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Exploring the Potential of Digital Transformation on the Nigerian Economy

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President Muhammadu Buhari
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The concept of a digital economy is essentially a new economy stream that brings with it new momentum.

 

As ICT technologies develop rapidly and become integrated into more and more verticals, the digital economy is becoming the fastest growing, most innovative, and widest-reaching economy.

 

Unleashing the potential of economic development, it drives the transformation of traditional industries, fuels sustainable economic development, improves social management and services, and fosters innovation.

 

Accenture forecast that optimizing the use of digital skills and technologies could generate US$2 trillion of additional global economic output by 2020.

 

The study also revealed the vast role digital technologies play in economic activity, with more than one-fifth of the world’s GDP attributable to digital skills, capital, goods, and services.

 

According to Tencent’s 2017 report China’s Internet + Digital Economy, China’s digital economy created about 2.8 million jobs in 2016, accounting for 21% of the total new jobs.

 

Nigeria is undoubtedly one of Africa’s most promising nations with over 190million people, this country remains the largest mobile market on the continent.

 

Over the past years the country has witnessed a surge and growth of e-commerce businesses, an increase in small to large scale enterprise and not to mention a ton of mobile based services that meet a wide range of needs for people every day.

 

A majority of these innovations and establishment are riding on the back of Technology and Connectivity.

 

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) predicted that the e-commerce sector is expected to contribute about 10 per cent, a projected N10trillion, to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2018.

 

The e-Commerce market in Nigeria is currently worth around $13billion (about N4.01trillion), according to a report by London based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Nigeria’s e-commerce market value could rise to $50billion (N15.45trillion) over the next decade.

 

However Africa and specifically in Nigeria face challenges stemming from insufficient ICT infrastructure, to the lack of unskilled human capital and most importantly firm government push on ICT and digital transformation.

 

Specifically Nigeria as a country needs to focus on its infrastructure establishment. Reliable and affordable broadband for businesses and individuals are critical for future stages of ICT use.

 

While it is evident that there has been some considerable level of development and adoption of technology and telecommunication, however to build and sustain a viably digital economy in Nigeria and to fully reap the benefit from it, there are critical areas that need attending to.

 

Connecting the Unconnected

The relevance of the connectivity cannot be over emphasized. Taking communication sites for instance, Indonesia, a country with similar population with Nigeria, has more network base station sites than Nigeria.

 

According to ICT development Index 2017 by ITU, there is a need to increase network sites in Nigeria like the one in Indonesia, both urban and rural areas, not to mention that more than half of Nigeria’s 180 million population living in rural areas have much poorer mobile signal coverage.

 

It is important to note that with the increasing rate of mobile internet penetration in Nigeria, 23million of the Nigerian population still have no telecommunication access largely in the rural communities.

 

Is some rural villages in Ogun State bordering with the Republic of Benin, residents would have to go over the border to Benin Republic just make a phone call, which would be International call as the telecommunication provider was not Nigerian based. Worse case they would need to commute to the next village to make local calls via local operators.

Huawei-Logo.jpg

Huawei has started a series of rural telecommunication access initiatives with some of operators across Africa, leveraging our Rural Star solution.

 

The solution is specifically designed for remote parts of the country that do not currently have mobile network coverage, our goal is to bridge the digital divide in remote parts of Africa, especially in Nigeria.

 

The solution leverages cutting edge technology innovation by reducing the total cost of building and running a mobile network site by up to 70 per cent.

 

There is an increase in the MBB subscription rate with affordability being improved over the year. However, there are limited metro and access fiber network in Nigeria 11% proportion is far lower than other Africa countries Affecting user experience and broadband development.

 

The growth in internet/mobile adoption amongst Nigerians present huge opportunities for businesses that take advantage of new technologies such as social media and e-commerce.

 

The annual research project called the Global Connectivity Index (GCI). Nigeria ranks 70th in GCI 2018. The report shows that as an early starter (countries in the early stage of ICT infrastructure build-out), Nigeria needs to focus on increasing ICT infrastructure and policies to give more people access to the digital world.

