By Faith Anisiobi, The Sight News
The Federal Government has reaffirmed its commitment to building a digitally enabled nation, urging Huawei Technologies Nigeria to expand its investments, create more jobs and deepen technology transfer to support the country’s economic transformation.
The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Sola Enikanolaiye, made the call on Wednesday in Abuja while receiving the management of Huawei Technologies Nigeria during a courtesy visit to his office.
Enikanolaiye said the government’s digital transformation agenda aligns with the Presidential Priority Areas of sustainable inclusive growth, food security, industrialization, innovation and improved governance.
He explained that Nigeria’s foreign policy is anchored on the Ministry’s 4Ds Foreign Policy Initiative—Demography, Development, Democracy and Diaspora—describing the country’s youthful population as its greatest asset for innovation, entrepreneurship and national development.
According to the minister, the Ministry is leveraging the four pillars to promote economic diplomacy, strengthen strategic partnerships and attract investments that will support Nigeria’s development objectives.
He said the Ministry remains committed to accelerating national diversification through industrialization and innovation while promoting digital diplomacy to improve governance.
Enikanolaiye described Nigeria as a country with a rich pool of talented and innovative young people and encouraged Huawei to increase its investments, generate more employment opportunities and facilitate greater skills and technology transfer for Nigerians.
Earlier, the leader of the Huawei delegation, Dr. Jim Zhang, reaffirmed the company’s commitment to supporting Nigeria’s ambition of building a digital-enabled economy capable of achieving a $1 trillion economy.
Zhang said Huawei, which has operated in Nigeria since 1999, has established four branch offices in Kano, Ibadan, Enugu and Port Harcourt, two training centres in Lagos and Abuja, an innovation centre, service centre, open laboratory and local cloud facility in Lagos, while additional offices are under construction in Calabar and Katsina.
He highlighted the company’s contributions to Nigeria’s digital transformation, including the deployment of large-scale commercial and industrial solar power projects, the construction of a Tier-4 Data Centre, launch of the country’s first local cloud, rollout of 3G, 4G and 5G network infrastructure, and the training of more than 100,000 Nigerians since 2018.
Zhang also said Huawei’s LEAP Talent Development Framework targets the training of 120,000 technology professionals in Nigeria between 2018 and 2027.
He reaffirmed Huawei’s support for Nigeria through five strategic areas: digital-enabled government, digital-enabled society, digital-enabled industry, digital foundation and digital talent.
