Bosun Tijani, One Year later, the good, the bad, and the WTF?
How has Nigeria's ICT Minister performed after one year?
Happy 25 years of uninterrupted democracy in Nigeria.
About a year ago, Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, appointed Bosun Tijani - the founder of the Co-Creation Hub Innovation Centre (CcHUB) as the nation’s ICT minister, renaming the ministry to become the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy.
In the past year, Tijani upon releasing his strategic blueprint document for the ministry, has gone about overseeing initiatives that align with the President’s renewed hope agenda.
While he believes he deserves a bonus for his weekly progress and activity reporting on this document, policy documents do not exist in isolation. Execution should be rooted in reality to improve outcomes.
This is my attempt to review the good, the bad, and the WTF of the last year of his stewardship.
The Good
3MTT: Knowledge is one of the pillars of Bosun's agenda for the next 3 years, and he quickly got off the ground with this initiative. Leveraging his experience in creating a talent hub, he set up this program which aims to train 3 million technical talents in Nigeria by 2027 and improve digital literacy by 70%. With youth unemployment in Nigeria rising, this initiative is critical to achieving the President's goal of creating 2 million new digital jobs by 2025 and improving the country's Human Development Indices.
The Nigeria Artificial Intelligence Research Scheme: This was one of the multiple ways the ministry has supported human capital, research, and innovation, by awarding a NGN 5 million grant to 45 independent experts using AI to make advancements in multiple fields, to tackle some of our most pressing challenges.
MDA Hires: Bosun Tijani’s core strength has been that of people and relationships. Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt, Mark Zuckerberg, Paul Kagame, and Bill Gates, have been among some of his high-profile guests when he was in the private sector. His appointments of Aminu Maida (NIBBS), Tola Odeyemi (ex-Uber), and Nkechi Egerton-Idehen (ex-Ericsson) as the CEOs of the NCC, NIPOST, and NigComSat respectively was one of the few times a Nigerian minister filled all their MDA slots with proper square pegs in square holes. These hires were/are expected to leverage their experience and networks to do their jobs and not be traditional civil servants.
Collection of stamp duties on FX deposits: With Nigeria’s dire financial straits, unearthing new sources of revenue generation(which can be seamlessly collected) has become one of the ways to be good at your job, as far as the President and Minister of Finance are concerned. Introducing stamp duties on FX deposits for collection by NIPOST is one of those new government policies for which Bosun Tijani will take credit and accountability at FEC meetings, as it affects his portfolio.
Too slow - the jury is still out
Startup House: As a product of the Nigerian startup ecosystem, Bosun Tijani has been accused of focusing solely on this sector as if it were his only remit and constituency. The conversion of an existing Federal government property in San Francisco into a Digital Technology Exchange Programme Hub (Nigeria Startup House), to be managed by select Nigerian companies, is one of the welcome ideas under the Trade, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Capital pillars. However, we have to wait and see how this initiative will be executed and managed. Roughly $3 billion has been poured into the Nigerian startup ecosystem in the last 8 years, all without a physical presence. In this funding winter, there is a concern about putting the cart before the horse with this initiative.
Broadband: Towards the end of President Buhari's tenure, state governments were being lobbied by telecom companies and the former minister, Isa Ali Pantami, to reduce high right-of-way fees. This would have allowed the companies to lay more cables, increase connectivity in the country, and leapfrog broadband access. Politicking is part of the job Bosun Tijani signed up for. Still, his decision to abandon his initial engagements with multiple state governors to waive these fees and instead seek World Bank funding for a 90,000km fibre optic cable project – after his 120,000km proposal was downvoted – is disappointing. This does not include the elephant in the room regarding the ownership structure of the other companies involved in the special purpose vehicles (SPVs) being created. At this rate, his initial goal of achieving a 70% broadband penetration rate by 2025 will likely not be met, nor will the 80% population coverage rate target by 2027.
Data Harmonisation: Nigerians have multiple means of identification for dealing with various government agencies. Even worse, there have been widespread complaints about the lack of data exchange between these numerous government agencies. This was one of the proverbial low-hanging fruits that everyone, including the minister, had always criticized. We thought he would address this issue directly when he proposed an e-government initiative that would, at a minimum, allow ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) to share data among themselves, among other benefits. However, there seems to be no progress on this proposed policy so far, as duplication efforts are still being championed by other members of the FEC.