 

The report finds that a 1 point increase in GCI score is equivalent to 1) a 2.1% increase in competitiveness 2) 2.2% increase in national innovation, and 3) a 2.3% increase in productivity.

 

Reaping the benefits of a digital economy starts with having reliable mobile networks and internet access to connect the unconnected. Internet access itself is not enough though.

 

Huawei believes that in Africa connectivity brought by the network of communication towers and fiber is like the “soil”, which provides the fertile ground for important value-adding crops, which in this case are services including Safe City, E-government, E-education, E-health, E-agriculture etc. that enhance public social services delivery and better allocation of resources.

 

Public sector as an Enabler and Private Sector as an Innovator

To achieve digital economy, we need joint efforts from both private and public sectors, with the right programs and policies the Nigerian governments can make digital transformation a reality much seamless for citizens and businesses.

 

According to OECD’s Digital Economy Outlook 2016, by the end of 2015, 80% of OECD member states had developed national strategies or departmental policies and built strategic frameworks for the digital economy. Nigeria is not left behind in building a framework to boost its digital transformation;

“SMART Digital Nigeria” has been proposed as the required panacea to bridge the uneven growth presently dominating the ICT sector. The plan observed that Nigeria’s longstanding focus mostly over the last seventeen years on Information Technology infrastructure development and also other areas in the industry including promotion of ICT local content, ICT deployment in Government and expansion of ICT access to Nigerians by deepening the penetration of broadband to ensure that information and knowledge is not only secured but enhances national security and creating of more jobs for as well as unleash the creativity of our teeming youth for overall national development.

 

To make a lasting impact with this program, there are three levels that should be looked into: Public investment and support for private investment in ICT infrastructure, particularly data centers and broadband connectivity, through Infrastructure sharing, investment-friendly regulations, Taxation Policies that fosters investment, spectrum policies that aims to improve coverage, and cutting of red tap to ease the investment e.g. in approval of Right of Ways. Policies that support the advancement of digital transformation of industries.

 

Support for online services, including ecommerce, internet banking, e-government, e-health, and e-learning. These steps will not only enhance the availability and accessibility of internet and other serviced based on ICT infrastructure, but also can be interpreted directly into affordability of those services to bridge the digital gap and achieve digital inclusiveness.

 

Take Infrastructure sharing for an instance, research shows that Infrastructure sharing can impact the reduction of capital investment substantially with on-going operating cost reductions between 50% and 80% depending on market structure and the sharing model implemented. Opening up public infrastructure such as lamppost, Electric Pole, government buildings, billboards has an important role to play in limiting the cost and increasing speed and smoothness of network expansion projects.

 

These efforts will enable private sectors deploy and scale network access much faster and seamless across and the country and ultimately increasing connectivity access and reach to more citizens much faster.

 

A look ahead

Information technology is not the ultimate solution for economic growth, however ICT serves as a tool that enables digital transformation and provides newer and smarter way of communicating and transacting.

 

For Nigeria Unlocking the dividends of digital economy becomes imperative in the face of dwindling oil revenue with increasingly pressure on the economy.

 

An effective blend of broadband access coupled with effective and reliable internet connectivity will also go a long way in fast tracking business productivity and thereby promote digitalized business behavior which in reality is the bone of future economy.

 


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Nigeria CommunicationsWeek believes that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people around Nigeria and indeed the world. So since 2007, we have devoted our energy to independent reportage of technology and how they affect lives.

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AI Slows Down some Experienced Software Developers, Study Finds

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Contrary to popular belief, using cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools slowed down experienced software developers when they were working in codebases familiar to them, rather than supercharging their work, a new study found.

AI research nonprofit METR conducted the in-depth study, on a group of seasoned developers earlier this year while they used Cursor, a popular AI coding assistant, to help them complete tasks in open-source projects they were familiar with.

