The NITDA boss alongside some lawmakers and industry stakeholders departed to the glamorous annual event, GITEX to present Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, clearly stating the track records that have been achieved recently.
“The investment stories in Nigeria underscore the viability of the Nigerian startups and the capacity of Nigerians to conceive ingenious ideas. We invite you, our potential investors, to take advantage of this massive talent pool as you invest in Nigeria,” Pantami said.
Narrating some of the success and investment stories in Nigeria, he said, amongst other things that Andella funded by Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg worth over $24million a Nigerian company focused on building World-Class Software Development Teams.
“Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, visited Nigeria last year and had very complimentary things to say about the quality of ICT talent in the country.”
He stated that many Nigerian startups have also won plaudits from home and abroad, noting that startups like HopStop, an online city transit App acquired by Apple for a whopping $1billion, was owned by a Nigerian-born Entrepreneur.
Further, he said, Konga.com, a Nigerian e-commerce company, attracted over $65million funding in 2014. Also, out of a record-breaking total of $366.8 million raised by African startups in 2016, investments in Nigerian startups had the largest share of $109.4 million.
Studies that have that increase in broadband access have a direct correlation with economic development of countries. Countries can increase efficiency and have up to 1.38% growths in per capita income by increasing broadband penetration by 10%.
He said Nigeria realizes the importance of broadband and have developed a comprehensive National Broadband Plan (NBP) a strategy aimed at increasing the broadband penetration in Nigeria to 30% by 2018, up from about 6% in 2013.
“The efforts are already yielding positive results and the ITU Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development attests to this as they confirmed that we attained a broadband penetration level of 20.95% in September 2016.
The government has developed specific ICT policies to attract and retain investment. At NITDA we are implementing an Action Plan that is aimed at transforming Nigeria into a knowledge-based society.”
He assured the international communities that business environment in Nigeria is conducive, disclosing that the Nigerian Presidency recently established the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PBEC) to further improve the investment climate in the country.
“We are implementing an Executive Order aimed at increasing the ease of doing business in Nigeria. This council has already completed 31 reforms that make it easier to invest in Nigeria.
Our investors can now obtain a visa-on-arrival and have a seamless and speedy process of registering their business in Nigeria. This administration has also placed a lot of emphasis on transparency and accountability,” he added.
