The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, has made a strong case for international investors to investigate Nigeria’s rapidly growing digital economy in a passionate and forward-thinking statement. He characterises Nigeria as a land of opportunity driven by a young, tech-savvy, and highly innovative populace.
During a GITEX Breakfast discussion at GITEX Africa 2025, which is presently taking place in Marrakech, Morocco, the DG discussed this with investors and entrepreneurs, among other important participants in the global IT industry.
Inuwa gave a dynamic overview of Nigeria’s digital landscape in his remarks ahead of GITEX Nigeria 2025, a significant technology and investment conference scheduled to take place in Abuja and Lagos from September 1–4. He claimed that innovation and opportunity coexist there, and that government dedication and grassroots entrepreneurial spirit are in harmony.
“Nigeria is a country with a large, youthful, innovative, creative, and highly competent workforce, where startups and scale-ups can continuously thrive, and where entrepreneurial spirit and technological advancement shape and create the landscape,” he stated.
He underlined that Nigeria has one of the youngest populations in the world, with more than 70% of its people under 25, making it a talent hotspot for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Kashifu said that the government’s ambition calls for extensive reforms, infrastructure spending, and a vigorous digital literacy campaign to transform Nigeria into a new global digital economy.
“The president is also bullish about building our digital infrastructure and wants to establish our digital sovereignty, providing a platform for our citizens to develop digital offerings that Nigeria can take to the world,” he said.
He highlighted efforts to improve the country’s digital capabilities and integrate digital skills into the formal education system, but he also pointed out that the country is enabling young people to create technology rather than only consuming it.
Recognising the importance of digital sovereignty, Inuwa added “We are also promoting cloud adoption because you cannot succeed today with on-prem infrastructure, but you need to be on the cloud, and you need to have agility.”
Inuwa emphasised the importance of Nigeria and Africa’s digital native population and limitless creativity, saying the continent should take the lead in the Fourth Industrial Revolution rather than merely participate in it.
He revealed that the GITEX Nigeria conference is expected to be a historic occasion, with Lagos, the location of Africa’s most thriving startup ecosystem, exhibiting the energy, innovation, and investment potentials, and Abuja, the country’s policy capital, hosting talks on investor-friendly reforms and policy frameworks.
“We have the talent and we have the digital native population and we are nurturing an innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem because we need to challenge the status quo, we need to use technology to disrupt the way we do things and we need to create a collective intelligence where people work with technology to make lives better and that is the Nigeria we are creating,” he concluded.
In his remark, the sales director of ZOHO, Mr Vijayaragavan Venugopal stated that Zoho has been predominantly focusing on the African market for the last 7 years and has witnessed tremendous growth in the African market, with Nigeria leading at the forefront.
“We are happy that we are going to be there in Nigeria along with GITEX and the event will not only empower the Nigeria market but the whole of Africa and it is going to be an opportunity to gather amongst each other, talk about tech, and grow together in the entire African market,” he said.
While giving her remark, the CEO of Alami Capital, Olu Olufemi White, highlighted the importance of investing in startups that center people in their solutions and challenged traditional investment approaches that ignore the human element.
She underlined the need for impactful, creative, and scalable businesses while saying that technology can only flourish with dependable energy and sustainable funding, expressing her dedication to changing communities via deliberate and strategic innovation.
Appealing to everyone for active participation at the forthcoming GITEX Nigeria while making reference to the market activity from Google, Cisco, and Flutterwave, White said “You can start to see what happens when you support us. Please don’t wait till we become big and the rest of the world begins to tell our stories, we want you to tell it for us and we want to walk and work hand in hand with you to build the nation of our dreams.”
