Group Applauds Buhari's Signing Of Nigeria Startup Act

President Muhammadu Buhari has received praise from a group called Young Innovators of Nigeria (YIN) for signing the Nigeria Startup Act.

Additionally, the group claimed that the Act will accelerate the growth of the technological ecosystem.

When responding to Buhari's acceptance of the Bill on Wednesday in Abuja, the President of YIN, Andrew Abu, said this on Friday.

“Primarily, this Act will solidify our innovation ecosystem by serving as a launchpad for startups to take more innovative steps in developing solutions that can address our challenges.

“The Act will further strengthen the support to innovation hubs and accelerators to be the driving house for the development of the much-needed skills and human capital development the start-ups will need to have to thrive.

“It encompasses regulation of tax and fiscal incentives’ support to the start-ups from ideation to market stage,” he said.

Abu emphasised that the Act provided for a supportive environment for the creation and management of start-ups.

He claims that by fostering an enabling atmosphere, they will be able to compete internationally.

“This will further foster the development of technology-enabled talents to think deeply and reposition the Nigeria start-up ecosystem as a leading digital technology hub because of the quality of solutions that will be globally competitive.

“That will also set the country’s start-up ecosystem as one of the drivers to achieve the African Continental Free Trade Area(AfCFTA) goals if we get the implementation right.

“The Act, when the implementation begins, can create more than 10,000 direct jobs within the first few months,” Abu said.

He, however, raised concerns that seed funding and access to capital remained a huge challenge to start-ups but the Act addressed that.

Abu said: “The Act stated an initial N10 billion endowment fund for seed funding.

“I see the Federal Government taking direct steps to work with this very important sector.

“The sector has the capacity to lift millions out of poverty within a short time as technology entrepreneurs do everywhere.”

Abu further explained that the Federal Government collaborated with the stakeholders because it was involved in the bill-drafting process and had an established Act.

Prof. Isa Pantami, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, National Information Technology Development Agency, YIN, and other key players who pushed for the creation of the Act received praise from the president.

He continued by saying that initiatives to solve issues with the digital economy had resulted in several victories for the communications and startup ecosystems during the Pantami era.

Abu claimed that YIN was eager to engage with the government to implement the Act because YIN had worked hard since 2013 to ensure that it was made public.

A combined effort between Nigeria's tech startup community and the presidency, the Nigeria Startup Bill project aimed to harness the potential of the digital economy through jointly developed rules.