At the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA80), the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, joined leaders at the Forward African Leaders Symposium organised by the African Peer Review Mechanism.
The high-level event brought together Heads of State, policymakers, industry executives, academics, and innovators from across the continent to chart pathways for Africa’s digital transformation, with a particular focus on digital identity and technological sovereignty.
In his remarks, Abdullahi spotlighted Nigeria’s advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), notably the launch of N-ATLAS—a multimodal, multilingual Large Language Model (LLM) designed to preserve and promote Nigerian languages in the digital age.
He stressed the importance of Africa moving beyond passive consumption of technology to becoming an active player in shaping, innovating, and governing digital tools. “Nigeria, and Africa as a whole, must take ownership of its digital future,” he said.
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