The Symposium, organised by Federal University Dutsinma (FUDMA), in collaboration with Islamic World Educational, Science and Cultural Organisation, Morocco, themed “The Future of Smart Agriculture and the Role of Emerging Technologies in Achieving the SDGs,” brought together experts to discuss ways that will hitherto encourage smart agriculture, and showcased beneficiaries of the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA) from Federal University Dutse.

Inuwa, who was represented by Dr Aminu Lawal, SA on Digital Transformation, highlighted the significant strides made in the field of smart farming, which combines the power of data and computing technologies to enhance the efficiency and predictability of farming operations.

The DG said, every sector and industry has been impacted by digital revolution, and agriculture is not an exception.

According to him, agriculture has witnessed shifts from primitive farming to mechanised farming and now in the digital or smart farming era.

He said in smart farming, the focus is on capturing data and interpreting them using computing technologies to make farm operations more predictable and efficient.

Inuwa stated that Digital technologies have been recognised as one of the critical enablers of agriculture transformation for increased food production to meet the global challenge of feeding this population and accelerate the achievement of goal number two, zero hunger, in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

He said, “there is a need to increase the production and profitability of farmers, increase the impact of agriculture intervention, attract youths and talents into agribusinesses, and use agriculture to diversify the economy. Digital technologies have the ability to change this narrative.

“Agriculture, if properly harnessed and technologies and innovations effectively introduced, the sector remains the number one sector for taking 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years and creating large well-paying jobs for Nigerian youths.

Digital technologies can significantly reduce information access inequalities, improve the management and sustainability of natural resources used in farming, reduce the costs of linking sellers and buyers, and improve knowledge sharing and access to markets.

“With digital technologies farmers make more precise decisions on resource management, and farm processes, and better engagement between consumers and producers through increased and faster information analysis and the resulting insights; thereby leading to smart farms and making small-scale producers more competitive.” The DG said.

Inuwa further said that NITDA in its effort to facilitate digitisation of the agriculture sector developed the Nigeria Digital Agriculture Strategy (NDAS) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and key stakeholders. The vision of the strategy is to make Nigeria the top three (3) most food-secure countries in Africa and the top 20 largest exporters of standard agricultural produce by 2030 through the use and application of digital technologies and innovations.

In an attempt to further digitise the agriculture sector, address those obvious challenges, exploit the opportunities and accelerate economic growth, the Agency came up with National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA).

NAVSA is a technology and innovation-driven agricultural initiative aimed at addressing low agriculture productivity, inappropriate financing strategy, and repayment difficulties through the introduction of closed and open wallet systems on mobile payment platforms.

The initiative has been designed to accelerate the achievement of the Federal Government’s objectives on massive job creation, economic diversification, and growth. It builds and connects agriculture ecosystem players across the agriculture value chain to position agriculture as a business, attracts a youthful population into agriculture enterprises, ensures funds can be recouped through digital wallets, and values every farm produce for improved contribution to GDP and economic development.

He added that since its launch, its implementation and sustainability models, NAVSA continued to attract the attention of key players in the Agricultural ecosystem in line with global best practices.

Inuwa also noted that the Agency partnered with universities for the implementation of NAVSA to shape and model new generation of agriculturists to become smart farmers, thereby preparing them for the future of agriculture.

Earlier, in his welcome address, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Armaya’u Hamisu-Bichi, said that the theme resonated deeply in their quest for innovation, efficiency and sustainability within the agricultural sector.

He said “In an era where our world is confronted with numerous challenges ranging from population growth to climate change, it is imperative to harness the potential of emerging technologies.

According to him;

Smart agriculture, which integrates cutting-edge technologies such as Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and data analytics has the power to revolutionise farming practices, increase productivity, optimize resource management and enhance overall efficiency.

“It is through collective efforts and comprehensive strategies that we can attain this delicate equilibrium, fostering harmonious coexistence between agricultural production and environmental preservation,” he added.

The NAVSA programme, which one of the goals is to build a sustainable digital platform that provides varieties of information for more than half of agriculture ecosystem players in Nigeria in order to enable a highly-productive agribusiness economy, has since adopted almost 992 smart farmers and created thousands of direct and indirect jobs to Nigerians.

At a brief closing ceremony and presentation of digital tools and seed funding to the beneficiaries the NITDA Director General, Kashifu Inuwa, CCIE, who was represented by the team lead and Assistant Director, Digital Economy Development Department, Dr. Ayodele Bakare, reiterated that the programme is designed to help the farmers raise their efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability of their farm businesses through the adoption of digital technologies. 