AI Strategy: First off, the Nigerian government launched an internal AI strategy under the previous minister, Isa Pantami, and developed multiple models for internal use. It seems that the current minister, Bosun Tijani, and his team did well in leveraging the work done by his predecessor in crawling the web to create a repository of AI researchers of Nigerian descent for engagement in building a larger AI strategy.
However, after a year of media appearances and stakeholder engagements, we are yet to have a proper and clear AI strategy for the country documented on paper. I have seen some of the LLMs being built in-house at the ministry, and their quality is not promising. It appears that we may have misdirected resources away from the work that was already done previously.
AI is a game-changing technology that we should all be invested in. However, the results are not immediate, and proper foundations need to be laid, not rushed. We did not achieve broadband internet in 2001, despite the foundation being laid then. Isa Pantami seems to have understood this. We cannot leapfrog development, but we can strategically and methodically bide our time and curb waste, especially as we are an energy-poor nation.
The Ugly
NIPOST: The removal of the previous Postmaster General led to a mutiny at the NIPOST headquarters, which had to be resolved by the President. Although it was early in Bosun's tenure, this incident foreshadowed the trend of poor political manoeuvring that has characterized his time as minister so far. There have also been reports of approximately ₦10 billion missing from NIPOST's accounts, and the service quality at NIPOST continues to deteriorate.
Given the minister's experience in incubating logistics-enabled companies, one would expect him to aggressively push for digitizing NIPOST and properly mapping our postcode systems to create an enabling postal environment for all. However, it appears that our expectations in this regard have been misplaced.
Losing the NIMC: The President's decision to relocate the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) from the Ministry of Communications to the Ministry of Interior was a setback in a year when progress was expected on harmonising identity databases – a key campaign agenda. This move demonstrates another example of poor political manoeuvring by the Minister. This situation has been made worse by the NIN database being compromised yet again, raising concerns about the security and integrity of this crucial identity system.
General Poor Politicking (SIM Bans/ Arrest of Binance Execs/ Regime Flip Flops on Blockchain): The telecommunications sector, which falls under Bosun Tijani's portfolio, is arguably the third-largest non-oil sector in Nigeria. Under the “Policy” pillar of his strategic document, he aims to achieve a 22% increase in the sector's contribution to GDP, a 100% increase in annual net revenue, and a 15% increase in sectoral investments. Additionally, he promised to introduce a National Blockchain Policy that seeks to increase the number of local blockchain companies in the country as well as the number of government-enabled blockchain projects. Achieving these ambitious goals requires massive political manoeuvring and stakeholder engagement.
However, over the past year, the telecommunications sector has faced significant setbacks. The government has blocked 40 million SIM cards, while the CBN, the EFCC, the DSS, and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) have issued conflicting policies and directives regarding cryptocurrencies, arresting and harassing players in the blockchain space in the process.
Additionally, a high-level Binance executive and former US agent was detained in prison for the better part of three months.
While Bosun Tijani's supporters may argue that these issues are not directly under his control, in the realm of politics, these setbacks have adversely affected his portfolio the most. It portrays an image of a minister unable to leverage political influence to negotiate concessions that would profitably benefit his primary constituency and the nation at large. This lack of effective politicking is considered an entry-level skill in the world of politics.
Enabling economic environment for macro investments (Microsoft leaving/ Meta reducing their investments in Nigeria/ No plans for the cloud):
Bosun Tijani's biggest supporters defended his appointment by claiming that having one of their own at the table would allow them to lobby for their interests effectively. However, over the past year, they have either been proven wrong or shown that the President appointed someone ill-equipped for this crucial role.
Cloud computing credits have recently become a valuable commodity worldwide, leading governments and companies to scramble and sign various levels of commit deals with cloud providers to expand their runways and build long-term, sustainable business partnerships on the cloud. Yet, the Nigerian government has not floated any such initiatives, leaving companies to either migrate from their cloud providers or see their cloud bills double and almost triple in the last year, due to the sharp increase in the USD-NGN rate, despite us having a few local cloud providers who need all the infrastructural and economic support they can get.
Nigerian politicians have always known how to secure the interests of their primary constituencies through subsidies. We are citizens of a nation that provides various forms of subsidies for fuel, foreign exchange, education, healthcare, pilgrimages, marriages, and electricity. If other politicians can safeguard their interests at the expense of the government and the masses, Bosun Tijani should be able to secure some sort of cloud subsidy for Nigerian software companies and create an enabling digital environment that will prevent the likes of Microsoft and Meta from exiting the country.
A few links
This profile on Awarri - the startup building Nigeria’s government-backed LLM
Nigeria needs a clear direction and urgent reforms on Trade Policy