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Buhari Speaks On Why He Reappointed Inuwa As NITDA DG

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President Muhammadu Buhari has given reasons for the reappointment of Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi as Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

According to him, his decision was based on the agency’s performances and feats achieved under the watch of Abdullahi.

Naija News reports that the president explained in the State House, Abuja, during the launch of the National Policy on the Nigerian Government Second-Level Domains and National Data Strategy, that Abdullahi’s second term was solely based on performance.

The president submitted that going by the evaluation of parastatal under the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, he noticed that NITDA was outstanding in the execution of its mandate in different areas.

President Buhari remarked that “Based on the impressive performance of NITDA, I approved the re-appointment of Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi as the Director-General for the second term in office, from 2023 to 2027.”

He explained that the agency under Abdullahi witnessed the diversification of the economy through the development of policies, the design of programmes, and the implementation of projects in the digital economy sector since 2019.

A development, which according to the president, has been successful considering the contribution of the ICT sector to Nigeria’s gross domestic product in the second quarter of 2022 which stood at 18.44%, compared to the contribution of the oil sector which was 6.33% in the same period.

The President stated that “In December 2022, I approved for the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), to travel to the United States of America to engage SpaceX to complete the process of deployment of StarLink services in Nigeria.

“We are glad that StarLink services are already deployed. This has made Nigeria the first and only African country to have this link. With the deployment, we will have 100% broadband penetration. This is a major milestone in our digital economy journey.

“Since October 2019, we have developed a total of 21 new national policies and strategies and I will be unveiling two of these today, namely the National Policy on the Nigerian Government Second-Level Domains and the National Data Strategy.

“This number of policies is unprecedented and quite commendable. All the policies and strategies are national instruments to support Nigeria’s digital economy at the national and sub-national levels for significant development across all sectors.

“It is our responsibility to give our country a good name in cyberspace and the National Policy on Nigerian Government Second-Level Domains is a step in this direction. Digital identity has been actively promoted by our administration for a sustainable and secure digital economy.”