Giving the overview of the programmes, he disclosed that the programme was designed in two folds; to build the digital skill and literacy skills of the beneficiaries and to practically demonstrate to them how feasible it is to run a smart farm.

He said that the programme was initiated by NITDA to demonstrate that IT is an enabler of all other sectors of the economy, and if properly deployed and adopted by farmers, it would aid food production and security in the country, adding that the essence of the training is for the beneficiaries to be able to manage their smart farms and become self reliance and self employed.  

While advising the beneficiaries to practice what they have learnt throughout the period of the training and build on it, he assured them that NITDA would continue to provide the necessary support should the need arises. 

He said, “What we have done here is to wet your appetite and inspire you to optimize it beyond what NITDA has done for you. We expect you to maximize your businesses models by pulling resources together.  

Dr Bakare however called on the management to help the beneficiaries in monitoring and supervising the farms in order to ensure it is self sustaining. 

“We sincerely thank the Vice Chancellor, the Dean of the faculty of Agriculture and entire staff for unfettered support to make this programme a reality and we believe that it will spur you to expand the scope far above what NITDA has donated,” he said.

The Vice Chancellor, Prof kayode Adebowale who was represented by Pro. Malachy Akporoga of Soil Science Department said, “the replica of what NITDA has done for the beneficiaries is to light their candles which he believes they would also light other people’s candles with it.” 

“Most of you would leave this school and go out there to replicate what NITDA has done for you. NITDA cannot training all of you but they have found you worthy of the programme and I believe you also help them to train more people, when you start others will follow,” he added. 

He informed that designing another approach to farming like NITDA has done would translate to food sufficiency as food is the most important need of man, adding that adoption of digital technologies in Agriculture has justified that hoe and cutlass are not the end in Agric business but a means to an end. 

He further enjoined the beneficiaries to start farming now because of the situation the world has found itself, noting that anything planted now adds value to wellbeing. “Imagine the price of flour today because Ukraine is in war situation, I call on you to go out there and become the Ukraine of Nigeria,” he admonished. 

The Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, Prof. Stella Odebowale, in her vote of thanks expressed her appreciation to the Minister, Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami and the NITDA Director General, Kashifu Inuwa, for their foresight to inject digital technologies in farm practice saying that it would make agriculture attractive to the youths.    

She assured that all the facilities would be used for the purpose they are donated for. We assure you that we would ensure sustainability of this programme and monitor the devices giving to our students to see that they were utilized for the purpose they were given.

Earlier, an Agriculture Entrepreneur, Mr. Akin Alabi, who was also one of the resource persons, noted that NAVSA programme would surely add values to agriculture businesses in Nigeria. “NITDA has impacted the prerequisite knowledge on the beneficiaries to ensure the project does not fail and with this, we can take digital agriculture to the next level.” 

The 75 beneficiaries, who were drawn from different departments of Faculty of Agriculture and Computer Science, were full of praise for NITDA saying that the programme has broaden their horizon to think beyond seeing farming as laborious enterprise. 

Deborah Onuchi, one of the beneficiaries, expressed delight that with the adoption of digital technologies, farming practice has become seamless and enterprising with various opportunities because of the value chain inherent it. 

She promised that with the knowledge NITDA has impacted on her, she has seen agriculture as a business and not as a means to provide sustenance for oneself. 

Meanwhile, during the NITDA team’s visitation to the Vice Chancellor, Prof Adebowale, he commended NITDA for introducing the new trend in agricultural practices to the youths. He maintained that if youths see that adopting smart technologies in agriculture makes it easier, they would surely adopt it. 

“I appreciate the fact that the beneficiaries of this programme are youths who are technological savvy, it acceptability is assured unlike introducing it to the old one who would not accept it because of old farming traditions. They are like dry fish that cannot be straightened,” he concluded.   

Among the facilities NITDA put in place for the successful implementation of the programme at the institution are;  provision of connectivity to the beneficiaries, access to NAVSA platform, facilitation, financial inclusion through the digital wallets on the NAVSA platform, provision of insurance and E-extension services, Provision of smart demo farm, that is, smart irrigation and brooding system, a borehole University satellite farm in Ile-Ogbo, installation of smart irrigation system by NITDA, a 500 litre water  tank, one Horse Power surface water pump, and solar inverter installed for the utilisation of the smart irrigation farm  system. 

