Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has expressed optimism that the digital economy would, in the nearest future, become a major source of revenue generation in the country.
Gov Sule said this on Friday, in Lafia, at an event to mark the 2021 Digital Nigeria Day with the theme, “Digital Transformation, a Path to Sustainable Digital Economy”.
According to Sule, digital economy had added more revenue to the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) of the country than oil in year 2020.
“Information and Communication Technology (ICT) means a lot to me; mineral resources are important but today, they are no longer important as they used to be, because today the world is gradually going differently and looking at other directions.
“If you look at the economy of Nigeria in 2020, the digital economy has added more to our GDP than even the oil we have.
”The way ICT is going, I know that it is going to overtake most of the other sources of revenue in the state,” he said.
The governor commended President Muhammadu Buhari, Prof. Isa Pantami, Minister of Communication and Digital Economy and the Director General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for taking Nigeria to another digital level.
He thanked Pantami for supporting Nasarawa state, particularly for granting Mustapha Agwai Polytechnic, approval for free access to the Internet.
Dr Uche Mbanaso, Director, Centre for Cyberspace studies, Nasarawa State University, represented by a lecturer, Dr Habiba Musa, said they were working to reposition the institution as world class ICT centre, through teaching, research and development.
Mbanaso restated the University’s commitment to collaborate with the state, to accelerate the digital economy and build trust in it through sensitisation and awareness programmes, saying that the state government should, therefore, partner with the centre.
In his remarks, Malam Shehu Ibrahim, Nasarawa state Bureau for Information and Communication Technology, said the state had achieved a lot in ICT in the use of central billing system, training of all cadres of workers, students and job seekers.
Ibrahim said that the state partnered with federal agencies like National Identity Management Commission and Joint Matriculation Board in ICT that brought about an enrolment centre and Computer Base Test Centre at the bureau.
“ICT is key to progress, advancement and development. Nasarawa state is continuously moving towards creating a brighter future where digital technology and digital literacy are fully developed to create a better state for posterity,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Digital Nigeria Day is marked on Oct. 24 of every year, to promote the development of the digital economy in the country. (NAN)
