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The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Amazon have agreed to explore collaboration in the delivery of digital services for the benefit of local operators among other discussions centred on promoting open-door policy and progressive regulation that will strengthen the market.
The IT regulatory agency and the e-commerce giant met over the weekend in Abuja during a courtesy call by Amazon’s representative in Africa and the Middle East, Narrimane Benakcha, in the company of her team from Anderson Nigeria. Benakcha is Head of Data Policy, Africa & Middle East at Amazon Web Services (AWS).
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“As a government, we have a cloud-first strategy. We encourage even the government’s Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to go to Cloud because it is easier, cheaper, faster, and convenient to deploy your services without the stress of overhead and other costs,” said Director General, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi to the Amazon team even as he urged them to address concerns by some local fintech operators disturbed by the enormous cost incurred in accessing hosting services from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and other related services.
Abdullahi wants Amazon to have a more pocket-friendly pricing for Nigeria’s army of tech startups.
Amazon is planning to a formal launch of its ecommerce services in April 2023 and is already recruiting key staff to push its market entry. It has since 2016 started exploring Nigeria’s market with its Prime Video subscription services and its AWS, now very popular among Nigeria’s growing community of small medium businesses (SMBs)
Abdullahi said Amazon steady robust presence in corporate Nigeria aligns with NITDA’s mandates to implement the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) for a Digital Nigeria.
He canvassed for Amazon’s support in promoting self-sufficiency in digital infrastructure stating that, “no government in this world would prefer to be dependent on other countries when it comes to digital services, because our life today is centred on digital services.”
He urged Amazon and other multinationals to have a common interest in Nigeria, adding that the market is strong and rewarding enough to support their exploits as digital services will thrive in Nigeria because of her large youthful population.
His words: “Africa has the fastest-growing population and one of the youngest populations in the world, with the fastest-growing broadband penetration and other factors that can accelerate digital business.”
He urged Amazon to consider investing in the data centre in Nigeria to support startups and other entrepreneurs, especially now that the government is creating enabling environment and leveling the playing field for everyone in the industry.
The NITDA boss expressed willingness to partner with tech giant in areas that will support startups and innovators as was the recent case with Google’s selection of 60 startups across Africa where Nigeria got 23 slots in its Google Black Founders Fund (BFF) to enable the upscale of their ongoing projects.
Benakcha commended NITDA for its open-door policy while assuring that her organisation will be operating in Nigeria to expand existing opportunities and create new ones.
