Experts in the digital economy have called for effective policy and collaboration among critical stakeholders to transform the country’s economy.

The experts, who gathered at the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Club Africa inaugural summit tagged ‘the Role of Digitalisation in Transforming the Economy,’ said there was the need for government to remove barriers inhibiting Nigeria from achieving digital migration.

Managing Director of Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System plc (NIBSS), Premier Oiwoh, noted that technological transformation has impacted economic activities, particularly on-demand, sharing and circular systems.

He insisted that policy, regulation and incentives were some of the factors that should be prioritised, while also seeking ways to ensure technology contents were localised.

Head, Clients Technology (financial services and industry) for Microsoft Africa, Wole Odeleye, said despite the huge financial requirement to fully explore digitilisation, there are other cost implications and risks to be considered.

Odeleye, who listed the benefits of full digitalisation, said it would lead to better customer experience, data-based insight, collaboration, updated knowledge and skills sets.

He said the costs are limited to – mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, divestment and restructuring.

He, however, listed the risks associated with digitalisation to include, ineffective digital transformation premises, missing the skills for product deployment and attempting to transform alone. Others are not having digital transfer experts and mentors and not proving the value from the start. Those and many more can quash the goal of moving digitally.

He added that if Nigeria must journey to the cloud, it must define its socio-economic culture, show readiness, define cloud fit for the purpose, set priorities and be ready to manage change.

According to him, looking at the future of a digital transformation of any economy, one need to set one’s mind on hybrid working and connectedness, metaverse, internet of things, responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data democratisation, citizen developer, cloud optimisation, end to end security, intelligence infrastructure and support, among others.

The Chairman, Board of Trustees, CIO Club Africa, Olayinka Oni, in his remark, said that lack of basic infrastructure and an apparent skill gap was inhibiting the nation’s ability to tap into its digitalisation potential.

Noting that skill is tied to curriculum, he said to get value from digitalisation, Nigeria needed to look at its educational curriculum because the current curriculums are outdated and not future proof.