As Information and Communication Technology continue to contribute to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has presented the Draft National BlockChain Adoption Strategy to stakeholders for review.
The stakeholder’s engagement is aimed at reviewing the draft strategy to come up with a solid document because of the legal uncertainties associated with the technology, lack of digitization, unregulated markets, cryptocurrency, Ponzi schemes, money laundering and terrorism funding. And its efficiency, transparency in governance, new business models which in turn triggers job creation.
The Director General of NITDA Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi while delivering his address said the advent of Covid-19 disrupted the global supply chain which has necessitated the need for a technology that can improve trust, transparency and efficient in service.
Quoting Chris Larsen co-founder Ripple, he said “the race to the leadership of emerging technology will be won by the country that dominated digital currency as well as a normalise adoption of Blockchain”.
Mallam Abdullahi said according to an article from PWC titled ‘Trust for the future: The Billion Dollar reasons to rethink Block Chain’, Blockchain is estimated to contribute 1.76 trillion USD to the global GDP in the next ten years. He said the report identified 5 application areas, firstly tracking and tracing of product and services which will take the largest chunk of the estimated global GDP. The report also projected that by 2030 the sector will be valued at 962 billion USD.
Secondly payment and financial services cross border services/remittances to promote financial inclusion and it is estimated that the sector is going to be valued at 423billion USD. Thirdly is digital identity including personal identity, certificate and credential identity to avoid fraud and identity theft and the sector is expected to be valued at 224billion USD.
Fourthly it is about contract and dispute resolution which is where the application on smart contract is adopted and is also projected to be valued around 73billion USD by 2030. And lastly is about customer engagement where you can use the Blockchain application for loyalty and other things and is valued at 54billion USD.
He stated that as a country we do not want to be left behind as we want to benefit from the estimated 1.76billion USD technology which is why the stakeholder engagement is necessary to brain storm on the way forward.
“As a country we need to look for our competitive advantage and see which of those applications we can easily grab value from”, he added.
Speaking earlier at the event the Director IT infrastructure Solutions Dr Usman Gambo Abdullahi said “although the mechanics of Blockchain are extremely complex the basic idea is simple; to decentralise the storage of data so that such data cannot be owned, controlled or manipulated.
Some of government enabling landscape for the adoption are, National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy 2020-2030, Nigeria Cloud Policy 2019, National Broadband Plan 2020-2025, National IT Policy 2012 and Nigeria Data Protection Regulation 2019.
