The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> This is Nigeria open forum at the 2024 Internet Government Forum held in Saudi Arabia.
Today we'll be looking at digital policy as a catalyst for economic growth in Nigeria. People as stakeholders and Nigeria that would be addressing us. I have to my left someone who (inaudible). Is representing the minister of communications, innovation, and digital economy for the Republic of Nigeria Dr. Also here joining me in welcoming his excellency. You're welcome here. Sitting close to him is representative of the general of NITDA, Mr. Kashifu Inuwa. You're welcome. We also from the Nigeria communications commission, NCC, the regulatory for the government for telecoms in Nigeria, welcoming Babagana Digima. Commissioner, you're welcome. We also involving the civil society organizations, and today I have, president internet society of Nigerian chapter. You are welcome. We have a number of people in the audience, my brother, the Chairman of house of representatives community on IOC and cybersecurity. He is also here, my brother.
Then, I'm going to kick this off, but first, let me also recognize Madam Mary Uduma, the internet of Africa, and I feel more comfortable if you sit somewhere very close to me so that I know I'm fully protected. To ensure our data is protected and indeed for all our digital in Nigeria, I have the national Commissioner and the head of Nigeria data protection commission, Dr. Vincent Olatunji. He joins us online. If you can hear us, please wave to us.
>> VINCENT OLATUNJI: Good afternoon.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: Also the director in charge of corporate strategy of NITDA, welcome Dr. Please give opening remarks. You're welcome.
>> DS WARIOWEI: Thank you very much for coming. I have the privilege to welcome all of you to this meeting. This is actualizing or NIGF in Nigeria. Now we're doing this in Saudi Arabia. Briefly, we had our IGF in Nigeria last two months in October precisely wherein we had several sessions, the youth session, the women IGF, as well as the internet school. We had that. We learned quite a lot. We intent to implement what we have learned when we get back to Nigeria.
Specifically, I note the Parliamentary session that I attend a few minutes ago, and it was glaring that so much can be achieved if we involve the Parliamentarians. In our next IGF meeting sometime next year. We will have a full visitation to go about this thing. A few things we've learned here, we intent to apply when we get back to our country.
So on that note, I welcome all of you to this session knowing that at the end of the session we should come out with a few points that we can implement. Thank you very much.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: Thank you so much. At this point in time I'm going to be inviting first, you give the opening remarks of the minister of communication innovation, digital economy, and after that I'll invite him to commence conversation, but for now let him put on the minister. Minister of communication information and economy, you have a few minutes to make the opening remarks of the minister.
>> Thank you. I hope you can all hear me. The Chairman Senate committee on ICT and cybersecurity are very able, distinguished Senator. Our Chairman house committee on ICT and cybersecurity also digital the representative of the director general of NITDA, the director ICT and the federal minister of communications, innovation, and digital economy.
Very distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, a very good evening to everyone. It is indeed a great pleasure for me to, first of all, be at the Internet Governance Forum 2024 here in Riyadh for the first time. I'm actually attending this for the very first time, so you can as well imagine my excitement about what I've seen in the last few days. That said I'm here standing as has been introduced speaking on behalf of His Excellency, the minister of communications, innovation, and digital economy, Dr. Bosa, who would have been here but for other cogent reasons. I spoke with him this morning. I mentioned to him that this session is going to be coming up, and he asked that I should send his very warm greetings to all of you and to express the appreciation of the ministry of communications. For most of you that have taken the pains to be here to represent Nigeria, especially those members of the are Nigerian Internet Governance Forum who has been hands on, but here in Riyadh and before now in ensuring that the digital economy of Nigeria continue to strive.
More importantly, for the fact that today has been scheduled specifically to discuss a very important (inaudible).
(Silence).
I think there would be no better topic to be discussed in this kind of time reflecting on so many things. The fact that Nigeria has already positioned itself in terms of our activities and our recognition as a leading if not the most the fastest growing country in terms of digital economy. Of course, without a doubt we have witnessed phenomenal growth with regards to innovators and even investors within the last couple of years. We have seen companies in digital economy companies like Paystack and a lot of others that are at different stages of ink baiting themselves.
It is fine that in this kind of time we sit around the table like this and reflect back and see what are those opportunities and what are those challenges that we need to address? This can only be done through policies, and that's why, again, this meeting is extremely important. It's no more news that the Nigerian population is well over 200 million people. I am also very much aware that out of this over 65 percent are currently under the age of 35. That places Nigeria appropriately to lead in the digital economy transformation agenda. Not only our country, but our region and indeed of the world.
