The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in partnership with Lagos Business School recently convened a Stakeholders’ Engagement Workshop, themed “Engaging Stakeholders for the Advancement of Nigeria’s Digital Economy with a Focus on NITDA’s Role as a Regulator and Enabler.”

The strategic workshop held in Lagos and Abuja aimed to foster deeper connections, understand sector-specific challenges, and create pathways for collaboration to drive Nigeria’s digital transformation. Through this workshop, NITDA reaffirmed its evolving role as both a regulator and enabler, dedicated to fostering a digital economy that aligns with the nation’s goals for innovation, economic diversification, and global competitiveness.

It is worthy to note that the engagement perfectly falls under the seventh pillar of NITDA’s Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP 2.0) – Forge Strategic Partnerships and Collaboration, which the Agency views as instrumental in advancing Nigeria’s digital economy through leveraging the strengths and expertise of diverse stakeholders, tap into the resources of international organisations, multinational corporations, and research institutions.

The workshop attracted a diverse mix of public and private sector stakeholders, including industry leaders, consumer rights advocates, civil society representatives, academic professionals, and international organisations.

Each group offered unique insights into the challenges and expectations surrounding Nigeria’s technology ecosystem, bringing to light critical themes that inform both regulatory considerations and market needs.

Convening these voices under one roof, NITDA portrayed the importance of collective responsibility in shaping policies that can lead Nigeria toward a robust digital economy in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration’s priority areas of accelerating diversification through industrialization, digitization, creative arts, manufacturing and innovation, and reform the economy to deliver sustained inclusive growth.

The Agency understand that Nigeria faces both unprecedented opportunities and challenges, and the workshop’s primary objective was to align NITDA’s goals with the diverse needs of its stakeholders. As part of this goal, the workshop facilitated discussions on a broad range of themes, such as regulatory challenges, digital rights, data protection, research, and skills development, each of which is integral to a thriving digital environment.
Industry participants, representing private and public sectors, contributed perspectives on how regulatory measures could better support innovation and reduce barriers to business operations in Nigeria’s digital sector, and the Agency is aiming to refine its regulatory framework to not only foster growth but also ensure an equitable playing field for local and international players.

For civil society and consumer advocates, the focus was on data protection and digital rights, affirming the Agency’s role in safeguarding consumer interests and building public trust in Nigeria’s digital products and services.

In parallel, the academic sector and international organisations provided insights on capacity building, research needs, and the adoption of global best practices. Their input focused on the necessity of equipping Nigeria’s workforce with skills that meet international standards, a factor that has a significant bearing on Nigeria’s attractiveness as an investment destination and its ability to compete in a global digital marketplace.

Lagos Business School (LBS), renowned for its expertise in business and economic strategy, enriched the workshop by presenting an overview of current market trends and the economic outlook for Nigeria’s digital economy. Their analysis offered an understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and potential impact areas where NITDA’s regulatory focus could drive meaningful outcomes.

LBS’s insights allowed stakeholders to envision the future of Nigeria’s digital economy with a clear understanding of the current trends in emerging technologies, consumer behavior shifts, and the growing influence of digital services in Nigeria. The presentation set a foundation for discussions around strategic opportunities that align with NITDA’s goals for national digital transformation.

A key feature of the workshop was its structured breakout sessions, where stakeholder groups discussed unmet needs, potential regulatory improvements, and collaborative strategies. These discussions offered stakeholders the chance to present actionable feedback and strategic recommendations aimed at fostering innovation, transparency, and consumer confidence within Nigeria’s digital economy.

This inclusive dialogue enabled NITDA to gain firsthand information into the unique needs of each sector, empowering the agency to adapt its policies to better support both industry and societal priorities.

In his remarks, the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa reiterated the agency’s dedication to a stakeholder-centric approach to policy development, emphasising that Nigeria’s digital transformation depends on inclusive, transparent policymaking.

He thanked participants for their candid input and expressed confidence that the insights gathered would be instrumental in shaping policies that address real-world challenges while promoting economic growth, innovation, and public trust.

The Director-General further reassured participants of NITDA’s commitment to implementing improved communication channels to ensure ongoing dialogue with stakeholders, making the agency’s processes more transparent and responsive to evolving market needs. This commitment to open dialogue is intended to reinforce the agency’s accountability, helping to build a robust regulatory framework that supports Nigeria’s digital economy.

The NITDA Stakeholders’ Engagement Workshop represents a significant step towards building a robust and sustainable digital economy in Nigeria, fostering collaboration, addressing regulatory challenges, and promoting innovation.