Before the study, the open-source developers believed using AI would speed them up, estimating it would decrease task completion time by 24%. Even after completing the tasks with AI, the developers believed that they had decreased task times by 20%. But the study found that using AI did the opposite: it increased task completion time by 19%.

The study’s lead authors, Joel Becker and Nate Rush, said they were shocked by the results: prior to the study, Rush had written down that he expected “a 2x speed up, somewhat obviously.”

The findings challenge the belief that AI always makes expensive human engineers much more productive, a factor that has attracted substantial investment into companies selling AI products to aid software development.

AI is also expected to replace entry-level coding positions. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, recently told Axios that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs in the next one to five years.

Prior literature on productivity improvements has found significant gains: one study found using AI sped up coders by 56%, another study found developers were able to complete 26% more tasks in a given time.

But the new METR study shows that those gains don’t apply to all software development scenarios. In particular, this study showed that experienced developers intimately familiar with the quirks and requirements of large, established open source codebases experienced a slowdown.

Other studies often rely on software development benchmarks for AI, which sometimes misrepresent real-world tasks, the study’s authors said.

The slowdown stemmed from developers needing to spend time going over and correcting what the AI models suggested.

“When we watched the videos, we found that the AIs made some suggestions about their work, and the suggestions were often directionally correct, but not exactly what’s needed,” Becker said.

The authors cautioned that they do not expect the slowdown to apply in other scenarios, such as for junior engineers or engineers working in codebases they aren’t familiar with.

Still, the majority of the study’s participants, as well as the study’s authors, continue to use Cursor today.

The authors believe it is because AI makes the development experience easier, and in turn, more pleasant, akin to editing an essay instead of staring at a blank page.

“Developers have goals other than completing the task as soon as possible,” Becker said. “So they’re going with this less effortful route.”

 


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Firm Uncovers $500K Crypto Heist Through Malicious Packages

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Kaspersky GReAT (Global Research and Analysis Team) experts have discovered open-source packages that download the Quasar backdoor and a stealer designed to exfiltrate cryptocurrency. The malicious packages are intended for the Cursor AI development environment, which is based on Visual Studio Code — a tool used for AI-assisted coding.

The malicious open-source packages are extensions hosted in the Open VSX repository that claim to provide support for the Solidity programming language. However, in practice, they download and execute malicious code on users’ devices.

During an incident response, a blockchain developer from Russia reached out to Kaspersky after installing one of these fake extensions on his computer, which allowed attackers to steal approximately $500,000 worth of crypto assets.

The threat actor behind these packages managed to deceive the developer by making the malicious package rank higher than the legitimate one. The attacker achieved this by artificially inflating the malicious package’s downloads count to 54,000.

After installation, the victim gained no actual functionality from the extension. Instead, malicious ScreenConnect software was installed on the computer, granting threat actors remote access to the infected device.

Using this access, they deployed the open-source Quasar backdoor along with a stealer that collects data from browsers, email clients, and crypto wallets. With these tools, the threat actors were able to obtain the developer’s wallet seed phrases and subsequently steal cryptocurrency from the accounts.

After the malicious extension downloaded by the developer was discovered and removed from the repository, the threat actor republished it and artificially inflated its installation count to a higher number – 2 million, compared to 61,000 for the legitimate package. The extension was removed from the platform following a request from Kaspersky.

“Spotting compromised open-source packages with the naked eye is becoming increasingly difficult. Threat actors are using increasingly creative tactics to deceive potential victims, even developers who have a strong understanding of cybersecurity risks — particularly those working in the blockchain development field.

As we expect adversaries to continue targeting developers, it is recommended that even experienced IT professionals deploy dedicated security solutions to safeguard sensitive data and prevent financial losses,” commented Georgy Kucherin, Security Researcher with Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team.

The threat actor behind the attack published not only malicious Solidity extensions but also another NPM package, solsafe, which also downloads ScreenConnect. A few months earlier, three additional malicious Visual Studio Code extensions were released — solaibot, among-eth, and blankebesxstnion — all of them have already been removed from the repository.


