NITDA Advocates Big Data Management to Drive Nigeria’s Digital Economy
To build a Digital Nigeria with a strong Digital Economy, there is need to manage big data while developing policy and strategy to address the challenges, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi has said.
Mal. Abdullahi, the Director General (DG) of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITD), made this known during the “2nd Nigeria Data Summit”.
The virtual summit, held on Friday, was themed, ” Leveraging National Data for Nigeria’s Digital Economy”.
According to the NITDA boss, there is need for Nigeria to have a solid strategy for the exploration and management of our vital resource that drives Digital Nation and Digital Economy, which is data.
“As we embarked on our journey to Digital Nigeria, we need to lay a strong foundation for its corresponding economy, the digital economy,” he said.
Mal. Abdullahi, who was one of the discussant at the event, said: “On the one hand, the physical world, as you know it today, is driven by physical natural resources, foremost among which is oil, but on the other hand, data is the primary resource that drives the digital economy.”
He noted that several developed countries across the world are already using big-data for monetary and fiscal policy formulation, combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT); crime prediction and prevention, national defence/security management; national planning and budgeting; together with disaster prevention and management, among others.
The Director General of NITDA, explained that the essence of the summit is to help Nigeria meet the second criteria for building a successful digital nation, and its corresponding digital economy.
Inuwa Abdullahi, said that the strategy is aimed at identifying action items to transform the Nigerian big data landscape, and help the government to develop the capabilities required for effective data exploration and management.
He went on: “Secondly, to develop a comprehensive and time-bound roadmap of how we are going to explore and manage our big data. Thirdly, to come up with an execution plan on how to close the gap between where we are currently and where we desire to be in the area of data exploration and management.”
On his part, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, expressed Federal Government’s readiness to leveraging on the outcome of the summit and other existing national data regulations, guidelines, standards, and policies.
“This will help in developing a solid national data exploration and management strategy for our digital landscape,” he said.
