Nigeria’s ICT infrastructure Company, Galaxy Backbone Limited, GBB says it is pushing for a single Africa Digital Market.
This would help in ensuring a synchronized economic development in the continent.
The Managing Director/CEO of Galaxy Backbone Limited, GBB, Professor Muhammad Bello Abubakar disclosed this in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital when he played Host to a delegation from Zambia.
Tue delegation was led by Mr. Austin Sichinga, a Director at Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority,ZICTA .
He said Nigeria was the leading economy in Africa and in terms of digitisation, it was also a leading country in the whole of Africa and out of seven unicorns that we have in Africa five of them have their roots in Nigeria.
According to Professor Abubakar, this is enough to tell you the direction that we are going and we have the talent and what needs to be done so that we keep Africa together while we also lead it to the promised land and in the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Smart Africa Alliance
The GBB Boss said one of the efforts to boost this policy is that Nigeria has keyed into the Smart Africa Alliance.
The Smart Africa Alliance is a body that is headquartered in Rwanda and chaired by its the President.
The Smart Africa Alliance is an alliance of 30 African heads of state and Government that aims to take advantage of the affordable access to broadband and the use of information and communication technologies, ICT in Africa to establish a knowledge based economy.
He noted that Nigeria was viewed as a role model that could facilitate the integration of all the flagship projects from other member states to form a unique digital market for Africa.
“The whole essence is to see that we are not left behind in Africa and be able to key into the 4th Industrial revolution that is knowledge based. So we have keyed into that, we are a member country to that.
“One of the things we are doing now in consonance with what Smart Africa Alliance wants to achieve is to have a single digital market for the whole of Africa and that is going to be our flagship in Nigeria
“We want to see that we are able to harmonise All African countries into a single digital market in such a way that we don’t have to depend on other continents,” Professor Abubakar explained.
He recalled that former President Muhammadu Buhari had approved Nigeria’s participation in the smart Africa alliance in September 2022 and also approved Galaxy BackBone Limited as the coordinator for Nigeria.
He said most of the policies developed in Nigeria, are being adopted by other African countries;
“I believe that you are very much aware of the efforts that are being put in place before now in terms of policies for NDEPS 2020-2030 and you are also aware of many other policies that have been developed that will guide the digital transformation of Nigeria as it were and by that the digital transformation of Africa.
“So, part of the efforts that are being made is to also bring digital transformation not only in Nigeria but also in Africa,” the GBB Boss assured.
Nigerian Model
Leader of the Zambian delegation Mr. Austin Sichinga, said it found Nigeria’s model as the most adoptable and adaptable having studied other models across the continent.
“Our country has prioritized the efforts towards digitising the economy and increasing utilization of ICTs as it were, in our journey, we’ve looked at some aspects of securing our transactions and we have looked at various countries that we could learn from.
“We came to an agreement that Nigeria is probably one of the best destinations we can look at because of the various similarities but also on how we look at how they’ve managed a big population but still managing to make some strides on implementing secure digital transactions,” he added.
Confidence Okwuchi
