The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has called for stronger collaboration among industry players, academic institutions and innovation ecosystem stakeholders to bridge Nigeria’s digital skills gap and boost economic productivity.
The Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, made the call while speaking as a discussant at the MTN Breakfast Session, themed “When Transnationals Invest,” during the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit (NES32) in Abuja.
Inuwa stressed the need for a coordinated national strategy for digital skills development, urging stakeholders to move away from fragmented initiatives and adopt a unified approach that aligns education and training with industry demands.
He warned that the persistent disconnect between academic institutions, industry players and the innovation ecosystem continued to undermine efforts to develop a workforce capable of meeting Nigeria’s evolving economic and technological needs.
According to him, although academic institutions play a critical role in developing human capital, their training programmes and graduate output must reflect industry requirements to ensure that graduates acquire relevant, practical and market-ready skills.
“Our human capital is our greatest national resource,” he said, emphasising the need to align education and skills development with the demands of the labour market.
The NITDA boss clarified that the agency’s digital literacy mandate was not to turn every Nigerian into an IT professional but to equip citizens with the digital competencies needed to improve their work, enhance productivity and expand economic opportunities.
To achieve this objective, he said NITDA had developed the National Digital Literacy Framework, which targets 95 per cent digital literacy by 2030, with an interim target of 70 per cent by 2027, in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s directive.
Inuwa said attaining the targets would require sustained collaboration across sectors, prompting the agency to introduce the Digital Literacy for All initiative to expand access to digital skills nationwide.
He identified the integration of digital literacy into formal education as a major component of the initiative.
According to him, NITDA has partnered with Nasarawa State University and Cisco to develop learning content based on the National Digital Literacy Framework.
The framework covers six competency areas and three proficiency levels: basic, intermediate and advanced. He added that the agency was reviewing the framework to incorporate artificial intelligence literacy in response to emerging technological demands.
Inuwa disclosed that Nasarawa State University had integrated digital literacy into its General Studies curriculum, making the subject compulsory for students.
Beyond training and curriculum development, he said NITDA was strengthening coordination and accountability through its National Digital Literacy Dashboard, which tracks interventions and provides information on organisations contributing to digital skills development across the country.
He revealed that 252 organisations had reported their activities on the platform, documenting the training of approximately 2.77 million Nigerians from 2023 to date.
The reported interventions covered all 774 local government areas and 14,664 communities, reflecting the nationwide reach of the digital literacy programmes captured on the dashboard.
Inuwa identified Cisco as the leading contributor to the reported figures, noting that its educational platforms had been used to train more than 1.073 million Nigerians.
He urged organisations implementing digital literacy programmes, including those operating through foundations and corporate social responsibility initiatives, to report their activities on the dashboard.
According to him, comprehensive reporting would improve coordination, reduce duplication of efforts and ensure that underserved communities benefit from digital skills interventions.
The NITDA director-general further stressed that collaboration must go beyond training to ensure that acquired skills translate into measurable productivity gains and broader national prosperity.
He urged industry stakeholders, educational institutions, innovators and other partners to identify the skills required by employers and align training programmes with those needs.
Inuwa maintained that a coordinated digital skills ecosystem, supported by common standards, reliable data and shared national objectives, would be crucial to building a digitally capable population and maximising technology’s contribution to Nigeria’s economic development.
