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The outcome of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) is depended on the successful implementation of the national digital identity process, the Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi has said.
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Abdullahi spoke this week while receiving the Nigeria Digital ID4D Project team inside NITDA’s head office in Abuja.
Successfully implementing the Nigeria Digital ID4D Project to drive the country’s aspiration for the NDEPS is equally as important as having a robust broadband penetration, the NITDA boss stressed. He assured the team of the agency’s commitment while he urged for stronger collaboration between NITDA and ID4D as well as other partners.
NITDA boss with ID4D Project Team
“Anything that has to do with identity, we need it to implement our mandate. Identity is key to digital economy. We believe we need each other to succeed, our mandates are interwoven, we need ID to succeed, and you also need us for the ID to be used in Digital Economy”, Abdullahi said as he lauded the ID4D notably in the area of Developmental Regulation.
“These laws you are trying to help the government agencies to review will equally help us.”
He added: “IT is dynamic. That is the reason why we are reenacting our own bill that was passed in 2007; a lot of vocabularies are obsolete and things have changed, without that enactment, it will be difficult for us to deliver.
“We need to have a robust law, because technology is growing and becoming dynamic, having a fixed law will be difficult to deliver, when the technology evolves, the law should be able to stretch and cover it.”
He also expressed concern with regulating the digital space, a major challenge faced globally. He argued that ungoverned space needs to be regulated in the best way.
His words: “The right regulation does not exist, we need to co-create it, because it is not something that you can learn from the previous generation, due to its non-existence during their time, it’s our collaboration that will bring the desired changes in developing the nations IT sector.”
The Coordinator of Nigeria Digital ID4D Project, Musa Odole Solomon said NITDA has sanitized the Nigerian digital space.
“Since its establishment, NITDA has proven to be one of the federal government institutions contributing immensely to the Nigerian economy through its various relevant regulations, monitoring, evaluation and verification in fostering the development and growth of the Information Technology sector in the country.”
Solomon said the ID4D Project objective is to increase the number of persons with a National Identity Number (NIN), issue a robust and inclusive foundational identity system that facilitates their access to services.
He added that, “the project is designed following an ecosystem model, and not limited to any single organization. It involves different Agencies of government, private sector and civil society. The project had since identified NITDA as an important ecosystem implementing partner.
The Nigeria Digital ID4D is a five-year project, jointly funded by the World Bank, European Investment Bank and the French Development Agency.
