Kashifu: Navigating Challenges of the Digital Economy, By Gimba Kakanda ADVERTISEMENT The regulation Nigeria seeks is one that Malam Kashifu advocates, and that’s allowing local startups and corporate organisations to absorb new technologies and recreate their acquisitions to boost the digital economy. But this synergy is impractical unless the government earns the trust of these frightened citizens afraid of new experiments. The first thing he did was to remind me that cryptocurrency is enabled by a technology with applications far beyond the disputed virtual currency. “The world is fast evolving,” he said, “But there’s no plan to stifle any technology or innovation in Nigeria.” If Nigeria were a startup, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, as the Director-General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), would function as a leading technical officer and this made me yield to the temptation to engage him when we caught up last Tuesday.