Minister’s Week In Review

Last week’s (July 22 – July 26, 2024) recap of the activities of Dr. ‘Bosun Tijani, Honourable Minister for Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

INTRO 

This week, we released the draft of the Digital Economy & e-Governance Bill following my commitment to do this at a recent stakeholder engagement with the media in Abuja. This offers key stakeholders an opportunity to review the bill ahead of the Ministry’s plan to take it across the country with a view to ensuring inclusive and wide-ranging input and understanding.

KEY FOCUS

Policy: To ensure inclusive and wide-ranging input and understanding, I made public the draft Digital Economy & e-Governance Bill which, when passed into law, will create the enabling environment for fair competition, promote innovation, growth, and competitiveness in Nigeria’s digital economy. The proposed legislation will facilitate digital governance and enable our economy by improving the certainty of digital transactions, digital service delivery, and matters related.

TIMELINE

Monday

My first official activity for the week was to deliver a goodwill message at the 2nd interactive session and workshop for youths and women in Agriculture themed, ‘Building Capacity of Youths and Women in Agriculture to Develop Bankable Business Proposals/Business Plans’. 

At the workshop which was attended by Sen. Abubakar Kyari, Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, I highlighted the importance of deploying innovative ideas towards solving the challenges facing our country and the continent.

Following this, I attended the official launch of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM), a pivotal tool for implementing its recommendation on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

There, I commissioned the Steering Committee and the Technical Working Group tasked with implementing the RAM, while noting Nigeria’s readiness to take advantage of new technologies such as AI for the growth of our digital economy.

I then attended the official launch of the Collaborative Regulation Study developed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) with support from the United Kingdom Foreign Commonwealth Development Office in collaboration with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

Following this, I had a virtual meeting with representatives of the United States Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Institute led by Dr. Mark Latonero, Head of International Engagement at the Institute. Discussions at the meeting centred around conducting collaborative research around AI safety. 

The United States Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Institute is a non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Tuesday

Early on Tuesday, I featured on a podcast session produced by the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation titled, ‘Reshaping Public Institutions: Digital Transformation of Service Delivery’. The podcast was co-anchored by Ofovwe Aig-Imoukhuede, Co-founder and Executive Vice-Chair, and Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Chairman and Founder of the Foundation.

My next engagement was a meeting with the Taraba State Commissioner for Digital Economy & Innovation, Gideon Nonso, and Commissioner for Science & Technology, Muslim Abdullahi in my office. 

I was really pleased with the outcomes from the meeting, some of which are the inclusion of 8 LGAs in the state in the next phase of the Project 774 LG Connectivity; confirmation as one of the states to host the Build-A-Thon Holiday Camp; and supporting the process towards waiving Right of Way for fibre optic cable.

Others are confirmation of Taraba State as one of the first locations for stakeholder engagement on the National Digital Economy and e-Governance Bill, and support towards setting up of the first National Broadband Alliance of Nigeria (NBAN) node in the State.

I then met with Adama Diouf, Executive Secretary, West African Postal Conference (WAPCO) to discuss the implementation of agreements signed between the organisation and the Government of Nigeria. The meeting was attended by Tola Odeyemi, Postmaster General & CEO, Nigerian Postal Service. WAPCO is the umbrella body for postal operators in charge of the Universal Service in the West African subregion.

My last official meeting for the day was with Effah Effah, representing Fintech solution, Aba ChatPay. At the meeting, he stated the company’s plan to launch their services to customers next month, while also expressing interest in supporting our Ministry’s programmes and initiatives.

Wednesday

We released the draft Digital Economy & e-Governance Bill following our recent stakeholder engagement with the media in Abuja. The release offers stakeholders an opportunity to review the document ahead of the Ministry’s plan to take it across the country towards ensuring inclusive and wide-ranging input and understanding. The draft Bill can be found at this link: https://b.link/NDEB-DRAFT.

I later had the honour of representing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR at the official commissioning of the Nigeria Police Force National CyberCrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) in Abuja. I also commissioned the Nigeria Police (NPF) Resource Centre, and Police Station in Jabi, Abuja.

The event was attended by Kayode Egbetokun, Inspector-General of Police and other notable personalities and members of the senior management of the Nigeria Police Force. 

Thursday

My main commitment on Thursday was the July edition of #DevsInGovernment themed, ‘Building a Harmonised Visual Identity For Government Websites’. In my address, I spoke on the importance of developing a visual style offering a unique and user-friendly design for websites which allows for consistency across multiple Government touch points.

The event featured Namnso Ukpanah, Product Designer & Co-founder, Kimoyo as speaker, and Lucky Ayokunle O., Program Analyst/Web Manager, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS); Innocent Korie, Principal IT Engineer, NTA; and Yusuf Mohammad M., Website Designer and Developer, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), as panellists.

#DevsInGovernment is an initiative of the Ministry designed for technologists and tech enthusiasts in the Nigerian Civil Service to drive and accelerate technology and digital transformation within the public service sector of the country.

Friday 

I met with representatives of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to discuss plans for engaging relevant stakeholders towards deploying and implementing best-in-class social investment initiatives for the benefit of Nigerians, while placing a premium on speed, inclusiveness, and accuracy. 

The meeting was attended by Dr. Abi Jagun, Interim Deputy Director, Economic Opportunity, Nigeria Country Office, and Bunmi Okunowo, Senior Program Officer, Digital Capabilities (DPI LMIC Adoption), DPI, Global Growth and Opportunity Division, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

I later paid a courtesy visit to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Head Office in Abuja, where I was warmly received by the Management and Staff of the Commission led by Dr. Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, NCC.

While there, I took a tour of the Commission’s Spectrum Monitoring Lab, assessed monitoring vans, and also made a stop at the NCC Museum. 

Back at the office, I met with representatives of Georgia Tech University led by Dr. Michael Best, Professor of International Affairs and Interactive Computing, & Executive Director, Institute for People and Technology (IPaT).

We discussed potential areas of collaboration, including support for the Ministry’s initiatives, particularly the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme. They also expressed interest in partnering with local universities and innovation centres towards upskilling Nigerian engineers and technologists so as to connect them to global best practices, and link to industry demands and employment. 

Other members of the delegation include Dr. Fisayo Omojokun, Chair, School of Computing Instruction, and Dr. Alex Orso, Professor of Computer Science, Associate Dean for Special Initiatives, Georgia Tech University.

To wrap up the week, I then headed to the Ministry of Finance for a meeting on the review of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), presided over by the Wale Edun, the Honourable Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy.                                                                                                                                                                                 

BLUEPRINT REVIEW

Last week, most of my activities focused on the Policy pillar objective of our Strategic Blueprint as I released the draft Digital Economy & e-Governance Bill, providing key stakeholders the opportunity to review the document and offer wide-ranging input. 

I also engaged in activities to further drive the achievement of the Ministry’s initiatives around Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), Artificial intelligence (AI), Cybersecurity, and broadband infrastructure development.