One-On-One With Nigeria’s CTO Kashifu Abdullahi

Africa’s relationship with Nigeria is rather … interesting, while hers with Kenya is a smidge complicated. Everyone in tech and their dog knows about the ‘Grand Fintech Funding Battle of 2023’ with billions of dollars at play. While Afrobeats are wrung from Naija’s Yaba drums and Kenya’s Silicon Savannah parlays the pulse of Arbantone, a never-ending game of whiff-whaff plays out in a myriad of ways, mainly socially and economically. When we drill right down to it though, the pair are surprisingly alike in matters eGov. A similarity beautifully contextualised by technology.

There is a woman in her early 50s. Let’s call her Ife. Ife is learning how to use a computer. She is also going to showcase the efforts Nigeria’s government is expending towards SMEs, building a tech ecosystem, and rallying a digital generation. Mainly, though, she sells kuli-kuli, a cake made using groundnuts. The popular Nigerian snack, aka groundnut cake or peanut cake, is made from peanuts that are dry roasted, ground into a semi-paste, mixed with spices, and then deep-fried in groundnut oil. It is a labour-intensive process, especially without machinery. Ife doesn’t own any. She lives outside Abuja, and she spends almost three hours every day commuting between her home and Abuja.

But after digital literacy training, Ife learned she could stay at home, use social media particularly Instagram and WhatsApp, to communicate with her customers, send pictures of her product allowing them to make orders, have their kuli-kuli delivered, and pay her through her bank. She can now use the time she spends commuting to produce more kuli-kuli. “We believe even the market women selling tomatoes and onions can also use technology to expand their reach,” says Kashifu. They are in the process of training millions of Nigerians. The world, after all, beyond the ICT space, needs students, SMEs, the techies, manufacturers, right down to the informal sector.

Moving files from office to office can be a soul-destroying task for most. It certainly felt that way for Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, the Director-General cum CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigeria. It compelled him to ask his employer if he could design a website for the organisation. Smart enough not to say no and propelled forward by one of his most vibrant values – getting noticed – Kashifu channelled his stipend towards domain registration, hosting his contact details on the site. He must have done a fantastic job because someone reached out, offering him 1.5 million naira to develop their site. That launched him into a network engineering career where it hit him; technology helps people deliver their business value propositions. He promptly went into solution design, thinking on how to align business with technology, transforming himself into a solutions architect. Now, he refers to his career as the CTO, Nigeria.

Let’s backtrack. Kashifu is a philomath. Armed with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science (Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi), he wields executive certificates from Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, London Business School and Oxford University. In addition, the IMD Business School, Switzerland alum is a trained strategist from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Not to mention his multiple certifications dotting his distinguished career.

How did you end up getting the job as the CTO, Nigeria? That’s something that goes to someone who is either very ambitious, has had a lot of opportunities or they got lucky. Sometimes even all three combined!

When I started my career as a network engineer, I was contemplating a PhD or MSc. But I realised networking work is hands-on skills, so I opted for certifications from Cisco. I did my CCN with them, my CCNP and CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert), the highest networking certification in the world. It cost me more than 3.5 million naira to go for the training and pay for the exam. My colleagues laughed, asking me why I spent this money to acquire skills to work for a company. I told them maybe they didn’t understand.

What did they not understand?

The knowledge is not for the company. It’s for my career development. The company employs me because I have skills. If I develop myself, tomorrow I can decide to leave. Also, as soon as I returned with my certification, the company refunded me my money. It all elevated my career. I got sought out for opportunities, including outside Nigeria. But I decided to stay back and work in Abuja. Here, I began building my skills around solution design and solution architecture. My goal; to be the CIO of that company. Then the Central Bank of Nigeria created a division of enterprise architecture, scouting for talent with skills in enterprise to design and architecture.

They headhunted me on LinkedIn. Initially, I turned them down. They invited me to test three times. They ended up asking someone who knew me to invite me. They really wanted me to join the team. They thought that based on my skills, I was the best Technology Architect. I realised this was an opportunity to become a CIO. That’s why I joined CBN in 2014. In 2.5 years, (2017) I got the opportunity to be Technical Assistant to the then Director-General/CEO of NITDA. The DG/CEO is the Chief Information Technology Officer of Nigeria. At each stage of my career, I’ve tried to leave a legacy. At CBN, I created the bank’s technical architecture and position that gave a 360 view of the bank’s IT investment, the Technology Architecture Repository (TAR). I also led the software rationalisation project that saved the bank more than $11 million in annual subscriptions for software.

