By Adamu Usman Garko
It was not surprising when Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, on one of his official sojourns to Mallam Kashifu Inuwa’s hometown, did a public eulogy of the NITDA boss as one of the most inquisitive, determined, and honest persons he has met in his sojourn as a public figure. This encouraged the Honourable Minister to recommend Kashifu to the President as a befitting successor to head NITDA.
Kashifu has efficiently headed NITDA for two graceful years, and at this point, it is important that we retrospect on his strides borne out of his application of experiential know-how coupled with sterling leadership since resumption of office. After graduating from the renowned Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Kashifu furthered to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT; a world-class institution famed for her vast repository of tech training and knowledge.
After graduating cum laude with a Masters in IT operations, business transformation and solution architecture, he proceeded to arm himself with professional certifications to deepen his technical expertise and broaden his individual capacity from the Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, and IMD Business School respectively.
Aside his stellar strides in the classroom, he has exemplified his technical expertise in public and private capacities including but not limited to; the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN], Galaxy Backbone, IP Operations team, where he championed numerous projects aimed at helping the society at large.
Hence, leading NITDA in this graceful and glorious manner should be no subject of surprise, but candid appraisal of his strides since assumption of office is important in order to inspire other agency heads in the country about the prospects and potentials hidden in Nigeria as a whole; especially in the IT sector.
In just two years of taking over from where Dr. Isa Ali Pantami stopped, Kashifu Inuwa has made notable strides especially in the aspect of positioning the agency as an inextricable player in the IT sector of the country. Most recently, the agency, under Kashifu’s authority has kick-started capacity development programs on e-governance and digital infrastructure for executive members of all states in Nigeria and has begun the execution of this program in Kano state, Nigeria.