The training holding at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State capital starts today with the registration and profiling of the beneficiaries and will culminate on Friday February 17th with the presentation of seed funding and digital tools they leverage on for smart farming.

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Speaking during the profiling ceremony, the team lead and Assistance Director, Digital Economy Development Department, Dr. Ayodele Bakare admonished the beneficiaries to take the training seriously and give it their utmost attention and interests as it could be their fortune changer for them.

Also, the programme Desk officer, Mr. Lukman Lamid enjoined them to be punctual because being selected for the training does not guarantee that digital tools and seed funding would be given to anyone who does not make himself available for the training.

NAVSA is an Initiative of NITDA under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy which is modeled in the concept of smart farming to provide the agricultural sector with the infrastructure that leverage Emerging Technology like Big Data, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, and Internet of Things for tracking, monitoring, automation and analyzing farm operation.

The programme goals are to improved production and productivity of every adopted farmer on NAVSA platform by 35 per cent; increase the income of every adopted farmer on NAVSA platform by 30 per cent at every harvest; improve production and productivity of any other farmers on NAVSA platform by 20 per cent and increase the income of any other farmer on NAVSA platform by 15 per cent at every harvest.

The programme has since adopted 835 farmers across five states of katsina, Ogun, Jigawa, Gombe, Ekiti and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and created almost 5000 direct and indirect jobs in the country.

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NAVSA Programme is designed to accelerate massive job creation, economic diversification and growth, facilitate the integration of digital technologies and innovations in the agriculture processes and practices in order to significantly increase productivity, improve food security, ensure an eco-friendly agricultural practice, attract potential talents and youths into agriculture professions to maximise outcomes.

In this edition, the Federal Government has improved green energy-powered smart brooding to enhance the survival rate of broilers, a smart irrigation system to support a year-long production, and a soil nutrient monitoring system to support information-driven farming on a demo land.

This is in addition to other benefits such as: Smart Device, 100,000 Naira seed fund, AgTech training/capacity Building, Connectivity (Internet and CUG), NAVSA Platform, Financial inclusion through digital wallets, e-Extension and insurance services, Continuous reinvestment model opportunities and Unmanned Area Vehicle (UAV)/Drone for smart farm.

Speaking during the closing ceremony on Friday, Kashifu Inuwa, the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), who was represented by Engr. Salisu Kaka, Ag. Director, Digital Economy Development of the Agency, stated that, “Agriculture remains one of the critical sectors of Nigeria’s economy. This is evident in the policies of the current administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR. Every economic, developmental and social policy gives agriculture priority.”

Inuwa said the NAVSA Empowerment will enhance agriculture value chain, create new value and opportunities through new business models and services, and ultimately enable the creation of millions of jobs while taking the people out of poverty and enabling economic growth and diversification.

“With our potential in arable land size and youthful population, modernizing the agricultural sector can change the narrative and multiply the contribution of the sector to the national GDP in many folds. Unfortunately, the sector is the least digitized in the country. It has been proved that any digitized business has the potential to grow exponentially.”

“We hold a social contract to ensure IT drives every aspect of life and contributes to every community and national development as a whole. In line with our mandates, we carry out digital technology-driven interventions in any industry and sector of the economy across the country.”

“This is evident in all digitised economic sectors of the world such as the Bank, financial services, media and entertainment among others. Undoubtedly, digitization of the economic sectors has proved to be the game changer for economic transformation across the globe.

It is believed that if the agriculture sector is properly managed and enhanced, it would be a genuine means of eradicating poverty, improving people’s standard of living, diversifying the economy and creating prosperity for Nigerians,” Inuwa noted.

He further said, “We all have it as a duty to ensure agriculture is practised as a business and not a way of life as usual. There is a need to modernise agricultural practices in the country. In view of this conviction and in line with its mandates of universal IT access and integration into every sector of the economy, NITDA has designed a digital technology and ecosystem-driven innovation to address most of our challenges in the agriculture sector.

“The narrative is being changed through NAVSA and other digital agricultural initiatives. This is to support the digitisation of the agricultural sector to address our challenges, exploit the opportunities and accelerate economic growth, in line with the Nigeria Economic Sustainability Plan (NESP) and the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.

He added that NESP takes agriculture as a mainstay for economic recovery, diversification, and job creation. The plan proposed a mass agriculture programme to bring 20,000 to 100,000 hectares of new farmland under cultivation in every State of the Federation.

