Digital Economy: Nigeria Building Globally Competitive Human Capital, Says NDPC Boss

The National Commissioner of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), Dr Vincent Olatunji, has said that Nigeria is building a pool of globally competitive human capital to support the country’s digital economy and create jobs in line with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

Dr Olatunji said this in his remarks during the opening session of the Second Edition of the Data Protection Officers (DPOs) training and certification programme that commenced in Abuja on Monday, stressing that the training is to enhance the competence of the participants as professionals who will ensure that organisations comply with the Data Protection Act.

The NDPC boss said the commission is training 1000 Data Protection Officers (DPOs) in the second edition to create awareness and to support Nigeria’s emerging digital ecosystem as well as protect the privacy of Nigerian citizens and others.

He said, “We are trying to build a pool of data protection officers who will take opportunities in several organisations. This is a very rare opportunity. We started last year by training 500 people who are today gainfully employed in many organisations in Nigeria. We have over 500,000 digital controllers and processors in Nigeria that require the services of digital protection officers, and those of us who have been certified as DPOs are about 10,000.”

He noted that the training would empower people to provide services to both public and private organisations in the ecosystem, which now has over 127,000 people, with only 10,000 certified data protection officers.

He said that the commission is making steady progress in training more DPOs and expressed confidence that Nigeria will bridge the gap by training more DPOs to cover a gap of about 480,000, adding that the target is to make Nigeria the hub of data operations.

Olatunji also said the training was meant to develop participants’ skills to protect Nigerians’ data privacy, even as he pointed out that the commission had strengthened its resolve to investigate and possibly sanction companies that have breached the Data Act.

Tolu Fadipe, Head of Research and Development at NDPC, in her remarks, urged the participants to take advantage of the training to equip themselves with the required skills to secure jobs and a better future.

Some of the participants who spoke to reporters commended the commission for the opportunity and promised to make the most of it.