Bella Disu: How Glo Will Support FG’s Push for Digital Economy

Ayodeji Ake

The Executive Vice Chairman of Globacom, Mrs. Bella Disu, has said the company was poised to help drive the realisation of the federal government’s digitalisation agenda.

She stated this at the launch of Nigeria’s Digital Economy Report with theme, ‘Driving Economic Growth through Digital Transformation,’ on Thursday at Abuja.

Disu, who emphasised the importance of Nigeria continuing to harness the transformative powers of emerging technologies, disclosed Globacom’s plan to enable technological advancement in the country.

“We see the current challenges in the sector as a responsibility to be at the forefront of enabling tech advancement. We are at the moment doing two things which key into the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy’s strategic blueprint.

“Under the pillar of Knowledge, the ministry is planning to have about three million technical talents by 2027, and also increase digital literacy. At Glo, we have a Glo learning management solution which has the capacity to train up to 100,000 users a month on different skill sets from digital marketing and other professional courses some of which we plan to offer as CSR and also on courses covering Python, blockchain, AI to really push digital literacy,” a statement quoted the EVC to have explained.

“Under innovation, we plan to have four innovation hubs, with one to be rolled out in Lagos in the fourth quarter of the year, and three to be commissioned by the second quarter of 2025 in PH, Ibadan, and Abuja. We see these hubs as being an ecosystem and a catalyst for technological advancement where we have hubs for tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, incubators and accelerators to really collaborate, thrive and learn,” she added.

Disu, noted that the impact of digitalisation was already visible in few sectors, adding, “digital platforms have completely revolutionised the transportation and mobility services sector with ride-hailing companies facilitating hundreds of millions of rides in the last seven years, in ecommerce, the sector has grown significantly with online user market now about 76.7 million users. We have also seen a huge  growth in PoS terminals  from about 155,000 in 2017 to now 1.8 million in 2023.

“More and  Nigerians are going into remote work, and with the right training, they will be able to take up even more lucrative roles in the sector. In entrepreneurship and start-ups, through fintech and content creation and startups, the opportunities are vast.”

She pledged Globacom’s continued support for the sector.

Disu commended the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, and the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Aminu Maids, for their commitment and political will to address the challenges in the telecom industry.

Also speaking at the event, Tijani, said with Nigeria’s huge population and resources, the country was well placed to play a critical role in a connected economy.

“We can only do that by diversifying our economy and strengthening technical efficiency.

This is why there is immense focus on digitalizing our economy and accelerating development in sectors like agriculture and mining to improve quality of education  so we can improve learning outcomes and as such deepen pour workforce, improve on transportation  and infrastructure  so that our economy can get the backbone that is required to make it work for our people”, the minister stated.

The Digital Economy Report was presented by GSMA Africa and the World Bank.