Through this workshop, NITDA not only reinforced its role as a regulator but also emphasised its commitment to enabling growth, innovation, and sustainable partnerships.

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TECHDIGEST – The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Lagos Business School (LBS) of Pan-Atlantic University are forging for a partnership that will result in developing customised capacity building interventions and overhauling of existing training courses offered by the LBS to address critical areas of needs of the Commission’s human capital development.

Prof. Umar Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the NCC, emphasized the imperative of such collaboration during a visit of an LBS delegation led by the School’s Director, Executive Education, Victor Banji, to the Commission’s Head Office in Abuja recently.

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The EVC spoke through NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Adeleke Adewolu, who received the LBS delegation (alongside other senior management staff of the Commission) on behalf of the EVC.

Addressing the visiting team, Adewolu said NCC constantly engages in staff training as part its strategy to build managerial and technical skills required to manage the ever-dynamic telecoms regulatory environment in Nigeria.

Adewolu said while LBS, has been a training partner of NCC over the years and currently provides some classes of capacity building to staff of the Commission, it has become necessary to expand the training scope by ensuring that other customized programmes that target specific needs of Commission’s human capital are designed by the School in collaboration with NCC team to meet strategic objectives and enhance the relationship of the two organisations.

Among the areas of interest to the Commission are courses on performance appraisal management, policy formulation and execution, risk management, technical report writing, telecoms-related training, tariff and competition management, as well as basic training on policy formulation and implementation, social media training, audio-visual editing, among others.

“I thank the LBS for its collaboration with NCC over the years in the area of human capital development. However, we expect that LBS will work with NCC to see how we can collectively overhaul the existing courses and bring new course to NCC’s attention which we would, in turn, subject to our training need analysis (TNA). This may result in a review of ur existing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) towards making our relationship much stronger and more mutually beneficial,” Adewolu said.

The Executive Commissioner also explained that though NCC is a regulatory agency, it has seen the need for indigenous digital skills development in Nigeria, and that explained the creation creation of the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI), by the Commission to meet the human capital needs of the burgeoning telecom, and broadly, the ICT sector.

According to Adewolu, other areas of focus in meeting educational needs of the sector, include indigenous digital skills development, sponsoring of hackathon, provision of research grants to the academia, endowment of professorial chairs in universities, and the acceleration of digital infrastructure deployment across the country to boost digital literacy and skills for Nigeria’s socio-economic development.

Speaking earlier on the purpose of the visit to the Commission, Banji of LBS, said the business school wishes to serve as a strategic capacity development partner to NCC for its teaming staff; revisit LBS’s existing MoU for necessary enhancements; as well as offer corporate governance, board leadership and management development programmes to enhance corporate effectiveness.

Banji also commended the NCC for its role in ensuring effective digital transformation in Nigeria. “As the Commission responsible for creating an enabling environment for telecom operators and allied stakeholders in the industry, as well as ensuring the provision of qualitative and efficient telecommunications services throughout the country, NCC has earned a reputation as a foremost Telecom regulatory agency in Africa,” Banji said.

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TECHDIGEST – The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Lagos Business School (LBS) are jointly working on developing all existing government incentives and introduce startups to existing government policies and programmes that will benefit the ecosystem.

Inuwa Kashifu Abdullahi, director general of NITDA was speaking on NITDA’s effort on addressing skills set in the country, during an interactive session organised by the Agency in Lagos on Tuesday themed: Fostering an Enabling Environment for Start-up Growth.

“As honourable minister of Communications and Digital Economy normally used to say “we make skills not certificate” because we sponsor people abroad for MSC and PHD programmes, most of them refused to come back to the country, those that come back will be a liability to the country looking for jobs.

“Instead of that, why not build skills to create jobs? Then honourable minister directed we should come up with scheme called Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support scheme. It is a scheme design to identify talented startups of youths with ideas, place them in developed hubs for training and incubation and at the end we have what we called startups Vouchers we give them that will help them as seed funding to develop their products and services”.

The NITDA boss said they “started last year and we still have challenges and this is the reason why we are here today to talk with you to see how we can make it better.

“We have also conceptualised another idea called HiFiV which we want to go to universities, set up centres for excellence for entrepreneurial capacity building that will help develop entrepreneurship as well as help our students right from the universities to start thinking of starting their own business.

“We are partnering with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on this and starting with six universities across the six geopolitical zones and we are talking with CBN to see if they can build a centre in each state that will help to address that.

“On funding, we realized that there are some many funding and incentives but mostly you don’t know them because there is a disconnection between the government and the ecosystem. So, we are working with Lagos Business School to develop all existing government incentives which we are going to socialised with you to see how you can benefit from it.”

Source: Techeconomy

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