According to Inuwa, the aim is to create 5 million job opportunities, directly and indirectly spanning the entire agricultural value chain, from ‘farm to table’. This can only be achieved by incentivising and engaging millions of Nigerians in farming and agro-processing.

“We have chosen to work with AUK in this edition of NAVSA because we are convinced that being a community-owned institutions, it possesses a unique advantage of a having a highly sustainable business model that can support the sustainability framework of NAVSA. We will be at advantage of having the opportunity to prove that community-based innovations are better ways of proffering solutions to our socio-economic challenges.”

“With the NAVSA, we also believe that unemployment, insecurity and the underdeveloped economy challenges we are facing today in Nigeria can be addressed through agriculture,” he concluded.

The Participants, including ICT experts, Government Representatives, Academia, Startup ecosystems, ICT Associations, Technology Solution Providers, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and relevant stakeholders in the Digital Economy Sector shared ideas on how Kwara IT ecosystem should take advantage of the various opportunity and platforms being provided by NITDA to upskill, connect and build a robust network that will facilitate gainful collaboration among all stakeholders

Kashifu Inuwa, the Director General of NITDA, who was represented by Mr Babajide Ajayi, Director, Zonal Offices Directorate, said that the Stakeholders’ Engagement is a veritable platform to pool knowledge, experience, and expertise, and to co-create solutions, articulate strategies, and extend our services to all stakeholders, especially at the grassroots.

He said, “Throughout the twenty-one-year journey of the Agency, we have had to look continuously at our mandate, reset our vision, and invigorate our mission. We have moved from being a highly centralised organisation to a functionally decentralised Institution. Our aspiration is to be an Organisation closer to the stakeholders.”

We are also increasingly becoming a process-driven, data-dependent, and results-oriented Organisation. Our strategies and choices are pursued while always ensuring financial prudence – even in the most turbulent times and ensuring that we meet the objectives of a national IT Governance, foremost of which is delivering value to our stakeholders.

“These are in tandem with our core values of People First, Innovativeness, and Professionalism. Indeed, that is why we are here today. Our stakeholders come first, and we must strive to deliver value to you. That would not be possible without listening to you and speaking with you to get clarity on your perspectives, aspirations, and needs, he added.

Speaking on the Agency’s people-oriented programmes, Inuwa said, “under the supervision of Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and stakeholders, we have implemented programmes such as National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA), National Adopted School for Smart Education (NASSE), Digital Literacy Capacity Training for Persons Living with Disabilities, support for ICT Innovation Hubs, building of Community IT Centres, development State IT policies, and a host of other activities.”

He said as the needs of the Digital Economy Ecosystem grow; the Agency has striven to respond appropriately. This has been demonstrated in the strategic actions the Agency has taken in the implementation of critical areas of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS).

“We are aware that we still have a lot to do. Therefore, we are committed to making further progress over the coming year, and we look forward to the continued support of all our stakeholders,” he concluded.

On his part, Ibrahim Ajake, the Commissioner for Business Innovation and Technology, stated that the role of Digital Platform in entrepreneurship evolution cannot be overemphasised

He added that digitalisation changes the economics of doing business across border, bringing down the cost of international interaction and transaction. According to him, updated digital entrepreneurship knowledge and dynamics is one of the major ways Nigerian entrepreneurs can upscale their potentials in the global market.

“Digital evolution creates markets and user communities with global scale, providing business with huge base of potential customers and effective ways to reach them.”

“I am confident that the stakeholder’s engagement meeting will be of immense value to the ICT inclined public and keep abreast with necessary opportunity to enhance market access in order to tap into the foreign exchange earnings,” he noted.

He therefore urged participants to interact with experienced resource personnel and contemporaries to be equipped with various knowledge needed for optimal output.

“My sincere gratitude goes to NITDA and all the stakeholders for organising this event, and I assure you that all deliberations and contributions at this programme will serve as strength to us in the Ministry.

Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi’s purposeful leadership

In these three years, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE defines diligence, hard work and dedication.

His penchant for IT growth and vision-driven initiatives to see Nigeria grow its economy through digital technologies are unprecedented. He has demonstrated the purpose of encouraging Nigerians to embrace IT and use it as an enabler for their economic activities. He believes that IT as a source of inspiration, can be harnessed to develop new business value propositions.

