The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) said that Nigeria-Ghana collaboration in the IT sector would boost disruptive innovations across the countries and the African continent.
The Director-General of NITDA, Mr Kashifu Inuwa, said this on Tuesday in a statement issued in Abuja by Mrs Hadiza Umar,Head Corporate Affairs and External Relations.
Inuwa said this during a 3-day working visit of the Ghanian National Information Technology Agency (NITDA) delegation led by its Director-General, Mr Richard Fosu.
The visit was to understudy Nigeria’s IT regulatory instruments, policy documents and seek possible areas of collaboration.
Umar quoted Inuwa as saying that Africa had a competitive advantage of talents and population in the fourth industrial revolution.
“A symbiotic relationship between Nigeria and Ghana will engender disruptive innovations that will solve many challenges pervading the continent.
“This kind of visit will strengthen the relationship between our two agencies and build a stronger IT ecosystem in Africa.
“No one can succeed in isolation, and if we really want to succeed as a continent, we need to collaborate, we need to work together.
“We need to learn from our experiences and share expertise so that we can work and grow together,” he said.
According to him,African countries can leverage on their immense natural and human resources to enhance technological advancement in the continent.
Inuwa further said that the Nigerian government had moved from enforcing regulations on the ecosystem and had identified collaboration as critical in creating an enabling environment for the ecosystem to thrive.
He also said that NITDA had developed various regulatory instruments, policy documents and initiatives to create an enviable IT ecosystem in the country which had recorded huge impacts within the continent and globally.
Inuwa also took the Ghanian delegates on a tour of the agency’s Computer Emergency Readiness and Response Team (CERRT) unit.
Fosu, the Ghanian counterpart commended NITDA for fortifying and fostering the nation’s IT ecosystem toward a sustainable digital economy.
He disclosed that NITDA’s supervising ministry had similarly expanded its mandate to include digitalisation and is now known as the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation to project the importance of digitalisation.
Fosu assured that they would key into NITDA’s regulatory instruments and implementation of policy documents.
He said: “We will be working closely with NITDA in bridging the gaps identified in Ghana and Africa as a whole.
“This is not a one-time visit but we will definitely come back. We have come to learn and hope that we can make the needed impact in Ghana,” he said.