DG NITDA Receives MTN New CEO, Urges More Collaboration to Encourage Innovation

The Director General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi received MTN Nigeria’s new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr karl Toriola and his team at the Agency’s corporate headquarters.

Mr Toriola was at the Agency to familiarize himself with the activities of NITDA and to further strengthen the partnership already existing between the Agency and organisation.

The DG NITDA while addressing the team stated that MTN is one of the supporting organisation that has helped the Agency in achieving some of its set goals. Adding that “as such, we need to find ways we can work hand in hand in terms of regulations and make sure what we do is in the best interest of the public.”

“The regulation we do is not to discourage innovation or to limit you rather our regulations are developmental regulations which helps to unlock opportunities and to also create an enabling environment for you and others players”, he added.

Mallam Abdullahi said that NITDA’s regulations are form in two ways either the Agency deciding on what and what to set as regulations or they sit with the industry players to decide on what kind of regulations can be made.

He said that human capital development is one of the key areas the agency is focusing on “as we need to train our people to understand the new technologies before we develop and use it.”

In this regards, the DG NITDA urged MTN to collaborate with the Agency to train as many persons as possible.

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“In terms of infrastructure, we have done a lot in that aspect as we have provide infrastructure to under served and unserved communities because you need to have infrastructure to be able to connect to the service. As business people, I urged you to create an avenue where people are easily and freely connected to the service as it will create more users and in turn generate more fund”, he said.

NITDA Boss applauded MTN for doing its best in the area of compliance and commended the company for the prompt payment of its levies.

Speaking earlier, MTN new CEO, Mr Toriola asserted that the MTN Nigeria Privacy and Data Protection service has been developed and adopted by the board.

He said, “It has been deployed across our business and with constant engagement with NITDA officials who have provided us with necessary support and guidance, we have carried out an audit of our privacy data compliance practices with the Nigerian Data Protection Regulations requirements.

He stated that the data breach management has been developed and deployed adding that the company has embarked on a programme that will promote local content in Nigeria which includes ecosystem support to provide ICT innovation, STEM to accelerate local innovations.