The National President of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Engr. (Dr.) Jani Ibrahim, mni, OON has called for the integration of digital capabilities, automation, and institutional trust into Nigeria’s traditional real sectors including agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and mining to accelerate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s $1 trillion economy agenda.
Engr. Ibrahim made the call in Abuja during the opening ceremony of the Digital Nigeria International Conference & Exhibition (DNICE) 2026, where he formally led Nigeria’s Organised Private Sector (OPS) into a strategic digital partnership with the Federal Government.
Representing the Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPSN) and the Federation of West African Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FEWACCI), Engr. Ibrahim co-declared the conference open alongside Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima, GCON, and the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. ‘Bosun Tijani.
Delivering his keynote address, the NACCIMA President commended the Director-General and CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, for institutionalizing private-sector collaboration in national digital policy.
“For the first time, we are witnessing a deeply democratic and institutionalized engagement with the Organised Private Sector.
By actively integrating NACCIMA’s nationwide networks into national policy, the NITDA Director-General has moved digital transformation from an isolated policy pursuit into a joint public-private economic crusade,” Engr. Ibrahim stated.
He emphasized that achieving a $1 trillion GDP requires modernizing the real sectors where the majority of Nigerians earn their livelihoods, introducing three flagship NACCIMA-NITDA initiatives designed to bridge the gap between traditional commerce and technology.
Under the NACCIMA–NITDA 10,000 AI Enterprise Accelerator, Digital Transformation Officers across more than 120 chambers nationwide will mobilize 10,000 MSMEs and industrial players across all 36 states and the FCT to undergo digital diagnostics, receive artificial intelligence training, access cloud and connectivity vouchers, and integrate 3MTT graduates to sustain operations.
He also unveiled the Integrated Digital Transformation Platform (IDTP), a sovereign digital operating system linked with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) that automates trade documentation, cutting processing times for instruments such as the e-Certificate of Origin (e-CoO) from 48 hours to four minutes.
To bolster cross-border credibility, Engr. Ibrahim introduced the National Digital Trustmark, a verification badge anchored on the IDTP that certifies compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA 2023) and cybersecurity benchmarks, positioning Nigerian businesses for global trade corridors including the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
Demonstrating immediate commercial commitment, the NACCIMA leader disclosed that 10 prominent corporate investors, financiers, and industrialists from the association were deployed into the DNICE Executive Hall B2B Deal Rooms to negotiate procurement contracts, pilot trials, and equity investments with NITDA-vetted tech startups.
“Our tech startups should not need to look entirely outward for validation and scaling. NACCIMA is bringing the traditional real sector and domestic capital to the table. We must fund them, buy from them, and build with them,” he said.
Speaking in his capacity as President of FEWACCI, Engr. Ibrahim pledged to replicate these digital trust and trade frameworks across the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sub-region, cementing Nigeria’s position as Africa’s premier digital and commercial gateway.