PANTAMI: Nigeria’s Potential For Digital Literacy by 2030 is Achievable
TECHDIGEST- At a weekend event in Gombe, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, stated that the country’s progress toward achieving 95% digital literacy by 2030, as outlined in the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), 2020 – 2030, now appears more promising than ever. Pantami, who officiated the graduation of members at a fourteen-day Digital Job Creation Training for the North-East in Gombe, which was worked with by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said “the reason we train citizens is that digital skills are no longer considered a luxury, but necessities required in any business you do. If you want to be successful, you need to have digital skills.’’
According to the Minister, “ICT is not just an independent sector but the key enabler of all other sectors today. It enables opportunities in education, in health, in agriculture, in security, in defense, in manufacturing, in trade, in investment and in industry.”
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He, therefore, urged the participants to adopt innovation-driven enterprises and to utilize the training they have received to improve their economic status and make Nigeria a better place. “We have to utilize ICT in order to make our country a better place. We must use ICT even for our personal economic benefits amongst others. Therefore, we want to encourage you not to waste your times online but rather to use the knowledge you have acquired to make Nigeria a better place and at the same time, derive many economic benefits from it,” he said.
The Minister emphasized that recent NBS statistics on the development of each sector of the economy, which indicated an exceptional ICT contribution of 18.44 percent to the economy, were highly heartening about the possibilities of the industry matching the expectations of the relevant policies.
The Digital Job Creation Training is a two-week program for youngsters who want to develop and improve their ICT skills in order to promote and boost growth in the still unexplored and commercially viable digital economy both locally and globally.
Each participant in the program received a startup kit that included a laptop with accessories, a MiFi Modem with a three-month data subscription, and some cash.
