The federal government, through the Ministry of Communications, is collaborating with the European Union Commission to create a Digital Single Market in Nigeria.
The minister, Adebayo Shittu revealed this on Tuesday while addressing delegates and participants at the two-day maiden Smart Cities summit in Abuja.
He said: “The size of Nigeria makes it the most lucrative investment destination in Sub-Saharan Africa with a high return on investment and an emerging market that makes it one of the frontiers for investment and Digital market considerations.”
According to him, the collaboration was timely, coming at a period the Ministry was making concerted efforts to implement its ICT strategic roadmap, e-government and mobile broadband plan.
Themed: “Leveraging on Technology Solutions to Increase the Efficiency of Cities”, the two day multi-stakeholders international summit is expected to take a critical look at the level of preparedness, unique challenges, and emerging solutions necessary for a sustainable smart city initiative for the country.
Speaking on the Nigerian Smart City Initiative, Shittu said, it was a conscious effort by government, working with the private sector and all other stakeholders to forge a public private partnership to develop scalable, replicable, interoperable and measurable solutions capable of making our cities and citizens smarter.
“It starts by doing simple things, the smart way, one step at a time. That is why we are willing to work and partner with everybody in the IT space towards this unique and sustainable project.
The summit provides IT companies the chance to team up with cities and infrastructure companies to help advance smart city/smart infrastructure technologies and systems in Nigeria and to demonstrate and scale up Nigeria IT innovations and how IT can be linked with physical infrastructure to deliver business and public benefits. Miriam Humbe, Abuja
