Minister urges Nigerians to embrace new technologies, leverage opportunities

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr  Isa Pantami, has called on Nigerians to transform their businesses by embracing new technologies and leveraging on opportunities offered by African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Pantami made the call at the 3rd edition of the annual Stakeholders Local Content Roundtable Technology Fair  in Abuja last weekend.

The programme, sponsored by FinTrak Software is tagged: “Patronage of Nigerian Software in the Context of AFCFTA and the Local Content Policy.

The Minister, who was represented by Mr Tope Fashademi, a Director in the ministry, also urged Nigerians to embrace and implement the provisions of the Nigeria Local Content Policy of the Federal Government in all MDAs and Private sectors of the economy.

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Pantami reiterated that the Ministry instituted the Local Content in ICT Policy by developing and launching the guidelines for Nigeria Content Development (ICD) in ICT on December 2013.

He explained that Office for Nigeria Content Development in ICT (ONC) was strategically created to drive the Policy under the supervision of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

He also said that it was to ensure nationwide adherence to the specific focus on the four areas of ICT namely: Services, Software, Human Capital Development and Hardware.

Pantami informed his audience that the recent change in the Ministry’s name by Mr President was an upshot of the fact that ICT remained one of the key pillars of “our economy in terms of contribution to the nation’s GDP.”

He said that the Digital Economy policy had the potential to increase revenue and block leakages, creation of new jobs and employment opportunities.

According to him,it will also pave way for e-Government to engender efficient and effective service delivery, and general empowerment of the people.

“This will inevitably result in the scaling up of companies, which will result in more job opportunities and inevitably contribute to increasing the ICT sector contribution to the national GDP.

“The digital economy is expected to continue growing with development of new ideas, products and services as well as new markets and job opportunities.”

“Experts even anticipate that the digital economy will become the most significant business platform and mainstay of some countries in the next few years.

“Government at all levels must continue to emphasise the creation of an ecosystem where all the stakeholders, citizens, businesses, foreigners, investors can will be able to design, create and deliver new services and opportunities.

“This will drive economic growth, and fundamentally transform the well-being of our nation,” Pantami said.

Nigerian Tribune