Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE (born 21 February 1980) is a Nigerian Technocrat and the current Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). He has professional expertise in strategy implementation, solutions architect, and transformational leadership.
Abdullahi started as a network engineer in 2005 at Galaxy Backbone, and he has 18 years of corporate experience in the private/public IT space. He has a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE Certification) and is a Fellow of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS). He was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Business Administration (Leadership and Management) from California Metropolitan University in London at the Leaders Without Borders Annual Business Summit.
Career and public service
Prior to becoming Director-General of NITDA, Abdullahi worked at Galaxy Backbone Ltd as a senior network engineer from 2007 to 2013 before joining the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a senior technology solutions architect from 2014 to 2017. In 2017, he joined NITDA as a Technical Assistant to the then Director-General before being appointed DG in 2019 by the former President of Nigeria - Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR.
Technical Assistant to the DG of NITDA
Abdullahi worked as the Technical Assistant between 2017 and 2019 to the then Director-General- Isa Pantami. Abdullahi was actively engaged in the design, planning, coordination, and execution of NITDA's strategic goals across various thematic areas such as IT Regulation, Local Content Development and Digital Inclusion. He played a key role in the coordination of local content initiatives in 2017, which increased the ICT local production. He helped identify opportunities for reduction in project costs in NITDA's procurement processes and oversaw and achieved over 5% reduction in the budgets of major projects.
Director-General NITDA (2019–present)
Abdullahi is the current DG/CEO of NITDA- the Information Technology Regulatory Agency for the Nigerian ICT ecosystem. In this position, he has implemented several strategic initiatives and projects designed to foster digital inclusion, accelerate innovation, create jobs, and improve access to critical IT infrastructure across Nigeria.
The implementation of NITDA mandates of the NDEPS helped boost the performance of the Nigerian ICT sector as reflected in the contributions to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country; 14.07% in Q1 2020, 17.92% in Q2 2021, and 18.44% in Q2 2022.
Abdullahi is a skilled IT professional whose contributions and initiatives have helped develop and forge a top-tier IT industry in Nigeria. Since his appointment as the DG of NITDA, he has upskilled and reskilled over 1.5 million Nigerians from different career disciplines and has formulated critical policy frameworks that guide the Nigerian government's activities and interventions in the IT ecosystem. In 2019, he oversaw the issuance of endorsement certificates for over 1,000 Indigenous IT companies and service providers. He also approved the issuance of licenses to 12 local OEMs and 100+ data protection companies.