Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani says the contribution of Nigeria’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has risen from about 16 per cent to 21 per cent in three years.
The Minister disclosed this at the official commissioning of the new headquarters of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) in Abuja, where he attributed the growth to reforms and investments by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Dr Tijani said the development demonstrated the increasing importance of the digital economy to Nigeria’s economic growth, job creation and shared prosperity.
He recalled that President Tinubu signed the Nigeria Data Protection Act into law shortly after assuming office in 2023, providing the NDPC with a statutory foundation and the authority to protect the privacy and data rights of Nigerians.
“Government cannot ask citizens and businesses to take data protection seriously while government itself does not. The Federal Government must itself demonstrate the standards that we expect from the rest of our society.”
Tijani said the commissioning of the new NDPC headquarters was particularly significant because the property, recovered through the efforts of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had been returned to productive use for the protection of Nigerians.
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“What was associated with the consequence of corruption is today becoming the headquarters of an institution dedicated to protecting Nigerians and strengthening trust in our digital economy,” he said.
In his remarks, Dr Olatunji described the commissioning as the culmination of years of perseverance, recalling that the data protection initiative began as a small unit underthe National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
The NDPC boss said the commission had licensed 356 Data Protection Compliance Organisations and facilitated the creation of more than 27,000 jobs within three years.
The National Commissioner further disclosed that the NDPC had generated more than N12 billion in revenue within three years, while the data protection ecosystem in Nigeria was now valued at over N18 billion.
Representing the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, the Director of Stakeholder Management and Partnerships, Dr Aristotle Onumo, said data protection had become critical in an era increasingly driven by artificial intelligence.
The NITDA boss said data protection went beyond safeguarding information, stressing that it also protected human dignity, human rights and institutional accountability.
