Nigeria’s tech ambitions had been on full show this week at GITEX Africa in Morocco, the place the Nationwide Data Expertise Improvement Company (NITDA) pitched to the worldwide viewers a future formed by synthetic intelligence in Nigeria and cybersecurity, two pillars it hopes will outline the nation’s subsequent section of digital transformation.
Kashifu Inuwa, NITDA’s Director Normal, made a case for integrating AI as a strategic layer in management and coverage execution for governments and companies throughout Africa.
“AI is shifting the talents we worth immediately, in addition to the processes we use to do our day by day work,” he stated throughout a panel session on the fundamental stage on Tuesday, April 15. “To drive strategic management, it’s good to be an AI-driven chief and discover a approach to make use of AI as a software to create co-intelligence whereby you convey individuals and computer systems to work collectively to ship your strategic imaginative and prescient as a pacesetter,” he famous.
It’s a daring proposition for a rustic that also struggles with the basics, together with broadband protection and restricted digital infrastructure. However NITDA is betting on a top-down push to place Nigeria and, by extension, Africa as a world pressure in AI governance and innovation. On Tuesday, April 15, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Financial system, Bosun Tijani launched the nation’s Nationwide Synthetic Intelligence (AI) Technique in Lagos.
Nigeria’s AI push is backed by authorities ambition and funding from worldwide companions. In October 2024, the ministry introduced a ₦2.8 billion Google grant to advertise AI expertise growth in Nigeria. Although critics have stated Nigeria should handle elementary issues similar to dependable electrical energy, meals safety, and poverty earlier than pushing broader tech ambitions. However the nation’s management sees AI as a historic alternative to assert a stake within the world tech future.
“We missed the primary, second, and third industrial revolutions, however this fourth one, we should lead it and never simply comply with,” Inuwa added on the panel.
Not simply AI, however cybersecurity too
Along with its AI pitch, NITDA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with SecDojo, SAS, a France-headquartered cybersecurity coaching and upskilling firm, for focused capacity-building initiatives. This varieties a part of the regulator’s effort to boost Nigeria’s cyber resilience. Nigeria is ranked because the thirteenth most weak nation to cyberattacks, in accordance with Verify Level Software program Applied sciences’ December 2024 World Risk Index.
The deal will help the creation of a cybersecurity academy in Nigeria, with coaching applications, simulation environments, and curriculum growth geared toward filling the worldwide cyber expertise hole.
“Globally, we have now the hole, and in Nigeria, we have now a younger inhabitants that if we harness nicely, we will practice them and join them with the worldwide worth chain to offer cybersecurity companies and likewise to fill some roles and gaps within the world cybersecurity market,” Inuwa stated on the MoU signing ceremony on Monday, April 14.
Digital expertise as export is a well-recognized theme from the Nigerian authorities, evident by the three million technical abilities (3MTT) programme. Whereas the necessity for expertise is actual, so is the query of sustainability. Inuwa himself famous that a lot of Nigeria’s present digital abilities coaching is delivered by short-term acceleration applications. He’s now pushing for integration into the formal training system.
“To organize for the longer term, we should embed these abilities into our nationwide training framework,” he stated, pointing to Cisco’s mannequin of educational integration in Nigerian universities as a doable blueprint.
In Marrakesh, Nigeria made its case. Whether or not it sticks will rely upon what occurs again house.