As the Director General of NITDA, Inuwa has proved that Nigeria can be Africa’s largest digital economy. Since ascending the leadership of NITDA in August 2019, there has been an impressive implementation of the Agency’s Strategic Roadmap for the development of Nigeria’s IT sector envisioned by Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), Honourable Minister, Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, as well as implementation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s core vision of Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) through Information Technology.

Kashifu has been steadily building upon the foundation laid by the previous occupants of that office, driving the Agency to fulfil its core mandate in consonance with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) of the Federal Government.

To put Nigeria on a path to effectively operate a digital economy, NITDA, under the stewardship of Kashifu Inuwa mapped out a Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP 2021-2024), identified by the Agency as the fulcrum digital economy development.

In his numerous public presentations, Inuwa has spoken extensively about the pillars captured in the SRAP, namely Developmental Regulation; Digital Literacy and Skills; Digital Transformation; Digital Innovation & Entrepreneurship; Cybersecurity; Emerging Technologies; and Promotion of Indigenous Content.

Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi’s 3 years of walking the talk

Undoubtedly, his achievements as Director General of NITDA especially in implementation of IT Regulation in the sector in the last three years are unprecedented.

He walks the talks by ensuring that Nigeria maintains an automated IT Project Clearance (ITPC) and creation of user accounts for Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), thus, saving the Nigerian Federal Government billions of naira.

It is on recorded that Kashifu continued with the visionary leadership of Prof. Pantami of facilitating the implementation of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR), which resulted in the establishment of the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau (NDPB). This action further introduced NITDA to international stage thereby earning the Agency the position of Vice Chair of the African Union Policy and Regulatory Initiative for Digital Africa (PRIDA).

Inuwa knows the ICT global terrain deeply and he is very aware of the challenges, limitations and constraints keeping Nigeria – a nation of about 200 million people – lagging behind in the evolving world of digital economy. Against all the odds Nigeria’s IT sector faces, the NITDA DG has shown his indefatigable vision and passion to take Nigeria into the comity of nations, running on digital economy.

Under his watch, the Agency has developed several regulatory frameworks for IT development, majority of which have been published both in hard and soft copy.

The Agency embarked on the development of two regulatory frameworks for Information Technology development in government establishments. The project is to give rise to digital skills in educational institutions and rural areas of the country. In addition, Information Technology (IT) knowledge is integrated into the underserved areas and cities so as to develop human capital and provide universal access to knowledge with the aim of creating a knowledge-based economy.

Early 2020, just few months after his appointment, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic presented a major challenge to Nigeria and other countries across the globe, and the distinguished strategist faced the challenge by constituting a Tech4Covid Committee that explored measures to be deployed in cushioning the economic effect of the Pandemic on Nigeria’s digital enterprise. The Committee crafted a strategy that would later ensure the retention of about 100,000 ICT jobs and the creation of additional 30,000 jobs in the Post COVID-19 era.

With the needed strategy in place, the Agency has succeeded in programming, developing and mapping out digital processes to cushion the effect of Coronavirus since it is outbreak globally; the Nigeria COVID19 Innovation Challenge, an online innovation challenge that was set up to meet the challenges our society faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Creative minds across the country came together, experimented and built software solutions that helped address this crisis.

Furthermore, NITDA developed various digital educational contents that can be accessed remotely by thousands of Nigerians who were on lockdown, as well as strategies to assist the government in continuing its daily activities virtually. With all the challenges posed by COVID-19, Kashifu continues to provide able leadership to NITDA in discharging its duty of regulating, coordination, monitoring, evaluation and development of the growth of the Nigerian IT sector and digital economy.

In these three years of Kashifu’s reign as Director General, the Agency uncovered unfolded the potentials in Nigerian farmers through Federal Government’s initiative of National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA), a project aimed at changing the face of the agricultural sector in the country.

The National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture is an ecosystem-driven digital platform envisioned for the transformation of the agriculture sector in Nigeria. It is designed to help farmers and other agricultural ecosystem players navigate their journey across the agriculture value chain.

This journey cuts across farm production to management, processing, harvesting, storage, marketing and consumption. Farmers were trained and empowered with digital devices and seeds funding, which also created direct and indirect jobs in the country.

NITDA also launched the National Adopted School for Smart Education (NASSE) to promote digital literacy and skills. 500 students and 30 teachers at Junior Secondary School Karshi benefited from the pilot scheme. The Agency also supervised the training of thousands of Artisans across the 6 Geo-Political Zones on digital literacy and phone repairs.

