Experts discuss Nigeria’s digital transformation future at CIO Africa summit

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) and other critical stakeholders have called for collaboration between policy makers and the private sector to ensure that Nigeria explores more opportunities of digitalization in transforming the country’s economy.

This call was made at the CIO Club Africa inaugural summit tagged, “The Role of Digitalisation in Transforming the Economy,” held at the Civic Centre in Victoria Island, Lagos at the weekend.

In his keynote address, the Deputy Director of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Adebisi Shonubi, explained that the best way to support digitalisation and improve productivity in the country is to seek ways to engage people, especially youths to be more productive.

“So we have the capacity here in this country, the only thing needed is to channel the energy of our youths into positive use of these technologies to help grow and develop our economy.”

He said the CBN had interventions to support Nigeria’s digitalisation journey, one of which was a N100 million grant over the next two years to encourage universities to drive digitalisation.

He, however, noted the need to review the nation’s educational curriculum to be built for purpose.

According to Shonubi, the need to review the nation’s educational curriculum to be built for purpose, saying the curriculum development has to be driven by the private sector because when the students graduate, most of them will be seeking employment opportunities in the private sector.

He said this is why we are having this conversation so that we will have an educational sector fit for purpose rather than an educational sector fit for numbers.

In his own remarks, Managing Director of Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System plc (NIBSS), Premier Oiwoh, noted that technological transformations have impacted economic activities, particularly the on-demand, sharing, and circular economic systems.

“Therefore, policy, regulation, and incentives are some of the factors that should be prioritized, while also seeking ways to ensure technology contents are localised”, he added.

“The digital ecosystem has changed, and we have seen developments in Infrastructure, Agriculture, FinTech, E-commerce, and Telecommunications such that the dynamics of market entry now freely allows skilled individuals to be IT solutions providers.”

Earlier in his opening speech, the Chairman, Board of Trustees, CIO Club Africa, Mr. Olayinka Oni, said that though digitalisation had great potential, there were some inhibitors such as lack of basic infrastructure and skills gap.

He said digitalisation would be meaningless if it didn’t deliver any value to the economy.

“Skill is tied to curriculum and I think for us to get value from digitalisation, we need to look at our curriculum because our curriculums are outdated and not future proof,” he added.

Also speaking at the summit, founder CIO Club Africa, Mrs. Abiola Olaseinde, said the vision of CIO Club Africa was to help connect all the critical stakeholders within the digital transformation ecosystem together to take definitive actions on the digital transformation of Africa.

She said the COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for the country to think outside the box by embracing digitalisation, adding that the country should be ready for the future.

Delivering the closing remarks at the summit, Oluwakayode Adigun, Chairman Edniesal Consulting Ltd, stated that he will forward to more forums where they can bring together key stakeholders in government, academia, policymakers,, think tanks, key technology stakeholders and the private sector to create sustainable roadmaps for the computed future.