FG to Generate $88 Billion From Digital Economy

• FG to Generate $88 Billion From Digital Economy

The Federal Government on Tuesday announced its plan to generate $88 billion and create about three million jobs through digital economy within a period of 10 years.

Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals, said the Federal Government has embarked on activities to efficiently grow the digital space in order to actualise its target.

Speaking at the inauguration of the first digital classroom in Abuja, Orelope-Adefulire said FG is working on innovation-driven digital economy, following a series of research conducted by senior officials during their visit to Silicon Valley in the United States and engagement with top executive officers of global technology companies.

“Only recently, we hosted Google executives who are working to provide free Internet to 10 million Nigerians in key locations across the country,” said Orelope-Adefulire. Google, like several other IT companies, is establishing a strong presence in Nigeria not out of altruism but based on hard and rational logic of profit to be made and potential to impact a large youthful market of 200 million population.”

“The Nigerian digital economy will generate an estimated $88bn and create three million jobs over the next 10 years. Today, we are experiencing a different kind of revolution. It is the digital revolution. Our world is a global village and what happens in one end of the world reverberates in another end in micro seconds.”

She further stated that technology had brought new opportunities to both businesses and individuals by enhancing productivity through lower cost of production and efficient communication channels that connects customers and businesses like never before.

“If properly managed, it would enhance foreign revenues, further diversify the economy and deepen economic activity,” said Dapo Alade, a software engineer cum digital entrepreneur.

Orelope-Adefulire thanks Netdragon Websoft, led by its Chairman, Dejian Liu, for the donation of the facility to one of the communities in Abuja.