By Soni Daniel, Regional Editor, Northern Operations & Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief & Emmanuel Elebeke – ABUJA

The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Tijani Bosun has confirmed his availability to feature as Keynote Speaker to attend the 2nd Annual FinTech Cyber-Security and Fraud Summit 2024.

The minister made the confirmation at the weekend when he received a Vanguard team that paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Abuja.

The summit which is anchored on Artificial Intelligence adoption and Cybersecurity prevention scheduled to hold in Lagos on April 18, 2024.

With the Theme: The Emerging Role of AI Adoption in FinTech and Financial Institutions Cyber-Security Fraud Risk Management and Prevention is convened by The Economic Forum Series ® (EFS) in partnership with Vanguard newspapers, the summit as a follow up on the huge success of inaugural summit in 2023 is programmed to attract critical stakeholders and key players within the banking, fintech, financial services, telecom, information technology (IT) and cyber security ecosystem, as well as regulators, policy makers and tech innovators.

The minister, while speaking on the importance of moving the nation forward in line with technological dynamics, said he had done a lot in less than six months in office to change the trajectory of governance through technology, especially in the communications and technology sector.

He said, ‘‘We need to move forward but what it takes to move a nation forwards is not entirely for government alone. We live in a word that is changing and I am always particularly interested in taking a system approach on how to develop a society.

‘‘There is a lot I have actually done in less than six months that are in the public. I have introduced a lot of things that have not been done in this country, even on the political side. I give a weekly report of all my activity on every social media handle.

‘‘ The 3 million talents haunt is a part of our program and even in terms of accountability and transparency, we do a weekly report of everything we do, every meeting that we hold, every program we do because we believe that one of the ways to build a society is to build trust.

‘‘Given my background from Budgit. I am not a typical politician. I have been a public leader and have always worked for Nigeria. I actually have clarity in terms of building conversations’’.

The Minister, who dismissed the erroneous beliefs about Artificial Intelligent, advocated for speedy adoption of the technology, saying “whether we like it or not, the technology is going to affect us”.

‘‘Our world is changing significantly; there is a thing people will tell you not to talk about it, the AI for instance. For AI people will tell you it is not important because we are dealing with poverty mentality. But what is going on now is that the world is teaching computer how to think like human.

‘‘So, whether we like it or not, whether we have light or not, whether we have better internet or not, AI is going to affect us. And the way AI is trained; it is through what is known, using information that is already known. So, we use information already known by how we do things. At the moment, those machines are being used based on the western information and knowledge.

‘‘It is my responsibility to get media understand AI because it is going to affect all of us and take us to next level of racism, when machines die before you think, it suggests something for you based on western thinking. It is already being used in healthcare, education, security etc. so, when people say things like that, that are not applicable to us here, it is a lie, it is poverty mentality that people are attaching to it.

‘‘The reality is that, if we do not carry media along and empower them, it will affect us. For technology space, I will like to empower the media, carry them along and also look for opportunities to continue to empower them. We need to enlighten our people about AI and it is free for everybody. We need to do conferences on the future of AI to democratize it’’.

Speaking on the need to have the right conversation between the leadership and the led, Dr. Bosun said, ‘‘Nigeria is quite complex and the development that we all want, we cannot achieve if we do not have right conversation and even that conversation starts with the media. Because of the complexity of Nigeria your work is limited in terms of resources, accessing information real time etc.

‘‘The reality is that the media is responsible for how society actually discusses path to development. No matter how politicians are, how greedy they may be, if media is strong, it can force both the leaders and the people to discuss. But the problem with the conversation is that as an arbitrator, you have to be neutral in that process.

‘‘Every three months we simply our strategic blueprint to five key pillars. Everything you see me do, falls under that five pillars. So, you have a chance to see our plans and scrutinize what we are doing and you can follow that up on social media handles. Significant number of people online just wants better life. So, when they keep seeing that, they start building hope’’.

Similarly, the Minister reiterated his resolve to connect all the 774 local government secretariats across the country with a fiber optic cable and provision of internet services.

The idea according to him, is to link all the LGAs to be accessible in this digital era of globalization, considering the critical roles they play in birth, death, marriage registrations, as well as their role in basic education, waste management, infrastructure development, healthcare and social services.

He said, ‘‘If we have all these locations and they are not connected, when the world is moving at a speed rate, how do we want our people to develop?

‘‘As I speak, people in the field have started installation. The Galaxy Backbone has already provided backbone infrastructure because Government had invested massively in fibre optic cables through the agency’’.

He said, ‘‘Nigeria is the only country in West Africa that has its own satellite and that satellite is able to sent signals to the most remote locations. This infrastructure has not been there but not put into use, but under this President we are putting it into good use. That is part of what we are doing. And through this, we are creating jobs.

‘‘When we do the installations, the LGAs will not just abandon them; maybe the CSOs will come and partner with them. That is why we are training them and make sure they use it.

“What we don’t understand in nation building is that when people are not hopeful, no matter the amount of work the government is doing’’.

Earlier in his briefing, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), The Economic Forum Series ® (EFS), Mr. Jude Ndu, told the Minister that he led the team from Vanguard to intimate him about the upcoming FinTech Cyber-Security Summit and to formally present the invitation to him.

‘‘For us, the Annual FinTech Cyber-Security & Fraud Summit is an area of interest because of the evolving growth in the industry. This year brings to the fore, the escalating issue of Cybersecurity in FinTech Space. We will gather different players in the sector to deeply dialogue on how to tackle the menace and proffer solutions.

He however, promised that a policy document would be put together after the summit and presented to him for implementation.