By Nkechi Eze
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has called for coordinated action among industry players, academic institutions and innovation ecosystem stakeholders to bridge Nigeria’s digital skills gap and build a workforce capable of meeting the country’s evolving economic and technological needs.
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 unified national strategy for digital skills development, warning that the disconnect between academic institutions, industry players and the innovation ecosystem continued to undermine efforts to develop a workforce equipped with relevant and market-ready skills.
He said stronger collaboration was necessary to align educational programmes with industry requirements, noting that graduates must acquire practical competencies that enable them to contribute meaningfully to productivity and economic development.
“Our human capital is our greatest national resource,” he said, emphasising the importance of aligning education and skills development with the needs of employers.
The NITDA boss explained that the agency’s digital literacy mandate was not to turn every Nigerian into an information technology professional, but to equip citizens with the digital competencies required to improve their work, enhance productivity and expand economic opportunities.
To advance this objective, he said the agency 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, as set by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Inuwa said achieving the targets would require sustained collaboration across the public and private sectors, as well as educational institutions and other stakeholders in the technology ecosystem.
He noted that NITDA had introduced the Digital Literacy for All initiative to expand digital skills acquisition nationwide through a multi-pronged approach, including the integration of digital literacy into formal education.
As part of the effort, he disclosed that NITDA had 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.
According to him, Nasarawa State University has integrated digital literacy into its general studies curriculum, making the subject compulsory for students as part of efforts to embed digital competencies in the education system.
Beyond training and curriculum development, Inuwa said NITDA was strengthening coordination and accountability through its National Digital Literacy Dashboard, which tracks interventions and documents the contributions of organisations working to improve digital skills across the country.
He disclosed 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, demonstrating the nationwide reach of the digital skills 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 to improve coordination, minimise duplication and ensure that underserved communities benefit from digital skills interventions.
The NITDA director-general maintained that efforts to build a digitally skilled workforce must go beyond training to ensure that acquired competencies translate into measurable productivity gains and sustainable economic growth.
He called on industry stakeholders, academic institutions, innovators and other partners to work together to identify skills required by employers and align training programmes with those needs.
Inuwa said a coordinated digital skills ecosystem, supported by common standards, reliable data and shared national objectives, would be critical to developing a digitally capable population and maximising technology’s contribution to Nigeria’s economic development.
