The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, has said that Nigeria is taking great steps towards achieving the digital economy by harnessing the data at its disposal.
Pantami said that the current efforts to encourage Nigerians register for the National Identity Number (NIN) is a soft infrastructure needed to achieve the nation’s digital economy objective.
The Communications Minister disclosed this while delivering a keynote address at the Global Privacy Day Celebration organised by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
“The current efforts of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy in encouraging Nigerians to register for the National Identity Number (NIN) is a strategic and critical national effort to ensure Nigerians have a credible, converged and consistent database for identity purposes.
“The value of this would become appreciated with the ease at which e-government services would be delivered, the reduction in crime, and general efficiency guaranteed by the database.
“Identifying every Nigeria is a soft infrastructure needed to achieve our digital economy objective. Indeed, the needed pieces for the digital economy is falling in place and we are committed to laying a solid and lasting foundation for a digital Nigeria,” the Minister said.
He said data must therefore be harnessed and properly regulated in order to achieve an orderly use of it.
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“When I signed the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) two years ago, I knew it was a fundamental instrument needed to digitally transform Nigeria,” Pantami noted.
In order to strengthen the NDPR, the Minister assured NITDA of the Ministry’s support in the drive to achieve compliance.
In his welcome remarks, the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Abdullahi, said the theme for the 2021 Privacy Week in celebration in Nigeria “Harnessing Data as Critical Infrastructure for the Digital Economy” is very crucial at this period that Nigeria is on a journey to a Digital Economy.
He said since the issuance of the NDPR in January 2019, NITDA has made some remarkable strides, such as “creation of over 2,686 new jobs, creation of data protection sector which is valued at N2,295,240,000
“Issuance of the only punitive data breach sanction in Africa for the year 2020, ssuance of Guidelines on Use of Personal Data by Public Institutions, 2020 and many more