The Federal Government on Tuesday said that it planned to generate $88 billion and create three million jobs through the nation’s digital economy within the next decade.
Making this disclosure during the official inauguration of the nation’s first digital classroom in Abuja, the Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals, Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, , said the Federal Government was working hard to actualise the dream of a knowledge-based and innovation-driven digital economy.
To actualize the goal, the Presidential aide hinted that senior government officials recently visited Silicon Valley in the United States and engaged with chief executive officers of several global information and technology companies in a bid to further enhance Nigeria’s digital space.
Orelope-Adefulire explained: “Only recently, we hosted Google executives who are working to provide free Internet to 10 million Nigerians in key locations across the country. Google, like several other IT companies, is establishing a strong presence in Nigeria not out of altruism but based on hard and rational logic of profit to be made and potential to impact a large youthful market of 200 million population.
“The Nigerian digital economy will generate an estimated $88bn and create three million jobs over the next 10 years. Today, we are experiencing a different kind of revolution. It is the digital revolution. Our world is a global village and what happens in one end of the world reverberates in another end in micro seconds”, she added.
According to her, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) had created new opportunities for businesses and individuals, decreasing the cost of productivity and enhancing organisational effectiveness.
Orelope-Adefulire commended the team from Netdragon Websoft, led by its Chairman, Dejian Liu, on for the donation of the digital classroom to one of the communities in Abuja.
On the SDGs, she explained that the goals were adopted by the Heads of State and Government at the 70th session of the United Nation General Assembly held in September, 2015 in New York, which was attended by President Muhammadu Buhari.
