country’s general universities into skill centres. Also, the President of the United States of America, Mr. Donald Trump, signed an Executive Order on the 26th of June 2020 directing the federal government to lay emphasis on skills rather than degrees when hiring staff.
“The digital literacy and skills pillar recognises the fact that citizens are the greatest assets in any economy, including the digital economy. It will support the development of a large pool of digitally literate and digitally skilled citizens.” He said.
He said, the ministry recently provided a platform to support the digital Nigeria program, enabling Nigerians to receive training in diverse digital skills, adding: “As part of these efforts, I earlier launched another online academy executed by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), where 40,000 Nigerians have enrolled across both platforms since the April.
“Today, we are formally launching the www.digitalnigeria.gov.ng portal and the ‘Digital Nigeria’ Mobile App.” The Minister added.