We can only do that if we have the right policies in place, policies that create the environment for us to build a world class infrastructure in terms of fiberoptics connectivity infrastructure, fiberoptics, satellites, microwaves and the rest. It's also only through policies that we are able to position Nigeria with regards to talents, ability to make good use of the resources we have and channelling them to us local and international capacities for the growth of this very important sector.
Of course, as we speak, internet access is almost 75 percent, which means almost 150 million people. The entire population of the Gulf having access in our country for internet. That's a huge opportunity that requires this kind of discussion. Again, we have big opportunities in terms of our infrastructure.
(Silence).
The meeting we're having today although it's a mix of different Nigeria agencies, it's also a very unique opportunity to think around especially that we have the benefit of having (inaudible) here with us. (Inaudible) that could allow for us to move forward.
I want to just mention a few policy issues that have recently happened in the country so to help our discussion to take a better course. By 2021 already had the original economy policy and strategy. At the beginning of 2023 we had the (inaudible) talent, literacy. Second being policy. Five being infrastructure. Fourth being innovation, entrepreneurship, and capital. The fifth being particularly in African tribe and international tribe. Also, the ministry (inaudible), and AI strategy.
Many of us have had throughout the times we've been here the discussion has formed around and centered around artificial intelligence, and we can clearly see that any country that is not in the (inaudible) stands the risk of being left behind. In a very proactive manner the leadership of the ministry of communication working with all of you here as agencies and facilitators are hoping to develop this forward looking strategic blueprint that led into that artificial intelligence strategy, which I believe is one of the leading documents not only on African continent, but around the world. This is because of the manner in which the policy was developed.
It was actually (inaudible) by bringing the best prints of African origin. (Inaudible).
(Audio cutting in and out).
Coming together to spend a whole week thinking about the best practices found in the world. I believe Nigeria is currently in the position (inaudible) and taking advantage of the knowledge that we've gathered from this event. We should be able to go back home and then facilitate this language into implementing our already existing policies and frameworks back at home.
So on this note, distinguished Senator, distinguished member, distinguished guests, I want to thank everyone for being here. I also want us to be open minded. This is a platform and opportunity for us to discuss robustly so that we can take away something that can be applied back home for the good of our people.
I thank you for listening. Thank you.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: (Inaudible) please clap for yourself. (Inaudible) I would like to thank the Minister for that.
(Inaudible).
To see the minister it appears back in Nigeria and international assembly is not an easy and establishing an internet society. Now that we're here, I want to be able to leave here with some concrete action points so that we don't just come here and just talk and then we go. This is a Nigerian forum. It's an conversation between us and all the stakeholders. I want to leave here with some two, three, four, five action points that when we get back to Nigeria, we can begin to follow up on so it doesn't take us meeting again next year.
(Inaudible) as a Chairman of West African governance, the idea or insight you can share with us of things that have happened in other West African countries? And you have five minutes to be able to do this so that we can have an opportunity of taking ideas and things that we can learn from other West African countries particularly in a digital space.
>> MARY UDUMA: Thank you very much. I hope you can hear me. Yes. First of all, I want to thank I want to stand on the existing protocol that the honorable minister and the ministry that has established, and the Senator as well. I greet you all.
The truth is this, that every African country, west African country, is interested in digital economy, digital transformation, development, security, data protecting your data, making sure our privacy is respected. Some have gone far, like in (inaudible). The identity in Benin, your data identity in Benin is what you use for your hospital. It's what you use for your bank. It's what you use for registration, for any identity process you want to carry out in Benin. I just want to use Benin as an example. So they have done that, harmonized their data, harmonized their processes, and they are also developing their data.
I'm not sure that data protection policy is as good as ours because ours is very, very robust, but the thing is that they harmonized. They harmonized it in such a way that there's a converging point whether you are going to hospital or bank or going for elections. So your identity is your identity. They've harmonized that. That's one of the policies we have seen in West Africa that has happened.
And we are also there's this West Africa interpretation initiative that is on that we had it's being facilitated. There are some countries in West Africa that have done some work in their data protection, but ours is still better. Ghana has done very well, but I don't think it's as robust as our own. Well, we're bigger. We're bigger in number and so we have a lesson to learn from Ghana. They've done very well in that interpretation strategy and legislation.
