Africa
THE Director-General, National Data Protection Bureau (NDPB), Mr Vincent Olatunji, has solicited legal support to facilitate the passage of a data protection bill in the country.
Olatunji said this at the closing ceremony of a 3-day Workshop on Data Protection and Legal Drafting organised by Nigeria Digital Identification For Development Project (ID4D) on Wednesday in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the programme was organised for the Federal Ministry of Justice (FMOJ), to create awareness in the law about to be passed by the National Assembly.
He said there was a need to ensure that the custodians of data information and those given the information were safeguarded and protected.
Olatunji said: “This will improve our global competitiveness because a lot of countries now have their data protection laws and supervisors overseeing those places.
“We have held workshops to sensitise and ensure that all stakeholders are involved for the way forward.
“This is to create awareness in the law about to be passed, to build capacity and share knowledge, which needs to be globally competitive.”
In his remarks, Mr Solomon Odole, Project Coordinator, Nigeria Digital ID4D Project, said that the programme was organised to strengthen the legal and institutional frameworks in the country.
“We believe in proper engagement in what we do. We strongly believe that if stakeholders are carried along, we will always and timely achieve whatever we want to accomplish.
“Stakeholders must be put first and that is what we have been doing to get results and the stakeholders we have been dealing with are wonderful.
“We believe that FMOJ is a critical stakeholder in this whole process so we want to work in synergy with the ministry to see that the bill is passed by the end of this year,” he said.
The Director of the Legal Drafting Department, FMOJ, Ms Ifunanya Nwajagu, said that there was no sustainable development without data.
Nwajagu commended the NDPB and ID4D for putting the training together and assured to work in synergy to move the project forward from the legal angle.
“We are beginning to understand that we cannot have sustainable development in any sector without data.
“Data is required to be able to compute the present and future. Without knowing where you are you cannot know where you are going.
“We need to protect the data as we give them out, that is why the NDPB is very crucial.
“We will do what we can to see that it is being passed into law by this assembly,” she said. (NAN)
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Tags: Federal Ministry of Justice (FMOJ) Ifunanya Nwajagu National Data Protection Bureau (NDPB) Nigeria Digital Identification For Development Project (ID4D) Solomon Odole Vincent Olatunji