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NITDA Reaffirms Commitment to 95% Digital Literacy by 2030, as UBEC Pledges Collaboration

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DG NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa CCIE (left), receiving an award for an Ambassador of Basic Education from the ES UBEC, Hajia Aisha Garba (right)
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Kashifu Inuwa CCIE, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has reaffirmed the Federal Government’s unwavering commitment to achieving 95% digital literacy across Nigeria by the year 2030, with an ambitious milestone of 70% by 2027.

This disclosure was made in total alignment with the present administration’s priority areas of reforming the economy for sustained inclusive growth and accelerating diversification through industrialisation, digitisation, creative arts, manufacturing, and innovation.

Making this known during a collaborative meeting hosted by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Inuwa highlighted the government’s strategic prioritisation of human capital development as central to its national transformation agenda.

“We started this journey in 2023 when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came on board and he made it clear that economic diversification and inclusivity are part of the administration’s agenda,” he noted.

“And the president outlined this in 8 priority areas to achieve the vision, with priority number 7 specifically focused on accelerating industrialisation, digitisation, creative arts, manufacturing, and innovation,” he added.

Recognising the importance of digital fluency in achieving this agenda, he stated that NITDA is committed to investing in the digital empowerment of citizens through the development of the National Digital Literacy Framework (NDLF), a strategic blueprint aligned with international best practices.

He added that to tailor the framework to Nigeria’s specific needs, 6 core competency areas were incorporated to include device and software operations, information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, content creation, safety, and problem solving.

He explained that the framework would address all levels of digital fluency, from basic, intermediate to advanced levels, to make digital skills accessible to every Nigerian, from primary school pupils to working professionals.

According to Inuwa, despite data limitations, NITDA estimates that Nigeria’s digital literacy rate currently stands at 50%, up from 44% in 2021, based on extrapolations from the World Bank’s Better Life Report.

The NITDA DG disclosed that the agency has been working closely with the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) in developing a curriculum for digital literacy, which can be infused into formal education. Stating that the visit is a continuation of NITDA’s ongoing engagements with key education stakeholders, including the Federal Ministry of Education, the National Universities Commission (NUC), and the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), all aimed at advancing digital literacy across all levels of learning.

Inuwa also revealed ongoing collaborations with global platforms such as Coursera to train teachers using AI-powered lesson generation tools and provide scalable online training.

It is worth recalling that late last year, NITDA partnered with the Nasarawa State University in collaboration with CISCO in launching the Digital Learning for NSUK (DL4NSUK) initiative to enhance digital literacy in tertiary institutions, and equipping graduates with the skills needed to be digitally proficient and globally competitive.

While stressing that the entire process, from curriculum development to classroom delivery, would require a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, Inuwa said, “This is not a journey we can walk alone; we must bring everyone on board, education stakeholders, technology providers, state governments, and international partners.”

In response to the DG’s remarks, UBEC Executive Secretary, Hajiya Aisha Garba, confirmed that the Commission has officially received the digital literacy curriculum developed by NITDA and NERDC and has commenced internal review processes.

She acknowledged the curriculum as robust and forward-looking but stressed the need for simplification to suit early learners and teachers, citing challenges such as curriculum overload, limited teacher capacity, and inadequate infrastructure as key barriers to effective implementation.

She pledged that UBEC, in partnership with the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), will lead efforts to equip schools with computers and solar-powered infrastructure to support real learning.

“We’re committed to working with NITDA and NERDC to refine the curriculum, train teachers, and ensure effective delivery. Let us align the technical vision with grassroots realities to make a lasting impact,” she concluded.

To formalise the implementation of the meeting’s resolutions, a joint inter-agency committee was established to develop strategic plans that will ensure the effective rollout of the digital literacy initiative, to equip young Nigerians with the essential digital skills required to thrive in an increasingly dynamic and technology-driven global landscape.


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