Nigeria to establish Data Protection Regulatory body

The Federal Government of Nigeria has disclosed that it has commenced the process of establishing a Nigeria Data Protection Regulatory body.

This is to further protect the huge volume of private and public data generated by Nigerians daily.

The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Kashifu Abdullahi stated this in a virtual Press Conference to mark the opening of the National Data Privacy Week 2022, with the theme “Data Economics In Digital Economy: Charting Nigeria’s Data Strategy”.

Mr Abdullahi said Nigeria, with a population of over 200 million, generates daily a huge amount of digital footprints, which must be protected from intrusion, while the proposed regulatory agency will save the country millions of dollars spent on foreign data protection registration.

The NITDA Director-General re-echoed President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive on the need for government agencies to adhere to the Federal Government’s interoperability framework to protect the nation’s security data architecture.

Based on the notion that the “price of liberty is eternal vigilance”, the country now has Data Protection Compliance Organisations (DPCOs), with about 8,000 jobs generated and the sum of N4 billion as the estimated value of the Data Protection Industry, Mr Abdullahi said.

The week-long Data Protection awareness programme will feature in-depth discourse and presentations on data management and protection.