By BONIFACE AKARAH

The Director-General/CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has called for a shift in Africa’s digital workforce strategy from simply training people to ensuring that digital skills translate into jobs, businesses, higher productivity and improved livelihoods.

Abdullahi made the call on Monday, September 21, 2026, during a high-level panel session titled “Scaling Africa’s Digital Workforce”, held under the Digital Skills and Talent Session of “Nigeria at Scale: Building Digital Systems for Shared Prosperity”, on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA81), New York, USA.

“We have industrialised training; we have not yet industrialised the transition,” Abdullahi said, challenging policymakers and technology ecosystem leaders to look beyond the number of people trained and focus on whether those skills are being converted into productive economic activity.

The NITDA boss identified three major barriers facing young Africans moving from training into the workforce.

According to him, the first is “the trust gate,” where employers face difficulties verifying the capabilities of prospective workers. The second is “the platform and connectivity gate,” involving inadequate access to devices, affordable internet, reliable electricity and opportunities. The third is “the demand gate,” where the number of people entering the labour market exceeds available formal jobs.

Abdullahi said Nigeria was responding by linking digital literacy, advanced technical skills, connectivity, cloud infrastructure and job creation as parts of a broader digital transformation agenda being implemented by NITDA and the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy.

He cited the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme, which he said has trained more than 143,000 fellows across three cohorts, as well as the Talent Registry, designed to connect verified digital skills with employers.

The DG also highlighted Project BRIDGE, which is expected to deploy at least 90,000 kilometres of open-access fibre and extend Nigeria’s national backbone to about 125,000 kilometres, with coverage targeted at all 774 local government areas.

He said the initiative would expand connectivity to thousands of schools, healthcare facilities and local government offices, helping people with digital skills outside major cities participate in the digital economy.

Abdullahi further distinguished between digital literacy and digital employability, saying the two objectives were related but not identical.

He explained that under NITDA’s Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP 2.0), basic digital literacy is intended to provide Nigerians with foundational skills to participate safely and confidently in the digital economy, while advanced programmes such as 3MTT focus on areas including artificial intelligence and machine learning, data science, software development, cloud computing and cybersecurity.

The NITDA chief also argued that Africa's digital workforce strategy should not focus exclusively on formal employment, noting that technology could improve the livelihoods of traders, artisans, farmers, mechanics, transport operators, food vendors and other entrepreneurs.

For such workers, he said digital skills should translate into practical abilities such as using smartphones productively, accepting digital payments, marketing through social media, finding customers and suppliers, keeping digital records, protecting against fraud, accessing digital services and using artificial intelligence tools to improve productivity.

“The question is not, ‘Can this person get a technology job?’ It is, ‘Can technology help this person earn more, reduce costs, reach more customers and run a better business?’” he said.

Abdullahi said greater attention should therefore be directed towards building the bridge between learning and earning, rather than creating more training opportunities without corresponding pathways into economic activity.

“Fund the corridor, not another classroom, verifiable credentials and first-paid-work placement, because Africa’s young people are stuck in the gap between the certificate and the paycheck,” he said.

The panel also featured Gabon’s ICT Minister, H.E. Mark Doumba, and Oji Udezue, product leader and investor and former Chief Product Officer at Calendly and Typeform. It was moderated by Joannes Paulus Yimbesalu, founder of Nanaade and Africa Skills Alliance and a Fellow of the Social Innovation + Change Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School.

Abdullahi said the ultimate measure of success should not be the number of Nigerians who receive digital training, but the number who are able to turn those capabilities into jobs, enterprises, higher productivity, increased income and meaningful participation in the digital economy.

•PHOTO: NITDA DG/CEO, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, speaking at the Monday, September 21, 2026 high-level panel session titled “Scaling Africa’s Digital Workforce”, held under the Digital Skills and Talent Session of “Nigeria at Scale: Building Digital Systems for Shared Prosperity”, on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA81) in New York, USA