Other countries, Sierra Leone, they've not started anything. Senegal is also coming up with some, but not good as we are looking at it. West Africa is leading. We should continually lead, and we should also make sure that as our legislation must be progressive one, legislation must be progressive one, and we will make sure that we are protected. Our children in particular are protected, and we'll be in the online environment safely in the online environment, and we'll convert our population to economy. What do I mean by that? That we have big population that the minister has over 2 million. There's nothing over 200 million. Sorry. Over 200 million. There's nothing that we bring in that will not surpass every other there's no bill there's no legislation, there's no policy that we implement that will not surpass all of the subregions.
We have the private sector. Once upon a time I met somebody. He was is that okay? He wanted to market his products, his cream for women. So I met him in Ethiopia. He said it's crazy to be in Nigeria. You can't meet the demand.
In technology you can't meet the demand. In physical product you can't meet the demand. In data generation and data economy we can't meet the nobody can beat us, so I believe that we the numbers, we have the talent, we have the wherewithal to be able we have the wherewithal to be able to surpass what we are doing now. I mean, if we do it right, right, if we do it right, we will attract investment. Investment in infrastructure, investment in everything we do.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: Thank you thank you, Madam. What came through from our intervention is that the second thing is that there are also a few lessons from other countries and from us as Africa as a whole, and thirdly, there are a number of policies also being developed around us that we as a member of E.U. also need to be very much familiar with. Thank you.
I'm going to you. In this panel you are the number one how do we ensure? You mentioned in 2021 there was in policy. In 2022 there was this policy. How do we put in place a framework some sort of safeguard to ensure that the policies of 2021 is in 2023 and a new one in place in 2025? How do we ensure policy consistency, particularly in the digital age?
>> Thank you. Thank you very much, again, distinguished Senator. That is absolutely a very fair statement to say that we and it's not just particular to Nigeria. Policy inconsistencies, policy and so on and so forth are the norm in many jurisdictions.
One thing that is causing this is largely due to very weak institutions. So our governance structure is such that individuals becomes more powerful than the institutions they lead. So when you have that kind of a situation you are faced with very weak ability for the bureaucrats to guide the politician because mostly it's the politicians, people like you, that are actually calling the shots. Without us developing our political frameworks for or politicians and bureaucrats to be on the same panel, I will continue to have this kind of problems.
So I think one of the key things we can do to address this problem is by like this where we're all here. We're listening to so many jurisdictions, how they are striving, how they are moving forward. We look at all those countries that are succeeding. One common thing you'll find about them is that they have been consistent in their policies development. Now, having said that, I want to acknowledge the fact that in Nigeria today we really have come a long way in terms of our consistency because as we speak, most of the policies that I mentioned were actually done by previous regimes. I think that gives us a thumbs up realizing that new administration when they come they also (inaudible) in this regard. Thank you.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: It appears that peer learning and it appears also to have multistakeholders approach so that when we have a very strong multistakeholder approach, in a civil society, it becomes difficult for any government to just change a policy. Of course, we must continue to have engage the between the bureaucrat and those who are tenants. The brokers are the landlords. The politicians are the tenants.
Let me now go to Niteabai. You are the center of most of our policy implementation. Why did ministry is in the forefront of formulating this policy, the agencies are at the ministry of those that implement the policy, and in particular, Niteabai, you have a role to play. Let me ask you, what are the challenges of policy implementation now? The ministry the government formulates policy. Which are you supposed to implement? Now and then we see agencies or governments for those policies even when sometimes some of the initiatives are supposed to be vetted by you and approved by you. What are challenges you have in implementing some of the policies, particularly in the digital space?
>> NITEABAI DOMINIK: Thank you very much, distinguished Senator. I stand on existing protocols. NITDA is in a unique position because we basically deal with digital technologies either as a tool or as a sector on its own. And because digital technologies permeate every sector. It becomes difficult for you to step into the space of other regulators to manage and handle digital technologies in their space. Remember, most of this, regulators also have their mandates and powers prescribed by existing laws, and so they are entitled to actually carry out their functions. We are dealing with monetary policies where, they definitely have to do with technology as well because they affect their monetary policy. So the challenge in actually implementing government policy is the fact that a policy may govern a certain year, and yet, there's another policy that affects that policy from a totally different sector on its own, and this government agency has legitimate authorities to implement those structures. I think one of the greatest things that can actually happen is not only about policies change, but also policy coherence and opportunity for different regulators to have actually have a forum and opportunity like you mentioned the multistakeholder model to engage and discuss and have a common position regarding the application of technology in the variation sectors. This will create the kind of coherence that will enable NITDA to go on and implement its functions on the mandates and ensure the government policy actually achieve those goals which have been developed to achieve.
