The National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) have partnered for the purposes of integrating Nigeria’s cultural and creative industries (CCI) into the country’s rapidly evolving digital and innovation ecosystems.
The Director-General of NCAC, Mr. Obi Asika, and his team recently met with the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, and the agency’s management team, at NITDA headquarters in Abuja to develop a collaborative framework to harness the strengths of both agencies to drive growth, innovation, and digital transformation across Nigeria’s creative and cultural sectors.
Specifically, the collaboration between the Council and the agency has as its main focal areas as including the Innovate, Create, Empower (ICE) Capacity-Building Programme, which is designed to upskill participants in the cultural and creative industries. With NITDA’s support, ICE will expand to 1,000 locations nationwide, targeting the training of two million Nigerians by 2027.
Secondly, the partnership also intends to enable NCAC, in collaboration with private sector partners, develop digital platforms for cultural inventory, fan engagement, influencer marketing, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD), e-commerce, and capacity building. NITDA will provide support through local distribution networks and cloud services to strengthen these platforms.
On infrastructure development, the Council solicited the NITDA’s assistance in equipping its headquarters and zonal offices with computers, tablets, consumables, digital labs, and podcast studios to achieve full digital transformation.
Other focal areas are collaboration on major events by which NCAC will mobilise its creative and cultural communities to participate in NITDA’s initiatives, including the highly anticipated GITEX Nigeria 2025, while on the BuyNigeria.ng Project, the two agencies have agreed to pilot BuyNigeria.ng, an e-commerce platform designed to bring Nigerian markets online.
The initial phase of the project will focus on markets in Kano, Lagos, Aba, and Abuja, fostering greater visibility and accessibility for traders and artisans while aligning with NCAC’s vision of enhancing productivity in the cultural and creative sectors.
The CEOs also agreed on the establishment of a joint committee comprising directors from both the NCAC and the NITDA to drive the partnership forward and ensure seamless implementation of shared initiatives.
In addition, on the Nigeria’s Got Talent initiative, they jointly agreed that NCAC’s Nigeria’s Got Talent platform will integrate NITDA’s digital literacy programmes and games learning systems, creating opportunities for creative talents to thrive in a digitally empowered environment.
Experts believe that this partnership marks a significant step toward integrating Nigeria’s cultural heritage with cutting-edge digital innovation, unlocking limitless potential for the nation’s creative and digital economies.
Photo Caption
L-R: Director-General of National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), Mr. Obi Asika (left), and Director-General NITDA, Mr. Mr. Kashifu Inuwa, displaying the Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP) 2.0 document after their strategic partnership meeting at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja
