Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE

Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director-General/CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, is a transformational expert with key competencies across policy formulation, administration, growth management, talent development, solutions architecture, resource mobilisation and strategy implementation.
Inuwa is a thoroughbred IT professional, with an impressive resume in public and private sector IT development, policy formulation, and IT governance. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi. He holds various executive certificates from top-notch universities such as Harvard University, University of Cambridge, London Business School and Oxford University, UK. Abdullahi is also an alumnus of the prestigious IMD Business School, Switzerland, and a trained strategist from the world-famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He equally holds many professional certifications in telecommunications, service management, networking, and solution design.
Inuwa being the first Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) in Nigeria’s public sector has bagged nearly 2 decades of experience in the public and private IT space. He started his professional career at Galaxy Backbone Ltd where he served as a network engineer and senior network and lead solution architect. In 2014, he joined the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a Technology Architect where he was part of the team that developed the CBN Technology Architecture Repository (TAR) and also executed software license rationalization that has increased cost savings for the bank in licensing annual subscription. He joined NITDA in 2017 as the Technical Assistant to the then Director General, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, and has significantly contributed to the Agency’s growth and development.
On 20th August 2019, Mr. Inuwa was appointed the Director-General of NITDA by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR. Thus far, Mr. Inuwa has steered the Agency along the path of working creatively and assiduously for the growth of the IT sector in Nigeria.
Under the direction of Mr. Inuwa, NITDA has achieved several milestones in just three years. He has rolled out various programmes towards digital transformation, talent development, digital innovation and entrepreneurship, developmental regulations, exploring emerging technology, and promotion of indigenous IT content amongst others.