What are some of the challenges that you have experienced as Director-General/CEO and how have you resolved them?

My major challenge when I was appointed was changing the mindset of the staff. If you want to do transformation, if you want to change things, the first thing you need to do is cultivate the mindset of the people. Without their buy-in, it would be difficult to achieve anything. Once I realised that, I came up with a playbook. First, was to create clarity. That way, if you sat down with anyone, explained the why, and they were convinced, they would be part of it. Everybody wants to be associated with success. And people want to be part of something big. So, the second thing is trust. Lack of trust is hurting the public sector. In most situations, the people working with you don’t trust their line managers. They don’t trust the management. That’s why you will find a situation whereby whatever the director, manager or CEO says is the end. People don’t challenge. People don’t ask why. I call this malicious obedience. Someone asks you to do something. You know it is wrong. But you do it anyway because it’s your boss and he directed you to do it. I believe creating trust will solve that problem.

And that’s what we’re trying to do. Create that trust through cultural re-orientation, through engaging people, through trying to get them to be part of whatever you do. It means trying to create a psychologically safe environment to ensure people can challenge processes. Trust is also an external challenge, lack of trust between the governments and the ecosystem. When I joined, that didn’t exist. Government will sit in the office, use armchair theory to come up with regulation policies, and impose them on the ecosystem. And the ecosystem in turn doesn’t accept that, will never use it, and it will just be a waste of time. We try to look at how we can reinvent that social contract because when we look at it, it’s not just about government, but it’s an ecosystem thing. We realised we needed to bring academia on board, because they produce human capital. We needed to bring corporate organisations on board, because they are the ones that buy products and services from start-ups. Incidentally, Nigerians don’t invest in start-ups because they don’t understand it. They opt for conventional investment instead of investing in innovation.

You mentioned something quite interesting. You talked about malicious obedience. How do you disrupt that? How do you create an environment where your team can come to you and tell you, ‘I don’t agree?’

Through building trust and creating clarity for people. We have also created what I sometimes call a flat structure, but I know government is hierarchical. But we came from a situation where as CEO, I would send something to a director. The director then sends it to a deputy director, the deputy director to an assistant director down to the last person who will do the work. After the work, a report is sent back to me. In many cases, I would ask the director, and he couldn’t explain the assignment to me. Now I challenge them to be more than a conduit passing information without adding any value.

That triggered the thinking we need to change the way we do things. I always encourage them to sit and brainstorm the best ideas. That’s what happens. There is a shift where instead of hierarchically the last person, who in most cases doesn’t understand the justification or the why, will be the one that will do the work, to a situation whereby the director will sit down with the team, explain the assignment, listen to everybody and take the best idea. We have broken that thinking and the barrier so that what created the trust and people now contribute and challenge whatever is on the table. In a brainstorming session, there is no hierarchy. The superior argument wins and the director must accept that.

Throughout your career, you have interacted with quite a number of tech leaders. What do you think makes a good leader in the tech landscape?

A good tech leader is not just about the technology. You need to know what the technology is for – to serve humanity. Technology is not the end, but technology is something that can help you make lives better. For you to be a good leader, you need to first be a humble hero. What I mean by humble hero is this. You need to know and accept when you are wrong and compromise because nobody knows it all. And you also need to be globally and locally minded. Technology is global. As you implement it, you need to also think of how it can work in your environment.

Sometimes, as tech leaders, what we get wrong is we always rush after the best technology. Mostly, the best technology is created for someone or some organisation, and no two countries or organisations are the same. Every organisation or country is unique. If something is created for someone, don’t just rush to it and bring it to your environment. Try to understand ‘What is your business value proposition?’ And ‘What kind of capabilities do you need to have in place to help you deliver your business?’ Then you need to play politics sometimes because it is not about just you. It is about getting things done. It’s about making compromises. It’s about listening to others to get things done.

Has your background or even your upbringing influenced your leadership and your contribution to public service?

My background has been part of me since I was a child. I always try to live according to my family’s and my community’s core values. My family’s core values are to be different and to create value. I should not follow the crowd in anything I’m going to do. I also don’t do things because I see people do. I have to ask myself, ‘Is it the best thing I should do? Or can I go against the crowd?’ Sometimes, I make decisions whereby people are going in this direction and go in the opposite direction. The second one is to create value. I do this by asking myself ‘What value am I creating if I do this?’ ‘Is it going to be a waste of time, or will it create value for myself, my immediate community, my family, or my country?’ I will weigh these options to ensure balance. I will be different, but being different, I will create value.

