The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa, has said that Nigeria has the prospect of earning up to $40 billion annually if the country is able to train more software developers.
Mallam Inuwa stated this at a joint stakeholder meeting with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and all IT-enabled companies in Nigeria.
Citing a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC an accounting firm, which revealed that there was a need for about four million software developers globally and that Nigeria could supply two million of that talent given its youthful and talented population, Mallam Inuwa said training more software developers to meet this need would earn Nigeria revenue far higher than oil.
According to him, before the PwC report, the Agency had launched a one million software developers initiative to produce more software developers for the country. Under the initiative, he said a total of 215, 524 Nigerians have been trained so far.
Highlighting the competitive advantage that could give Nigeria the edge in the global software development ecosystem Mallam, Inuwa said the country has a competitive advantage in terms of youthful population and natural talent globally and has proved it in sports, music, movies, and could replicate this in technology.
He said the PwC report also highlighted remote working as technology has made it possible to live in Nigeria and work for a company in the US or Europe hence the need for about 4 million developers globally and Nigeria can conveniently provide 2 million developers.
Emphasising the need for the private sector to keep supporting the Agency through the payment of the annual technology development levy, the NITDA DG urged corporate organizations to key into the tech capacity-building agenda of the government.
Mallam Inuwa urged the stakeholders to see this as an opportunity to build Nigerian talents.
While addressing participants at the meeting which comprises representatives of telecom companies, banks, insurance, and other IT-enabled companies, the Chairman of FIRS, Muhammad Nami, reminded the stakeholders that the NITDA is funded through the payment of a levy of 1% of profit before tax of companies and enterprises enumerated in the 3rd schedule of the NITDA Act which include pension managers and pension related companies, telecommunication companies, cyber companies, insurance companies and banks/other financial institutions.
Mr Nami, who was represented at the meeting by Group Lead, General Tax Operations Group, FIRS, Mr Abba Kabiru, said there is no hiding place for tax defaulters.
Mr Kaniri said FIRS would continue to support NITDA to achieve its mandate of implementing National Information Technology policies, developing and regulating Information Technology for sustainable development and being the prime catalyst for transforming Nigeria into an IT driven economy.
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