The Digital Nigeria International Conference and Exhibition 2025 kicked off in Abuja on Tuesday, the 11th of November, the Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima formally declared the event open.
At the opening, Shettima said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government has ended the “regimes of volatility and unpredictability” that previously shaped Nigeria’s economy. He explained that global economic uncertainties, “shocks, shifting alliances, and the rapid displacement of traditional jobs by emerging technologies” pushed the administration to take bold steps.
According to him, the reforms already in motion have calmed the economy, built investor trust, and earned praise from independent assessors. He pointed to Fitch’s decision to upgrade Nigeria’s sovereign rating to B with a stable outlook, and Moody’s improvement of the nation’s issuer rating to B3 with a stable outlook. “The world is taking note of the steady course the nation is maintaining,” he said.
Shettima stressed that the new focus is ensuring the benefits reach ordinary people and businesses: “The phase before us now is to ensure that these macroeconomic gains trickle down to the people, from the kiosks of our neighborhood traders to the boardrooms of our multinational corporations.” He added, “We did what we have done because we can no longer apply 20th-century solutions to 21st-century problems.”
He spoke about a need for a digital system that works uniformly across the country: “We need a digital ecosystem that works as seamlessly in Lagos as it does in Abuja, in Port Harcourt, in Kano, in Gusau, and across every corner of our nation.”
The Vice President also said the country must stop regretting its “absence at the table in the previous Industrial Revolutions” when the new digital era offers “a redemptive opportunity to define its own terms in the next chapter of global progress.” In his words, “On policy, we are creating an enabling environment that encourages innovation.”
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Earlier, the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, said ongoing digital policies of the Tinubu administration will strengthen the nation’s technology backbone. He encouraged stakeholders to deepen collaboration so Nigeria can stand as a model for technology-driven growth.
The Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, praised the Vice President for his support and for always standing for young Nigerians. He said the Federal Government’s goal of giving young people platforms to solve national challenges remains on track.
Also speaking, the CEO of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission, Dr. Vincent Olatunji, noted the surge in technology adoption, especially the use of multiple devices across the world, and said this trend shows the huge socio-economic potential of the global digital economy.