So just an opportunity for all regulators to collaborate and ensure there's a uniform position whenever we are dealing with technology issues. It will help to implement its mandates appropriately. So that's one of the greatest difficulties.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: I'm getting excited. We're having some of the issues that hamper full implement of some of our policies and before we go to NCC there's a baby in the house. That baby is data protection commission. I think among all the agencies they are the last established in 2023, 2024. Dr. Vincent Olatunji, if you can hear me, you have been at the head of affairs and national Commissioner in the last one year. What has been your experience? What do we need to do differently so that because before you become an octopus like NITDA, is there anything we need to trick now in your heart or your spirit that you want to share with us in the next two minutes?
>> VINCENT OLATUNJI: Thank you, distinguished Senator.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: (Inaudible).
>> VINCENT OLATUNJI: Can you hear me now? (Inaudible) the proposal (inaudible) and because (inaudible).
(Inaudible).
(Inaudible).
Either way they know (inaudible). In terms of the sector (inaudible).
A lot of challenges (inaudible).
With the commission itself in terms of freely and (inaudible).
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: You have not been given enough money. I have told them that very clearly, and they are in the holy land. They will turn a new leaf. They will repent here before they go.
Thank you, Commissioner. If the challenge of the data protection commission is about being infancy. It's about learning the ropes about certain problems. NCC, do you the challenge of policy absolency. You came on board. Are your policies still in tandem or regulations, are they still taking in current realities? NCC was created about mobile telephone. Today we have AI. We have content and a number of other things that have changed the landscape. Are your policies and regulations, are they still very much in line with the current realities, or do we need to change them?
>> Thank you very much, sir. Just like you said, the NCC enjoys a very yawn evening position as an enabler. It acts in service also a very robust act. It has served as a point not only for Nigeria, but other countries to look forward to.
Yes, there's been quite a number of developments over the years from when the act was done to date. We accede to that fact. We do have places in the act that we want to update. At this point I think our act is enough to cater for the changes because in the first place apart from the mobile numbers that we are dealing with, the act also provides for us for all electronic addresses, which basically is IP addresses, ASNs.
From that angle if you look at it, the act covers not only the telephone or telephone aspect, but also the internet aspect as well. It's very robust in that manner. There's convergence everywhere you look at. Your device our mobile phones also are a point of access for internet. They are used to make calls. In some cases they're also offices basically. So there's convergence in that sense.
Definitely as the future grows, we also must converge in terms of regulation, and that's something that is inevitable for the whole industry, not only the NCC. NITDA is here. Other agencies, like you mentioned. We all have interaction from that point of view even with data protection.
We deal with areas where there's a need for us in terms of security, for example, in terms of data protection, and so on. You can see that there has to be that convergence or that work relationship between all the agencies under the ministry and especially because we, like I said, are enabling we are regulating and enabling environment.
Yes, thank you.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: Let me say to you before you move, we have USPF as part of initiative to ensure that the underserved communities or we have very a digital divide. UNESCO has just come out with IUI, the new industries of measure connectivity to measure how countries are progressing on digital divide. It's high on our list. Is our USPF policy working?
>> The policy itself is working, but (inaudible), like was mentioned as well. It always lies with funding basically. Nigeria is a very large country, and we have a population of over 200 million. A lot of unserved and underserved area.
In fact, even within the cities there are unserved areas. If you look at it from the perspective of fiber roll out, for example. Even within cities like Abuja, and apart from Legos, I don't think we have any commercial FTT service in infantry the state capitals. Even from that point of view you see the challenge is there for us as Nigerians.
That means the USPF is actually quite limited in terms of the funding they can put in all the areas. So most of the concentration of effort has been the rural areas and has been, of course, provision of mobile connectivity, which incidentally takes over 98 percent of all internet connectivity in Nigeria that comes through mobile connectivity. So I think in that aspect, yes, the USPF has been trying, but yes, there is need to do more, but what is holding us back mostly is funding because of the amount of money we have for those projects will not be enough to go around all the areas. Thank you.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: The civil society by the way, let me announce that there is going to be another site function from the national assembly, and therefore, bringing I wanted to ensure that you are not aware of that we are speaking. Now that you have spoken your mind, please join me in welcoming to join the panel. You'll be providing a broader function on this. I also have a question. You know I'm not speaking today as a legislature, and I don't want your voice to be muted. Let me bring the power of the microphone to bring you to the you have listened to all of them. You listened to Dr. Vincent.
