Nigeria targets $10 billion from Blockchain technology by 2030

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 By Nkechi Onyedika-Ugoeze, Abuja

Nigeria is targeting to realize up to $10 billion from the Blockchain technology by 2030, the Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has said. Abdullahi, who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja at the Stakeholder Engagement for the

Review of the National Blockchain Adoption Strategy, said that the government wants to harness the potential in Blockchain, and has seen the need to position the country to capture value from the value chain.

He said: “Looking at our youthful population, which is mainly digitally native and our strategic position in Africa, we are looking at how we can get at least around $6-10 billion from this by the Year 2030, and this is doable looking at our strategic and huge payment and financial services sector.

“Nigeria is already one of the hottest places when it comes to tapping from this. We are coming up with a strategy that will help Nigeria to capture value from the financial services from the land administration, from education, and from healthcare because Blockchain is going to play a key role in terms of breaking and tracing products and services,” he said.

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He noted that a recent publication by PwC showed that in the next 10 years blockchain is going to contribute $1.76trillion to the global gross domestic product (GDP). “Therefore, we want Nigeria to be strategically placed to capture value for this economic potential of Blockchain and that is why we are doing what we do today, to get all the stakeholders in one room, brainstorm and come up with a strategy, Nigeria benefit from the technology.”

In terms of mitigating the risks involved in adopting Blockchain, he said: “What we are looking at is to identify a set of choices, strategy is about your choices, the dos and don’t. At the end of the strategy, we are going to identify the key risks and the mitigant, how can we mitigate those risks so that we can know our dos and don’ts and how we can capture values from the Blockchain.”

Speaking also, a representative of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Fadele Adeolu, pledged the apex bank’s commitment to the initiative.

“CBN is fully committed to the initiative that will drive the development of the economy.  I pray that the programme access will yield desirable results.”

A Blockchain expert, Abdulsalam Umar, in his presentation titled, “An Overview of the National Blockchain Adoption Strategy,” said Blockchain will reduce cost and improve security in the country, because of its conducive environment.”