The Minister of Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani has disclosed that the federal government secured access to approximately $500m for local funding of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country’s digital sector.
Tijani said this at a dinner organised by the Tech community in Abuja on Friday night.
“We’ve got access to about half a billion dollars to start local funding,” he told reporters.
He said the fund would target “true, real Nigerian businesses.”
The minister added that by domiciling the funding in Nigeria, the government’s target is to foster the growth and development of homegrown enterprises, ultimately contributing to the country’s economic progress.
He stressed that more investors would be brought on board, increasing the funds available to support Nigerian innovators.
He added,” Part of my responsibilities is working with BOI (Bank of Industry) to ensure that we domicile that funding locally in Nigeria, work with firms who manage and invest in businesses to ensure that those businesses that will benefit are true, real Nigerian businesses.
“And what we are going to see is that the funding is available locally and in the coming months it is going to become larger and as these funds become larger we want to leverage that money as well.
“So the government is not just going to put half a billion and that’s it, it can actually bring more investors to heart as we have more money, more of our innovators can have access to resources,” he said.”