The civil society, what do you think your roles are in policy formulation and you're holding governments accountable by announced policies? How have the user experience in Nigeria to guide us?
>> Thank you very much. I think that is a very good question for a civil society at the same time (inaudible). Let me start by saying that the Internet Society is a group and actually it's a global advocacy group. Of course, we have chapters in all countries. We have a Nigerian chapter, which, of course, I provide on. We have our own pod, and of course, we have executive council.
For us in Internet Society what we do, we collaborate with the agencies to see that what has been postulated is brought to fruition. That is one of the things we have been doing. For us in this particular area we believe that we need to be detail literate, and we have a lot of initiatives that we are preaching in that regard. As a matter of fact, we work with the Nigerian tenant, the multi advisory group to organize what is known as Nigerian school On the Internet Governance. We organize the edition and it's been acclaimed to be the best so far.
What we do is to bring people up to speed in terms of knowledge, in terms of, okay, we need to be digitally literal and what's in the governance space. We've been involved in because we believe that, you know, the women are the latest or the girls focus is very unique, and they need to be given special attention. So we're keen to the United Nations, ITU, and we do celebrate it every year, and you'll be interested to know that even this year we collaborated with another government organization (inaudible). We trained over 600 girls in my city. What we're trying to achieve is to ensure that, okay, girl is also part of this community that we're talking about. They need to be digitally literal and in the field. That is one of our initiatives.
On the issue of, okay, how do we work with the government agency? We've been working with them actually, and one of the things we tried to do is to transform as much as possible to adhere to the grant. When there's a new policy, we try as much as possible to be keen to the stakeholders forum, open forum so that our voices can be heard. We believe in the rule of law, and we believe that, okay, things must follow the process.
However, everybody needs to be carried along. For us to do that we came to such forums so that we can have our own opinion. We believe that by bringing that at the end of the day we're going to have a very robust and send policy. You may also this might interest you to know that apart from that we've also been in touch with (inaudible).
(Silence).
What I mean by that is that we believe that internet is a great equalizer. Equalizer in the sense that if you (inaudible) you use internet. If you are a Senator, you use internet. If you are not a Senator, you use internet. The opportunity is the same for everyone. The internet is everywhere. If it's everywhere, we need to make sure that the digital infrastructures work and for us to have the internet, the infrastructure must be on ground. It's called the services that must be on ground. For us we believe that, yes, the 21st century is all about the internet and the digital economy, and that's why we're part of this.
Sir, I want to make this that if provincial there is a way that whenever there's going to be an (inaudible). The truth is that we may not hear about everything that is going on. Even if there was a channel of communication that can be set up so at least civil organizations can be informed so that at least we'll be part of your process. We would be glad to do that. Thank you.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: Thank you for your effort as a civil society organization. Policies, regulations, the subsidiary to legislation. Therefore, in the last few days here the experience and the frame from all the parliaments from across the world is similarly disconnect between the legislature and the executive branch of government such that where countries sign protocols, they sign conventions, but they're not rectified by (inaudible) because the legislators didn't understand the basis or they were not part of (inaudible).
The Chairman of the committee on cybersecurity, what do you think we need to do to bridge the gap between the legislatures and the rest of the stakeholders, particularly our agencies and the branch of government?
>> Thank you, my respected colleague, Senator. Permit me to stand on existing protocol. I am honorable (?). First, thank you for this opportunity to speak. Secondly, it is unfortunate that it takes a country like this for us to sit down in a roundtable like this, but we make the best of it.
You raised a very important question about the gap. I can tell you there is no bill or no act that is establishing many of the agencies seated here that is going to stand the test of time. All of them are obsolete. I can tell you that for free.
NCC Act, NITDA Act, well, even the NDPC Act that we just recently passed, there's a few things that we need to amend there because some people are taking advantage of loopholes that are in the acts. So how can we bridge this gap?
For the first time in the history of the National Assembly you have industry people chairing the committees in both the Senate and the House. I don't believe that you are taking advantage of it. We're here to serve. We're here to leverage. We're here to synergize with you, but oftentimes I see people being territorial. This is my territory. I don't want anybody on it.
Oftentimes we are scrambling for information to help you. If you need me to help you with better acts or amend your act, I must know exactly your pain points it might not be 100 percent to your advantage. You do something whether you like it or not, but the question is it what you really need?
