Federal government ready to support digital sector – Osinbajo

Investors in Nigeria’s digital sector are to benefit from the Federal Government’s readiness to support the digital economy.

Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s Vice President, made this known while receiving Facebook representatives led by Sir Nick Clegg, former UK Deputy Prime Minister and Vice President of Facebook’s Global Affairs and Communications in a meeting where it was revealed that Facebook would like to open an office in Lagos before 2020 runs down.

Osinbajo assured Facebook representatives, “With regulation, we are dealing with uncharted territory because quite a few of what we are seeing are entirely new.

“And I must say that the regulatory authorities have done quite a decent work, trying to grapple with the newness of some of what they are seeing… So, what has happened is that the collaborative efforts of government and the tech sector, even the entertainment sector, worked on this.

“We had set up a technology and creativity advisory group; these are young entrepreneurs, innovators, etc., who worked with us in the Industrial and Competitiveness Council to craft some of these regulations and to think through some of the problems.

“We are trying to work with practically everyone who is interested in the Nigerian digital sector.

“By way of preparation, one of the critical issues for us is improving our broadband infrastructure. We’ve heard the exciting stuff that Facebook is doing, especially by way of a subsea cable that is being launched.

“These are broad objectives, and for us, creating that infrastructure is crucial, and we are happy to see the partnerships from Facebook and from some of the other tech companies.”