The document articulates a vision for Nigeria that builds on the transformative power of digital technology and innovation to diversify and deepen the country’s economy.
Today, CcHUB is still doing well, but we were doing extremely well while I was in the private. The trajectory that we were on, if I want to open in 10 African countries, I saw the path. I was already in four countries; Nigeria, Namibia, Kenya and Rwanda, we already do work in 17 countries. We are just about operationalising a hub in Togo; there’s no strong hub there. So, there’s opportunity for us to just keep expanding.
If you take it to the tech start-up, on the soft side of things, you see what Andela was able to build off the back of Nigeria; you see what Flutterwave has been able to build… and that’s without government being extremely aggressive about investing in it. So, imagine what’s possible if you actually get people who understand the pain from the private sector and also understand the role of government to help lift things.
If you look at connectivity for instance, Nigeria is one of the few countries in Africa with seven submarine cables, two more are coming. Even in terms of connecting the country, initial investment has already been done; it’s just the last mile investment that will ensure there’s broadband connectivity everywhere that we need to be aggressive about. And with a president that is pro-business, you can see it.
I think what was inspiring was talking to a lot of the people within the ministry and agencies under the ministry. When you are appointed as a minister, everyone wants to talk to you. So, all the private sector people I’ve been able to talk to, just hearing them, you could see alignment and you could see that there are certain things that needs to happen, and of course, some of them requires that you be audacious.
So, it’s been built in such a way that we focus on the foundation, but we also build the backbone. And as you start to build that, you give opportunity for the creative people among us. In four years, I strongly believe that we can deliver something significant for the country. So if we apply the 1-10-100 Model, it means that in the first three months, we will focus on one per cent of our target, which is 3,000,000 . If we divide the one per cent by states based on its population and level of economic activities, we realise for a state like Abia, what we need to train is about 729 people, which also becomes less daunting.