The Agency trained women on ICT and Entrepreneurship, People Living with Disabilities, each provided with Laptops (with pre-installed e-learning & graphics Software), Internet Dongles & Bag-Packs, direct jobs and indirect jobs were created; trained hundreds of Nigerians on Software, Mobile App & Web Development, and Entrepreneurship.

In addition to making an effort in IT development as well as enhancing the IT capacity of the citizenry, hundreds of IT Hubs, IT Parks, and Community ICT Centres were established, furnished and equipped with world class facilities across the states of the federation. The Agency, through its strategic relations with Tecpreneurs, supported start-ups, IT hubs and ecosystem builders through Nigeria ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Vision (NIIEV).

In the process, NITDA’s programmes have created employment for Nigerian youths.

To ensure Nigeria’s pool of talents were not left behind, the Agency under his watch, established National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR), to drive and support research, development, and adoption of Emerging Technologies in Nigeria.

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The Centre is creating the required environment for Nigeria’s teaming youths; encourage innovation and indigenisation of technologies to help address the continuous reliance on foreign products and services which has negative impact on the country’s economy. It serves as a bridge between the government, industry, and the academia in providing research environment for creativity, idea integration, collaborative environment, development of ICT policies, processes and strategies.

Kashifu commissioned Digital Fabrication Laboratory (Abuja FabLab 1.0), a unit within the Centre that serves as one of its revenue-generating components. FabLab offers training and capacity-building programmes for the Centre’s staff and external Agencies requiring such services. While the FabLab serves all the entities within the ecosystem, it also maintains an open-door policy to the public, hence encouraging all digital innovators and makers to drive their ideas from inception to impact.

It maintains an open access policy to allow the laboratory to serve as a digital innovation accelerator for all innovators and makers. It allows open-production and public access to aid innovation and entrepreneurship activities.

As a result of Kashifu’s commitment, Nigeria made history when it the Agency hosted the Key Generation and Handover Ceremony for Root Certification Authority (RCA) for Country Signing Certification Authority (CSCA) and Country Verification Certification Authority (CVCA) of the National Public Key Infrastructure (NPKI), signaling the commencement of Public Key Infrastructure Service Provision in Nigeria.

As a results of NITDA’s high productivity, performance, excellence in service delivery and impact on the nation IT sector, the Agency received the prestigious National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) Award from the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR. The honour is for the Agency to do more in getting all Nigerians on board the digital journey of the Federal Government. Interestingly, NITDA is the only government Agency that was honoured with this award.

These successes, certainly, have been achieved through the efforts of this distinguished personality who against all odds, leads his organisation to greater heights.

As Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi celebrates three years in office, I join millions of Nigerians in congratulating him for these achievements. I also pray that the Almighty continue to guide him as he leads NITDA to greater heights and facilitates Nigeria’s transformation into a leading digital economy where citizens use digital technologies in creating wealth and prosperity.

Many did not know the import of this presidential directive to NITDA and the kind of attention the management of the Agency would give to it.

People in the know can authoritatively confirm that the Agency swung into action by initiating several organizational restructurings in furtherance of the already established roadmap that was handed down by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, the Agency’s former Director-General.

Since then, many laurels and accolades have come the way of the Agency, the recent, being the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) Award coincidentally conferred on the Agency by the same President Buhari himself on Thursday, May 12th, 2022.

The NPOM Award is an award of honour and dignity instituted by the government to reward hard work and excellence. 

In a letter conveying the conferment of the Award to the Agency, the organiser of the Award, the National Productivity Centre confirmed the approval of the president to confer on NITDA the award in recognition of its “high productivity, hard work and excellence hinged on the Agency’s recommendation on the report of the committee on National productivity Order of Merit Award after a “rigorous selection processes.”

The letter, which identified NITDA as the only government Agency out of 50 awardees maintained that one of the numerous accomplishments of NITDA is its strict adherence to information security and safety” that has been proactively “creating a robust incident management procedure through which any irregular or adverse event that occur and affect the normal functioning of a system is adequately dealt with.”

Yes, the above reason proffered by the organiser to honour NITDA this so well is justifiable but the Agency has performed creditably well to the admiration of IT stakeholders and Nigerians in general.

One could imagine that a once obscured IT Agency that the government has pencilled down for merging or proposed to be a unit in its supervisory ministry could metamorphosis to the level of winning a National Productivity Award under six years of intention to alter its existence.

