Last week, Juliet Anammah, the chairperson of Jumia Nigeria operation, was received by the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi. In his address, he tasked Nigeria’s leading e-Commerce companies to collaborate with the Federal Government in its strategic implementation of National Digital Economy Policy.
The DG said that the e-Commerce companies in Nigeria should come together to form a strong unit and work with the government to make efforts in digitalising business activities in the country. He said that the number of Nigerians doing business online is growing, especially in Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs), and this has helped to increase Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) tremendously.
The DG mentioned that on the part of the Federal Government efforts are being made to provide adequate policies for private sectors when it comes to “Ease of Doing Business” as well as improving digital literacy for consumers and online users.
Mr Inuwa stated that NITDA has launched the Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA), in hopes to improve digital tools in the country. NAVSA is a digital platform that brings farmers together and provides a way for them to market their produce in a digital space, and connect with potential investors.
In addition, according to the DG, NITDA is building a Digital Academy across the country which aims at providing Nigerians with prerequisite knowledge that will enable them to use devices easily.
He also had this to say:
“Despite being IT regulators, NITDA also needs cooperation from private sectors that are into online business. Our door is always open. We run a collaborative government. We are working to make the environment conducive for private organisations to create jobs. It is very important for the e-Commerce Companies to come up with a strong, collective and concrete organisation that we can work together to make the industry better for everyone, particularly on job creation.”
Adding to this conversation, Juliet Anammah the Chairperson of Jumia Nigeria remarked that Nigeria is the biggest market in African e-commerce, as through Gross Merchandise it valued at 838 million euros and had over 25% earnings.
She added that Nigerian e-commerce has provided thousands of jobs for many unemployed youths in the last few years, and despite challenges faced, Nigeria is doing better in online business than in previous years.
She concluded saying:
“There are some challenges especially poor road connection, rails, digital infrastructures, digital identity and lack of digital literacy, but Nigeria still has the potential to do better if there is a strong collaboration between the government and the private sectors.”
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Source: TechEconomy