I think collaboration will tell you performance review of where you are and be helpful to us. What are the challenges you're faced with right now? NDPC, they're struggling right now because SEC made that. They are not funding them. They are the one that funds them. If they don't fund them, they'll be scrambling. We are looking for money for NDPC, and at the same time the act was very clear that the SEC and NITDA for two years must fund them. At this point they're still struggling. In a way we have to work together. The key here is collaboration.
Also, let me say this to set the table a little bit. (Inaudible) misplaced in some of our agencies because oftentimes NCC is a regulatory body. Sometimes you'll find them doing things in this space. There are duplications of mandates. The clear mandate of NITDA is very clear, and sometimes you also find other agencies outside of this ministry or the agency seated here and also to form in the rooms off NITDA or NCC. So in a way we also have to understand these things clearly, and even if we have to take clauses in the act of some of the agencies, that was one of the reasons why the president was working with on consolidating some of the agencies or maybe set some aside. The budget was cut this year, 2024. I can tell you 50 percent of the revenue was cut. NITDA, same thing. I request ask, any of you know why they were cut. Did the assemblymen fight for you to get that money back because they can. They are fighting right now for me to get that money back. We have to work together.
To the point of the Chairman, what we need to take away from here is we need to cut down the bureaucracy, drop the guard so that we can work together with you to create better laws that will help you move your agencies forward and in our country, Nigeria, can be projected into the future because for me I'm looking forward to Africa where we have one single currency. We have one single passport and central bank that will govern the entire Africa, and also we have the ease of doing business across entire Africa that will be taken down. Thank you very much for the question, and let me stop right there. Thank you.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: Thank you, my brother, for that intervention. I'm extremely delighted that I actually called him. I would not have been able to combine that together. I'll be a judge in my own case, but conveyed the views of the legislators.
(Inaudible).
Anything you say, any of your views about (inaudible) because (inaudible). Because I'm extremely delighted that we're having this. To me I can agree on the action points. I don't want to preside over the session that we also I want to also go back to and have something that we're going to do. I'm going to turn the microphone to the audience. Just for us to be on the same page and by the few things we need to learn from other countries, and also negotiations that are going on in the council. From GIZ from the E.U., to UNESCO. The first thing we need to recognize that, yes, we are big, and we are doing very well, but also other countries are doing some initiative that is we can learn from. Number two, in order to ensure that our policies are sustainable and are consistent, we must continuously do peer review within the country and outside the country. We must also ensure that we ado not an approach. I'm going to extend this a little bit. It also needs to involve subnationals and so are the policy that is we develop. Otherwise, we develop further policies and subnationals do whatever they like, so I think it also includes nationals.
Number four, there are mandates between agencies (inaudible). Today banking is no longer banking as it used to be. It puts banking right after all, (inaudible). Today talk about think tank. There's an intersection between financing industry and technology industry. That is also brought some little fractions to change the mandate to develop technology and development is for the bank. Mandate policy coherence. I know this very well. . It's also related sometimes it conflicts to policy.
There's a need for regulators to collaborate more regularly. Rather than individuals from one agency to the other we can have a mandate. Policy awareness is a great thing. There are a number of people that have a commission, and its roles and responsibilities. We need to create more awareness. It is rarely said not just in a data protection commission, but for that matter we complaining about not having enough money, and capacity building and capacity building will also extend to also include capacity building for the legislators. It is true I've been in the industry to close to 40 years, and I recognize that we are here together (inaudible), computer science, and (inaudible). We are there international assembly to establish NITDA. Civil society as a private sector player then.
I'm aware, but I can't say beyond I can't say members of the community, I can't measure two or three of them who are technology savvy. Beyond me, maybe one or two other people, I can say that people can fully understand what it is that they're talking about artificial intelligence or cybersecurity. So capacity building the quality of is directly related to the quality of the awareness of the legislators. If you're not aware our process in the chamber requires us that they should go to first, second, and third region. There are so many bills. I want to get a bill passed. Whatever information you have, you put in the bill. It goes out and then the civil society say, hey, national assembly. When we are doing the bill, where were you?
