By Chimezie Godfrey
The Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa says Nigeria is ready to create wealth and prosperity using digital economy.
Inuwa made the assertion at the occasion of the inauguration of the Technical Working Committee (TWC) on the implementation of the National Data Strategy held on Tuesday in Abuja.
He said the Committee, an assemblage of experts was saddled with the responsibility of brainstorming to proffer solution on issues of data literacy and skill, data security, data sovereignty, open data, data infrastructure, data harmonization, and data usability.
He revealed that the digital economy is worth more than $16trillion, adding that digitally transformed enterprises contributed 13 point 5 trillion US dollars to the global GDP in 2018.
Inuwa who opined that data is the currency or the oil of the digital economy, declared that Nigeria was ready for digital economy, and that the federal government was equally ready to create wealth and prosperity using digital economy.
He said,”Data economy was pegged at trillion US dollars as at 2017. And the digital economy also is worth more than 16 US dollars. Digitally transformed enterprises contributed 13 point 5 trillion US dollars to the global GDP in 2018, it is projected to contribute 53.5 trillion US dollars this year. That’s more than 50% of the global GDP, and when you talk about digital economy, data is the currency or is the oil at that digital economy. So to have this kind of data strategy today means Nigeria, we are ready for digital economy. We are ready to create wealth and prosperity using digital economy.”
The NITDA DG disclosed that the National Data Strategy which was launched in March, 2022, has 7 strategic pillars which the technical working committee would deliberate on.
“The strategy was launched in March last year, and today we are here to add a great technical working group to implement this strategy. The strategy has seven strategic pillars. Firstly, data literacy and skills. How can we get our citizens to be literate about data, about the importance of data in creating value and economic prosperity? And how can we train our people, and citizens with requisite skills to use data for economic and social gains?
“Secondly, it is about security, data security as we all know that data is the most valuable resources to today. The more data of information you have about something the more control you have over it. So we need to secure it at first in transition and at whatever stage data has to be secured. And also we need to look at the privacy. Today we have a commission and we have a law about data protection. So also we expect this working as we use this data for economic activities to design it with the security in mind.
“And thirdly is about data sovereignty. When you talk about data sovereignty, you need to look at the data localization, we need to look at the data transfer. Are we going to be strict about data localization? That means all data must stay in Nigeria or are we going to use a partial data localization? So that some services can be on the cloud? So this technical working group is going to help us to advise on the best approach to that.
“And also we need to look at the transfer of data. Are we going to have some strict control over it? Or is it going to be a loose one? Or are we meant to look at free data move across jurisdiction? Because if you look at some countries around the world some are strictly about data localization some look at it that you can freely move data from one jurisdiction to another. And some are more about regulation like EU, if you look at the EU approach at data, you can move data anywhere but you must comply with the regulations.
“Then the fourth pillar is about open data. How can we make the data available to our researchers and innovators to use the data and develop services because digital economy or platform based economy, whatever you call it is all about data. You need to have the information to innovate, if the information is not available to be difficult for you to innovate.
“We are moving towards having systems making decisions for us. So the system need to know your data before it knows you exist and consider you in whatever decision the system is going to make. Like we are building AI system, powerful system that we use for recruitment, for credit, profiling, criminal profiling, and many more. So the data has to be optimal, but with security in mind that’s why we are particular about security and privacy as well.”
Speaking on the fifth pillar which is data infrastructure, he stressed the need to connect the unconnected and for the broadband coverage to be expanded.
“Then the fifth pillar is about data infrastructure. We need to build the infrastructure and the connectivity, we need to connect the unconnected, we need to expand broadband coverage. We need to get every Nigerian to have access to connectivity to Internet. Also, we need to look at building infrastructure like data center also because when we are talking about data localization, we need to have the data centers in the country.
“To achieve that. We need to build cloud solutions available. We need to promote cloud first strategy and so on. So all of these infrastructures need to be in place to help us achieve this division of this national data strategy.
“Then the sixth one is about data harmonization How can we harmonize all the data we collect? Many MDAs collect different data? So we should have a situation whereby the name, space should provide the primary data whatever we need, all what you need is to fetch from that and connect to, for whatever you are going to do. So we want this technical working group also to look at how we can harmonize our data to have a central data repository.
“This means we need to look at the data architecture so that as we build the data, we have the same attributes in all the format, because sometimes we see some organizations use surname first, the first day or date, some use American version, some UK version, all this we need to standardize,” he said.
The DG NITDA further explained,”Then the last pillar is about data usability outcome, we use the data for research, for innovation, for economic activities. So that’s why sometimes I used to say data is more than oil, because oil is an infinite resources, while data is a finite resources, as you use it, you create more data.
“So we need to promote that useability. So we look forward to having a more productive session. And also the work group will look for having a more better and protective recommendations for you to help regulatory agencies to come up with regulatories, and Nigerians to key in and benefit from data economy.”
In his welcome address, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Williams Alor noted that government has a crucial role to play in data utilization, adding that the overall government responsibility in data utilization is to strike a balance.
Dr Alor said collaboration across stakeholders was needed to harness the full potential of data in the country. He said data driven decision making would be a force behind the nation’s progress.
“Data driven decision making will be a driving force behind our progress. By leveraging on the power of data, we can better respond to the needs of our citizens.
“By the assemblage of the experts as am seeing here, am confident that at the end of the brainstorming, they will come out with a strategy that cannot be faulty,” he said.
