The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is set to collaborate with relevant organizations to cascade the benefits of digital technology to all local governments across the country.
The agency’s Director-General, Kashifu Inuwa, disclosed this when he received the Senior Special Advisers to the President on Community Engagement – South East, Barr Chioma Nweze; South West, Ms Moremi Ojudu and North West, Hon. Abdallah Tanko Yakassai during their visit to his office in Abuja.
According to him, the collaboration aims to transform Nigeria into a globally recognized hub of technology and innovation, driving economic diversification and boosting productivity across all sectors. This aligns with the present administration’s priority areas, particularly in reforming the economy for sustained inclusive growth.
Inuwa, who explained that NITDA’s vision for Nigeria, where inclusive economic growth is fostered through technological innovation, aligns with the President’s eight priority areas, highlighted the agency’s Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP 2.0) 2024-2027, which includes eight pillars to deliver on the presidential priority areas.
Specifically, the pillars include, fostering digital literacy and cultivating talents, building a robust technology research ecosystem, strengthening policy implementation and legal framework, promoting inclusive access to digital infrastructure and services, strengthening cybersecurity and enhancing digital trust, nurturing an innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem, forging strategic partnerships and collaborations, and cultivating a vibrant organizational culture and an agile workforce in NITDA.
The Director-General stressed the importance of digital literacy, citing the National Digital Literacy Framework’s ambitious target of achieving 95% digital literacy by 2030, with a mid-term target of 70% by 2027.
Similarly, he also highlighted the 3 Million Tech Talent programme, which aims to identify skill gaps and build youth capacity on skills in high demand locally and internationally.
In his remarks, Hon. Yakassai, who spoke on behalf of the SSAs commended the Director-General for sharing insights into the various activities of the agency to ensure a digitally empowered nation by building the digital capacities of Nigerians.
He expressed his team’s willingness to collaborate with the agency in the areas of propagating the agency’s activities to the grassroots throughout the 774 local governments in the country.
Yakassai assured: “Mr President is a grassroots person that is why he created this office so that we make sure whatever the government is doing is taken down to the grassroots level and we need to show the people the importance of your programmes and how they can key into it.”
