Pantami: FG’s Policies on Digital Innovation, Entrepreneurship Will Create Wealth

James Sowole

The Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami, has said the federal government developed over 20 policies to ensure that the country is built to a stage where digital innovation and entrepreneurship are used to create value and wealth for all.

Pantami stated this in Abeokuta, Ogun State, while addressing participants at the 5th TechSummit Ogun 2022, which held recently.

The Summit, tagged ‘Disruptive Innovation: Production And Distribution of Creative Content’, was convened by the Chief Executive Officer of VerveTree Startup, Olaniyi Ayoola.

Pantami who was represented by the Managing Director and the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communication Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), Dr. Abimbola Alale, listed the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, which he said was anchored on eight pillars.

He listed them to include: Nigeria National Broadband Plan (2020-2035); Nigeria Startup Bill, which is in the process of being forwarded to the National Assembly; and National Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship, among other policies and programmes.

He said over 500,000 Nigerians have been engaged in digital training outlets which has led to their up-skilling, while partnering with global and indigenous tech companies to significantly increase the number of Nigerians with digital skills.

According to Pantami, “The federal government is developing policies and initiating programmes to ensure that we build a nation where digital innovations and entrepreneurship are used to create value and prosperity for all.

“We need to empower citizens with the requisite skills that will enable the adoption of digital technologies across industries is addressed in the 2nd pillar. To this end, we have set up an online training academy, which together with other digital training outlets has led to the up-skilling of about 500,000 Nigerians.

“We also developed the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (2020-2025) to ensure that our citizens have access to, and can afford quality broadband connectivity. The Plan seeks to deliver data download broadband speeds across Nigeria at a minimum of 25Mbps in urban areas, and 10Mbps in rural areas.”

Pantami said apart from the values created by startups, digitally-based companies now dominate the list of largest companies in the world with seven out of top 10 largest companies from the digital technology sector.

According to him, Augmented and Virtual Reality is projected to grow into $95 billion market by 2025, saying the projection demand in the creative economy from gaming, live events, film, and video entertainment and retail can’t be overemphasised.

He said further that digitalisation would remain one of the key means by which creative content could be made more visible and accessible to regional and global audiences, adding that digitisation offers great potentials for tapping into traditional and non-traditional markets for creative goods and services.