Capacity building should also be for national assembly members. This also goes to agencies. For us it's not just to put the training in your budgets. Therefore, it just means to we like to see members of the Senate committee and cybersecurity, members of house committee on cybersecurity to be given proper training. Proper training. I mean proper training. For some of us we may not require training, but in areas to know what the E.U. is doing in artificial intelligence, to know what is coming up in terms of cybersecurity, to know the African union free (inaudible). You understand what you wanted to say. It's a policy framework. These are agencies in your budget that put something did substantial for capacity building. It's not just when you are going to give a contractor, yes, you have it will happen this year. Infrastructure is also a major issue. Somebody spoke about silos (inaudible) and the need for periodic interface roundtable. We have Conversed that the digital economy system, we should have our own sides will come together the one on the satellites. Yeah.
Because if you want to deliver cybersecurity to countries, some services will be done digitally. Some will be done using satellite. Some will be using NCC for services. Some will begin to look at the budget. We have a family meeting now. Registrations where you see agencies. The following year it was software. The following year service equipment. The next year you ask yourself, you put all of this together, and you run into billions, and sometimes you ask, NITDA, are you seeing some of these budget items? They go to nowhere. NITDA, you're supposed to be able to approve some of them to say, do this. We see the legislators and we (inaudible) for 2023 and 2024. All have you to do is do a search, and you see the various budget items coming up.
If you buy equipment this year, okay, next year, where is that equipment before you buy another one? Do we have a national registry, okay? My job is not to limit the conversations. It's just to stimulate you to say now. Forget this. For this propose. NFSE. Period. Agree? We want to makes E make look me straight in the face. I will give you the Parliamentary immunity.
So Nigerians were here. I think that it can be a better place for us to be than here. Back in Nigeria there will be too many extractions. For the last few minutes. We have 15 minutes to wrap up.
So you have any intervention that I think can help us, please raise up your hand.
>> Distinguished Senator.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: 90 seconds. The time starts now. One, two.
>> I start on the existing protocols. Once again, and we've been in this process since 1995 advocacy and engaging the stakeholders. There are two things I want to you talk about collaboration with our stakeholder engagement. The solution is in here. The next one the multistakeholder guideline. In year in Sao Paulo we ask that all stakeholders come together and discuss meaningfully, and it's in that situation we can have all people to buy in. Buy in is very important because every stakeholder will now factilitate take their communities. We need to do that. I have copies of this. I want to summarize here.
Secondly, there is something new called the summit of the future talking about I can tell you for free that is a fulfillment of the second outcome of the WSIS 2005 agenda. The first one was IGF, which is successful. The second one is not as successful is just this September became successful. It's on the summit of the future. Now we're talking about how do we implement it? I want to recommend because we don't want new institution. We don't want to set. I want to thank my mother Mary for starting she push it vigorously, and I love it. Then I want to mention that we do have WSIS.
(Silence).
I want to charge us, you know, with the ministry to lead. The ministry to lead because UNECA leads for Africa. It's wonderful just like United Nations leads. Let's put that in place so WSIS we've never had WSIS meeting in Nigeria. Never. We need to have WSIS. This new thing without setting up new institutions and what we believe in the private sector. We don't need a set of new bureaucracy. Thank you very much.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE:
(Silence).
>> Good afternoon, everyone. I work for the Nigerian Communications Commission. So I just want to speak not from the angle of the commission, but from the angle of youth perspective in general. At the beginning of the session the honorable spoke about the representation of youth. I think he said 65 percent of the population is 35 and below. However, majority of the conversation and the I think some of the outcomes that the honorable spoke about I did not hear anything about, you know, action points that have to do with youth. I just wanted to add 2 cents. Just to say that we need to 65 percent is actually a very high number. For us to be able to, you know, get to the point that we want for digital economy, we need to urge ourselves to integrate youth voices to amplify youth voices. Not just in decision making processes, but governance is going younger now. Governance is going younger when we're talking youth today. We're not just talking 20 years old in governance. They are making decisions and differences, right? We also need to integrating digital literacy into school curriculums, and then the last point I want to make is we need to also look at Nigeria specific solutions for Nigerian problems. Some of the issues that we have can only be solved in house. Not by just borrowing best practices from out there. Thank you.
(Silence).
>> You have already categorized me already. Good afternoon. Good evening, already. Standing on existing protocols my name is Chris Odu, and I'm glad that it's been said it's an open forum and also the Senator also alluded to that so we can have a conversation.
We've been talking about policies. For me we don't lack policies. I think we have a great (?) Of policies. If we need a policy now, we can get one. How best what mechanisms are we putting in place to evaluate the policies, what we are already putting out? Are they actually meeting our goals and expectations?