It began in 2016 when Prof Pantami assumed office. During his well-crafted inaugural speech, the then Director-General admonished his “esteemed colleagues” (as they were then) that he was at the Agency to change its narrative because “clearly, NITDA is crucial to the technological aspiration and development of our country in this ruthlessly competitive global world where we can’t afford the luxury to lag. This is particularly true in this challenging economic time when our country dearly needs ICT in its bids to diversify the economy. He added that the Agency is very strategic to the aspiration of the country and in that case, it requires a “harmonious blend of knowledge with creativity.”

Members of staff were also enjoined to possess certain qualities such as integrity, professionalism and commitment to duty for the success of the Agency.

The above determination to change the narrative, and the admonitions to staff to also change their work ethics birthed the transformation of NITDA. NITDA under the administration of Prof. Pantami focused on seven strategic key pillars of IT Regulations, Cyber Security, Capacity Building, Local Content Development and Promotion, Digital inclusion and Government Digital Services.

These pillars were religiously implemented between 2017 to 2020. The feats recorded by the Agency in these three years were unprecedented and they have become the geese that laid the golden eggs for the Agency. 

Unarguably, Prof. Pantami laid the foundation for the Agency’s trajectory to development but not without the knowledge of his then Technical Adviser and now the NITDA’s Director-General, Kashifu Inuwa, CCIE.

They both envisioned the roadmap and conceptualized all projects executed. Obsessed with these modest achievements his “mentor” and predecessor recorded, on  assumption of office as the 5th Director-General, Inuwa made continuity his watchword. 

Surprisingly, by the end of the last decade even with the outbreak of COVID-19, the results of these efforts have begun to be manifesting; leading to an improved contribution of the IT sector to the country’s Gross Domestic Product, (GDP). For instance, in the last quarter of 2020, the ICT sector grew by 14.70 per cent which made it the only sector to have grown by double-digit.

This was attributable to the robust implementation of the digital economy policy implementation which NITDA is one of the implementors.      

After the launching and unveiling of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, NDEPS by President Buhari in November 2019 with the mandate to implement eight pillars of Developmental Regulation; Digital Literacy and Skills; Solid Infrastructure, Service Infrastructure; Digital Services Development and Promotion; Soft Infrastructure; Digital Society and Emerging Technologies and Indigenous Content Development and Adoption to accelerate the development of Nigerian digital economy, NITDA launched its Strategic Roadmap and Action plan for 2021-2024 with planned implementation strategies to be in line with NDEPS. 

It all began with the internal restructuring of the Agency to prepare its workforce for the challenges ahead.

The Director-General conceptualized a system that ensures no staff is indolent by setting monthly, quarterly and annual performance targets for them, the aggregate of which form the performance scorecard on which staff are evaluated at the end of the year.

Departments, Units and Subsidiaries also signed their scorecards which contain the various initiatives that will facilitate the implementation of SRAP with the Director-General.

This is a complete deviation from the culture of annual assessment measures employed by the other Ministries Departments and Agencies of government.

This approach has become a model most organisations are now emulating. For instance, a team from the Office of the Head of Service recently visited the Agency to understudy the model for nationwide implementation.

Staff are also being socialized regularly with the cultural reorientation with a view of changing their mindset and conditioning their minds to the new core values of the Agency which are People-First, Innovative and Professionalism which if religiously adhere to will “proactively facilitate the development of Nigeria into a sustainable digital economy” 

It is unquestionable, the series of awards various organisations have bestowed on NITDA in recent times. This is owing to the contributions of the Agency toward the diversification of the nation’s economy.

Foremost among these contributions is the prudent management of the limited resource in the implementation of the Federal Government’s Information Technology projects across the country which is under the Developmental Regulation pillar of SRAP.

To NITDA, regulation is not to stifle the sector but rather to enable a conducive environment for the sector to thrive competitively in order unlock, support and enhance opportunities for market-creating innovations. Initiatives under this pillar include; IT projects clearance which has seen 258 projects cleared from MDAs  with over N2.4billion saved for government; implementation of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulations that has created a market value of N2billion, 7,680 jobs and 33 licensed Data Protection Organisations.

The testimonial of NDPR is another success story entirely. Nigeria became the first African nation to launch the NDPR after the European Union and many countries in Africa are now approaching NITDA through Nigeria government for guidance on their Data Regulation policies.  

