NITDA Extends
NITDA Extends Smart Agric Programme to More
States
The Director General, National Information technology
Development Agency, (NITDA), Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE
has reaffirmed the commitment of the Agency to extend the National
Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture, (NAVSA) to other states in
the country.
The DG disclosed this when hosted to the Management of Jigawa
Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (JICCIMA) at
the Agency’s Corporate Headquarters in Abuja.
Mallam Abdullahi stated that NAVSA remains one of the success
stories of the Agency in the state it has been piloted and
implemented and” the Agency would ensure that the programme covers
all the 36 states of the federation.
The National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA),
which is an initiative of the Agency is to create a digital
database for farmers where they can buy and sell their farm
produce.
The project was piloted in Jigawa State in July with the plan to
capture all the states in the country.
According to Abdullahi, the project’s goal is to build digital
capabilities and innovations across agriculture value chain aimed
at creating massive jobs and improve the income and wealth of every
ecosystem players.
The DG recalled that in January this year, during the commissioning
of ICT centre at Hadeija.
Jigawa State, the state governor, Alhaji Muhammed Badaru has
indicated willingness to partner with the Ministry of
Communications and Digital Economy and NITDA to make the state ICT
compliant in its operations.
He assured them that the Agency will look into the requests of the
Chambers and work with it to build the capacity of the citizens
through e-learning platforms. “Training is one of the Agency’s
mandate. With the outbreak of COVID-19, our trainings have been
going on virtually which is in line with the Presidential Task
Force guidelines to maintain social distancing, such special
trainings can be done virtually to impact the citizens of the
state. He added, “The e-learning center will enable the state
create jobs and aid in lifting 100 million people out of poverty
which is in line with the Present Administration mandate to lift
100 million Nigerians out of poverty, providing direct or indirect
jobs for the growth and development of the country.
Earlier, the president of JICCIMA, Hon. Muhammed Mukhtar has
solicited for support of the Agency in the following areas;
construction and provision of equipment for e-Library, support
survey and data collection for building of database that will bring
out JICCIMA handbook and training of 500 JICCIMA on online
businesses and e-marketing.
He said, “We believe by doing so, JICCIMA will improve the
capacity of its members in doing business and also boost the
economic activities of the state generally thereby creating jobs
and revenue flow for the state.