NITDA, Oyo govt hold stakeholders engagement forum on digitalisation, ICT development

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in collaboration with the Oyo State government, on Tuesday, held an engagement forum with stakeholders in the ICT sector. 

The event which was held in Ibadan was tagged “Creating Opportunities, Breaking Boundaries: Towards Digitalisation and Entrepreneurial Evolution”. 

Speaking at the event, the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, who was represented by the Director, the Zonal Office Directorate, Mr Babajide Ajayi, spoke on how necessary it was for the agency to hold the forum, emphasising the importance of collaboration between state governments, stakeholders in the ICT sector and NITDA across the geopolitical zones of the country. 

The Acting Director, Corporate Planning and Strategy, NITDA, Dr Aristotle Onumo highlighted the efforts of the agency on cybersecurity. 

He said: “We have 87 platforms that have provided us 2.9 million jobs already. If those platforms are increased to 200 to 300, we know how far that would go. 

“As an agency, we have our strategic roadmap. And within the context of our strategic roadmap and action plan, we have a specific focus area that has to do with cybersecurity. And we intend to create an environment through which people can operate within cyberspace in safety. It goes with confidence to ensure that whatever they’re doing have some form of integrity and is protected. Not only that, we have also gone ahead to support the establishment which emanated from our agency, the Nigerian Data Protection. Regulation, which is already a body on its own. We are going ahead to establish what we refer to as the national data strategy. 

“These are geared towards securing your data and ensuring that you have rights. Rights where your data and also the privacy of your data so that the data that you give out, people do not use it against your intention. So all these things are geared towards the protection and preserving the cyberspace so can operate seamlessly and derive value from the use of digital technology.”

The Special Adviser to Oyo State governor on ICT, Adebayo Akande described the stakeholders’ engagement as an invaluable exercise which informs key players in the ICT sector about some initiatives in NITDA. 

While speaking on the similarities in some of the ICT-based programmes Oyo State share with NITDA, he assured of a synergy between the federal government agency and the state government, which he described as one that will be beneficial to the state, economically. 

“We have digitised a lot of our activities in the Oyo State government. For example, a citizen can get their CofO digitized; our recruitment processes have been digitized to completely eliminate nepotism. Of course, we’ve worked on other things such as the ICT hub in LAUTECH, where people can come and get skills in robotics and electronics. We’re also carrying out several training in digital skills, to be able to empower them. There are also future plans in place infrastructural-wise, with regards to deploying high volumes of fibre to increase internet penetration. And of course, this will be directly proportional to economic development in the state,” he boasted. 

The Director-General, DAWN Commission, Seyi Oluseye expressed his delight in NITDA for organising such a forum and for bringing it down to the Southwest zone of the country. While addressing the need for Nigeria to address the brain drain in all sectors in this digital age, he as well called  for collaboration with NITDA, as its scope of operations with startups and private sectors in ICT portend to “generate more revenue for the county than oil”. 

Present at the forum were directors and staff of the NITDA, ICT experts, representatives of  ICT institutes, and academics.

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