The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, has revealed that the federal government has successfully secured a loan of five hundred million dollars for a domestic funding program.
The primary objective of this initiative, he explained, is to enhance innovation and entrepreneurship within the nation’s digital sector.
Speaking at an event held in his honor in collaboration with the World Bank, the Minister said that we have gained access to approximately five hundred million dollars to start our domestic funding initiative.
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Tijani outlined the federal government’s strategy to establish local funding capabilities within Nigeria, ensuring that it directly benefits authentic Nigerian enterprises. He also highlighted a partnership with the Bank of Industry (BOI) for this endeavor.
Underscoring the significance of bolstering and championing Nigerian businesses, he emphasized that the aim is to guarantee that the beneficiaries of this initiative are genuinely Nigerian enterprises.
His vision entails bringing domestic funding within the country, to nurture the growth and advancement of indigenous businesses. This, in turn, is envisioned to make a substantial contribution to the nation’s economic advancement.
The Minister assured the public that the initial five hundred million dollars designated for domestic funding signifies only the initial step. He emphasized that more investors will be enlisted to increase the pool of resources available to support Nigerian innovators. Tijani reiterated that the government’s objective is to leverage these funds to attract further investment and expand opportunities for local entrepreneurs.
“Part of my responsibilities is working with BOI to ensure that we domicile that funding locally in Nigeria, work with firms who manage and invest in businesses to ensure that those businesses that will benefit are true, real Nigerian businesses,” he said.
“And what we are going to see is that the funding is available locally and in the coming months it is going to become larger and as these funds become larger we want to leverage that money as well.
“So the government is not just going to put half a billion and that’s it, it can actually bring more investors to heart as we have more money more of our innovators can have access to resources.”
Furthermore, speaking at the event, Shubham Chaudhuri, the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, restated the organization’s unwavering dedication to eradicating poverty, enhancing livelihoods, and generating employment prospects for the youth of the nation.
Chaudhuri underlined the transformative potential inherent in harnessing digital technologies and delineated two pivotal areas of collaboration with Nigeria to actualize these aspirations.
He briefed the media on the pivotal role of a digital national identification system as the cornerstone of the digital revolution. He elaborated that the World Bank is in close cooperation with the National Identity Management Commission to ensure the successful implementation and registration of digital national IDs for the entire Nigerian populace.
The World Bank representative shared that the ambitious objective is to equip a minimum of 148 million working-age individuals with digital national IDs by the midpoint of the upcoming year. This ambitious stride is set to make significant strides towards inclusivity and widespread accessibility.
He said: “Our main mission here in Nigeria is to eliminate poverty, make lives better create jobs, for all Nigerian youth. One of the areas that we think have the greatest potential is the area of using digital technologies to transform. Now to do that it begins with having this digital national ID.
“So one of the main partnerships we have is working with NIMC to ensure the rollout of the registration so that all 213/220 million Nigerians have a digital national ID, beginning of course with all people of working age and I think the target for that is at least 148 million people by the middle of next year.”
He further remarked that the second aspect involves assisting Nigeria in spearheading the development of broadband infrastructure, as the absence of robust broadband connectivity could exacerbate a digital divide. Hence, their contribution revolves around endorsing favorable policies and regulations that encourage private sector investment in this domain, alongside the expansion of fiber optic networks.
“One thing, for example, working with states is to persuade states to reduce the right of way fees and fiber. Cable operators have to pay more when they’re getting the land to ray the cable, All that is like the foundations and real potential comes from once you have the national ID all the technologies that apps that can be built on the weather to bring services to people, to people where they get people access to finance that all of that needs skills,” he said.