How government's economic diversification policy is yielding in ICT - NITDA

According to the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the Federal Government’s economic diversification policy is already yielding positive results in the information technology sector.

Dr. Isa Pantami, the Director General of NITDA disclosed at the 14th Annual Technology Africa Leadership Roundtable, held on Friday night in Lagos, that Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in the country sold 608,296 devices within three years.

Pantami, who, according to reports by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), was represented by Dr Vincent Olatunji, the Director, eGovernment Development and Regulatory, NITDA, said the period was from 2015 and 2017.

He said that the number of the locally-assembled devices sold by OEMs in the country increased because of the National Local Content Policy on Information Communications Technology (ICT).

According to him, in line with the Federal Government’s efforts at economic diversification, our efforts resulted in an unprecedented increase in the patronage of locally-assembled devices.

“Records have shown that, Indigenous Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) sold 98,224 devices in 2015, 154,424 in 2016 and 355,647 in 2017.

“This is unprecedented in the history of the country and this is expected to continue to grow significantly.

“NITDA’s efforts attracted the establishment of AfriOne as an Indigenous IT company and an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) in 2017.

“The agency is reviewing six other applications for the indigenous IT companies and Original Equipment Manufacturers,’’ the director-general said.

He said that with the growing pressure of globalisation, every government as well as captains of industry were charged with the burden of finding ways to ensure that their regions or jurisdictions remained competitive and were capable of fulfilling local demands.

Pantami said that it was imperative that the right frameworks were created to enhance the ability of indigenous companies to maximally explore and exploit local opportunities, as well as remain competitive.