PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has signed into law Nigeria’s Startups Bill.
This information was provided to State House media by the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Pantami, during the brief signing ceremony that brought the Nigeria Startups Act 2022 into effect at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
He revealed that the National Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Council will be established by the new Act.
The minister noted that the new law resulted from the government’s commitment to giving young entrepreneurs and innovators in Nigeria the necessary enabling conditions to confront a variety of challenges, including those related to intellectual property, funding, regulation, and incentive.
Pantami, who said President Buhari, through the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy, and the Office of the Chief of Staff, broached the bill from the onset, stated that the government has earmarked N10 billion start-up funding for startups and innovators to draw from.
He revealed that Microsoft has agreed to train roughly five million Nigerians in high-demand skills aimed toward job creation as recognition for the Nigerian government’s ICT efforts.
According to him, the ICT sector generated 18.42% of the GDP this year alone, compared to 40% from the communication and digital economy as a whole.
Prior to the bill’s passage, he continued, young innovators from the six geopolitical regions of the country were engaged, and the Act provides them the legal and tactical framework they need to contribute to the nation.
According to him, five of the seven unicorns in Africa, are Nigerians, and each unicorn is worth $1 billion on the open market.
He defined a unicorn as a privately held startup company with a value of more than $1 billion USD.