The captivating ways of implementing the NDPR by NITDA had led the government to be proactive in establishing the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau, (NDPB), a full-fledged parastatal that will be responsible for regulating and protecting the use of personal data in the country.

During the unveiling of the NDPB, minister Pantami revealed that it has become imperative to establish the NDPB “because many global IT giants would not do businesses in a country with no data protection law or institution.”

He added that; “A country like Nigeria with a huge and increasing population need to have an institution of government mandated with data privacy and confidentiality.”

The intention of the government to achieve 95 per cent digital literacy in the next 10 years which NITDA is championing through its Digital Literacy and Skill pillar of the SRAP is also attractive to many stakeholders to ‘adorn’ the Agency with awards. This pillar focuses on ensuring the acquisition of digital skills across works of life and creating a pool of globally competitive human capital that is capable of igniting the digital transformation.

The Agency, in promoting digital inclusion has facilitated the training and empowering of 750 People Living with Disabilities, (PLWD) thousands of artisans on phone repairs, 57, 774 active students have enrolled on NITDA Academy for Research and Training, (NART) and undergoing 67 active online courses and certifications.

The Agency has given 74 Master scholarship slots to Nigerian youths on IT related courses; 12 Master scholarships on ICT law and 12 PhDs have been awarded thus far.

Similarly, 1,500 junior school teachers were trained on digital skills, 300 participants drawn from 30 MDAs trained on digital literacy, 100 journalists trained in digital journalism and over 300 women were also trained and empowered with digital tools on ‘Techprenuership.’  

It is practically impossible in a country like Nigeria where economic power to acquire digital tools is not readily available to build the required human capital needed for a thriving digital economy sector.  Without empowering the people with the necessary tools needed to function is like building a castle in the air, a path NITDA would not follow.

The unwavering supports NITDA has been providing for Nigerians to increase the level of digitisation and digitalisation across the country are highly commendable.

Under the Digital Transformation Pillar of SRAP, initiatives such as the implementation of the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture, the implementation of Nigeria Smart Initiatives, and the facilitation of a digital inclusion program for People Living with Disabilities and other digitally unserved people have seen the Agency donating digital tools to Nigerians.

In the last one year, for example, NITDA has built and equipped 80 Digital Economy Centres with e-learning facilities across the country, four special IT capacity building centres, and 966 digital tools donated to beneficiaries of different digital capacity building training.

Also, the Agency has provided 530 laptops and desktop computers for Nigerian students, 50 laptops were given to the participants in the workshop for digital journalism for women; 50 Nigerian Information Technology Reporters Association were also given 50 computers after they were trained on digital journalism; 418 tablets and repairs tools were given to artisans to supports their trade; beneficiaries of NAVSA have also been given 785 tablets to aid agricultural practice in the country. 

NITDA has brought benefits of immense proportion to the country through the initiation of various initiatives as handed down to it by its supervisory Ministry under the guidance of the Minister, Prof Pantami.

This award and many more it had received in recent times could be attributed to the collective efforts of all staff with the Director-General providing the leadership and direction needed to excel.

Quoting from what he said in one of the interviews he granted after the honour, the Director-General noted that “looking at how far we have come, for me, what attracted this recognition is the transformation and innovation we introduced and how we try to be professional in whatever we do. We try to make sure that all the services to our customers supersede their expectations.”  

The elated Kashifu added, “When we were nominated, we were not contacted about it, I think they did some survey and it was after they finished, they came to us to give them some information about the Agency. So, this shows that the transformation we have achieved, people outside there are seeing them. It is impacting the sector and society in general. Also, for me, this shows that the staff are up and running because, as a leader, my work is to set direction and govern the processes but the staff are the engine room. They are the ones doing the work, they are the ones delivering the services, and they are the ones surpassing customers’ expectations.” 

And to those that might want to query the parameter used in selecting NITDA as the only government organisation so awarded, may I quickly remind you that, since 2016 (not undermining the performance of previous management of the Agency) the performance narrative of the Agency has changed.

The once obscured NITDA has become more prominent; metamorphosizing into a more responsive Agency that is trying to set the nation’s foot on the threshold of digital transformation.

The Agency might not have taken Nigeria and Nigerians to where they want to be but it has taken them away from where they used to be and with this award, and those that have come before it, the Agency knows that to whom much is given much more is expected as the management and staff are ready to roll up their sleeves for new challenges have beckoned.

Oladokun Lukman O., is a Corporate Affairs and External Relations Staff of NITDA writes from Abuja.