The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has commenced a capacity-building programme for members of staff of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), military and paramilitary officers on digital literacy, cyber security essentials and cloud computing.
Speaking at the virtual opening ceremony of the programme, the director-general of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Abdullahi, said the exercise was because digital technologies are changing the world at a faster pace than previously experienced waves of technological innovation and are reshaping and introducing new business models and sectors.
He re-emphasised the need to have a digitally literate workforce, stressing that Nigeria must succeed in accelerating the growth and modernisation of her economy and governance.
The NITDA boss, who was represented by his special assistant (technical), Dr. Onimisi Mohammed, underscored the importance of the training. He said the agency, as a forward-looking organisation, is aware of the relevance of civil servants in delivering government programmes.
According to him, the digital transformation efforts of the government cannot be completed without involving civil servants, the military and the paramilitary. He further affirmed that the MDAs are central to the implementation of the Federal Government’s digitalisation.
Meanwhile, to institutionalise the digitalisation programmes in the Federal public institutions (FPIs), Abdullahi said NITDA had to set up digital transformation technical working groups (DTTWGs) whose members are meant to drive down the programmes at different levels of government.
He recalled that, so far, the members of DTTWGs for 200 Federal Public Institutions have been trained and another batch of 200 is to be trained in 2022.
“We in NITDA have supported so many FPIs in terms of tools and training. We are already collaborating and will always be willing to partner with stakeholders to support our economic diversification and sustainability plan for the country.”
While imploring the participants to partake fully and transfer the knowledge gained at the end of the training to their colleagues who could not make it to the training, the NITDA helmsman pledged the agency’s unflinching determination toward achieving the benchmark of 95 per cent digital literacy by 2030.
In her remarks, the manager, ITIS department, NITDA, Chinyere Nwankwo, who gave an overview of the capacity-building programme, said participants of the two-batch training are drawn from 40 MDAs (20 organisations in-person, 20 virtually), military and paramilitary bodies.
“Upskilling the 200 participating members of staff will help Nigeria to catch up with the rest of the world in the area of digitisation, job creation, technology adaptation and deployment in the workplace.”
Nwankwo expressed the hope that both batches, each with 100 participants, will seize the opportunity to effectively learn and utilise the knowledge gained to achieve the sole aim of the initiative.
