NITDA targets 70% digital literacy, to train 50m Nigerians by 2027

By Progress Godfrey, Abuja

Nigeria is taking bold steps to strengthen its digital economy, as the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) announced plans to train 50 million citizens and raise the nation’s digital literacy level to 70 percent by 2027.

This move is expected to create a workforce equipped to drive innovation, boost productivity, and enhance the country’s competitiveness in the global digital economy.

The programme, according to him, targets three major sectors: education, the public service, and the informal economy, aiming to build skills across a broad swathe of the population. NITDA’s strategy combines curriculum development, teacher training, civil servant capacity building, and community-based initiatives to ensure wide reach.

The Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday, during the closing session of the Digital Nigeria International Conference and Exhibition (DNICE 2025), themed “Innovation for a Sustainable Digital Future: Accelerating Growth and Inclusion.”

“So we started with a baseline of 50 percent as of 2024. So we are building and our target is to reach 70 percent by training 50 million Nigerians by 2027.

“Firstly, we’ve worked with the Ministry of Education. We have developed a curriculum for digital literacy and skills, and the President has approved the implementation of that. Now we are training teachers across the country on how to start teaching digital literacy and skills in all our schools, from kindergarten to tertiary institutions,” he said.

He noted that more than 30,000 civil servants were already enrolled in NITDA’s digital literacy platform, while several states had adopted the framework for training their workers.

The DG also highlighted a partnership with the National Youth Service Corps to reach the informal sector through the recruitment of digital champions.

According to him, each of the 36 states plus the FCT will have 460 champions per year, with each champion expected to train 600 people annually. This approach, he said, will reach over 10.3 million Nigerians each year, amounting to more than 30 million within three years.

In the education sector, NITDA said it is targeting 15 million students, with another 5 million across the workforce, bringing the total to 50 million Nigerians trained by 2027.

The NITDA boss further said the agency is promoting investments in digital infrastructure in the same way the country prioritises physical infrastructure such as roads and railways.

“The way we invest in roads, railways and airports, we need to invest in that way in the digital, because we are in a digital era. Everything is digital. The economy is a service-based economy,” he said.

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