For instance, I'll give a very simple example. Last year I think I was part of I was part of the lunch U launch of the block chain technology last year by previous government. This year how far has that gone? Block chain technology is still mobile, but however a lot of people still do not understand it. We have a policy that is there, and the policy is almost like it's sleeping.
Even this year NCC I think with the directive from NCC and ISPs have blocked a lot of websites that have academic research documents for block chain. Yet, we have a policy that's talking about block chain. So there are a lot of contradictory things.
The second one I would like to talk about is for the commission that I was joining online. That is a data privacy. Anything we're talking about in this room, if it doesn't reach the common man, then it doesn't make any sense. How far are we going on data breaches within the country? It's not just be we here in this room. We have the opportunities to talk about this. The common man will benefit from what we are doing. Thank you.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: Thank you. We have seven minutes to go. I don't want to shut down the youth. Here and then the last one over there. If you make it very brief, I'll buy you dinner.
>> Good evening, everyone. Standing on existing protocols, my challenge is with
>> Your name, please?
>> My name is Aiesha, and I'm from federal (?) Services. I'm here for my start up actually. The world is becoming smart every day. Children and everyone is exposed to internet. What are we doing on cyber policies or cybersecurity?
>> Cybersecurity policies.
>> We have cyberbullying. We have young children age 13 and below doing so much on the internet. How do we harness their talents to something reasonable from an this is my biggest concern.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: Cyberbullying, cyber policy. Thank you. Last one.
>> Good evening, everyone. I'm a senior program officer with cybersecurity. Because of time I think my intervention is coming from the statement about inconsistency in policies. The speaker once said that I didn't it didn't feel good with me when it said it's like a norm. We want Nigeria's case to be different. See it as a challenge that even if it is a norm elsewhere, it shouldn't be a norm with us in Nigeria that we have policy inconsistency.
Then what was said about us meeting over this. I don't feel good that we are having this conversation outside the soil of Nigeria. I'm making a proposition that when we go home, like as the ministry, we have a repository of resources, but who, man? Who blame your rules on the global stage? Who should come home and do those things at home. So I am looking forward to hearing that we are calling a group from WSIS. Currently like we have started on an organization internally. We have people making the (inaudible). We are looking forward to that. And, again, I am also making this call. Please I want to appreciate the NDPC Commissioner. One of the things I will appreciate him for is his openness and ease of access. I'm charging our our honorable members, say something that they look for information to (inaudible).
Because we make a fort to get across to the policymakers so that distance can be attended to. I am making a request for ease of access to the legislators, to the ministries, and to the agencies so that we can move Nigeria forward. Thank you so much.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: That sounded good to me. If everything sound good to you. It sounded good to me.
We'll round up, but before we round up, we're going to have oh, there's a question online. What is the question? Can somebody read it? Can you read it?
Okay. We're going to have one more minute. You can respond to any of the questions, and then we're closing the thoughts. Let me start with (inaudible).
>> Thank you very much. For lack of time, quickly, I want to agree with the Honorable Stanley. We have never heard H it good really as a sector. Haven't engaged with the two Senators and the two other Senators. I can't imagine us having this kind of quality of people with the massive understanding of the sector, and we cannot take advantage of that. I think I totally agree with that point.
Secondly, the issue that raised was raised also by distinguished Senator with regards to capacity building for the legislators. I think it's absolutely important. Beyond legislators and also the judiciary, especially on the aspect of AI. I can assure you that already we are something to do that quickly.
Now, coming back to the question by Dr. Also, I want to agree that we need to really create platforms where engagement policy, advocacy, and stakeholder engagement will be done.
(Captioning will end in three minutes.)
I think we are doing a lot, honestly. There's 3 million technical talents program going on. Lately also we jointly would in NYC were able to launch digital literacy for all. Really there's a lot of things and different agencies of government at all levels are doing a lot of training. We can do much better. I think a lot is being done.
I could agree with the gentleman also that spoke about how can we deal with policy implementation, lack of aid and so on. I also agree that we can do much better, but like I've said earlier, there's an issue of institutions. We need to have strong institutions to be able to do that.
Finally, on the issue of cybersecurity, I mean, a gentleman there has mentioned that we already have the cybersecurity act. I mean, (inaudible).
(Audio cutting in and out).
in terms of getting things done. Thank you.
>> KUNLE OLORUNDARE: (Inaudible).
>> My contribution will be very simple. When we talk about engagement (inaudible). This is sincerely from the bottom of my heart. Each time we (inaudible).