As for my community’s core values, these say I need to stand out. Whatever I do, I need to stand out. I need to do it well. And, I need to be noticed. I don’t do it just for the sake of doing it, but I need to be noticed so that I can inspire others to do it. This really helped me. From school right up to when I started my career, I made decisions like whether to go for an MSc or PhD when I decided not to because that is not what I needed to progress in my career. I knew what I needed were hands-on skills. Even at NITDA, I always try to do things differently except if there is a law that says you must do it that way.

But if not, I try to be different. I also make sure anything I do creates value, whether for myself, my agency, my ministry, my ecosystem, my sector, or my county. Then I always try to stand out when we do things. There are many things people will say, for instance, this is not possible in government, in public service. But we do it and it stands out. A case in point is our performance system. They were telling me that was not how to do performance appraisals or promotions in government. But I always challenge them, asking, ‘Is there any law that says you should not do it this way?’ They eventually adopted it. And, today we are paperless at NITDA. If you see any paper, it’s coming from outside and mostly they scan it at the gate and email it to us. They are coming to learn from us on how we do things.

Outside work, what are some of the hobbies or activities that you enjoy that help you to unwind or that give you that balance on a day-to-day basis or just over the weekend?

I like reading and I like walking. I do between 5 to 10 kilometres every evening. I also play chess. These are the three things I do to unwind.

Have you had any mentors in your life and have you, in turn, been a mentor to others?

Many people played a role in my life and in my career; some I look for so I can be like them. I also cherish mentoring others. I like giving back to society. I was after all inspired by an artisan who repairs computers, electronic radios and televisions to study computers. He never went to a higher institution but he finished secondary school and he has the skills to open electronics. We used to call him an engineer. He was the person that inspired me to study computer science.

Did your success come easily, did you have to work harder than most people to prove yourself or do you think you got lucky to be successful at a young age?

I think nothing good comes easy. For everything, you need to work hard. I learned to repair computers and practised this during university breaks. People would call me to fix their computers. I started developing websites and systems just a few months after graduating from university. And CCIE is one of the most difficult exams in the world. It is an eight-hour exam where you do more than just troubleshoot configuration. These helped broaden my thoughts about things and my career progression.

Yes, there is a bit of luck in life, but mostly I see luck as an intersection between your preparation and opportunity. Because if you are not prepared for that opportunity, you will not be lucky to get it. Prepare yourself. Then when the opportunity comes, you can get it. And also, I believe that the only thing that can help you is to believe in prayer. While you need to have determination, you need to have belief in God. It’s only God that gives things. When you believe in that and you work for it, you can get it.

I always use the ideology of The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. The last habit about Sharpening The Saw means as a person, you need to take care of yourself and you need to be sure you are sharpened to do the work you do. He talks about how you need to be physically, mentally, socially and spiritually fit. The spiritual part is the prayer and meditation.

Two more questions, and then I can wrap this up. Keeping in mind the last habit, what is your daily routine? I read a lot about how successful people tend to have and stick with their routines to stabilise them. What about you?

If I’m at home in the morning, I will wake up, pray, meditate, then I do my work. Most of my productive work is done at home before coming to the office. When I come to the office, it is mostly meetings and more meetings and seeing people. I don’t have my lunch in the office. I eat my lunch at home, late, then I’ll spend time with my family. Then I will take my walk at night, and I will retire for the day. I also always read for one hour every day.

Does the walk bring ideas that you then write down as soon as you get home?

(Laughs) It brings ideas, but my problem is I don’t write. I leave everything in my head. I’m very lazy when it comes to writing those down. But what I will do is structure it mentally. The work I do is to think about the bigger picture, and when the next morning comes, I know I’ll do ABC. Another place I tend to get ideas is the shower. I also use that time to digest the ideas and come up with an execution plan.

What do you hope will be your legacy? Not just at NITDA where you are now, but when you are on your deathbed, what do you hope your legacy will have been?

I want it to be whereby every Nigerian should have not just access, but meaningful access to technology for a quality lifestyle. And some of the things I’m contemplating could be done by my foundation, Future Map Foundation, after this office. We are working on building an ecosystem, building talent. That can solve real-life problems. We are thinking of an academy, not for degrees or diplomas, but an academy where people can go and learn skills, especially technical skills. That can solve healthcare and climate change problems. In my state, we have flooding challenges and people don’t have access to quality healthcare.

We are working with some medical doctors and healthcare providers to see how can we use technology to provide quality health services to people in remote areas. We signed, and are working with, the MoU with eHealth Africa to build a clinic. We want to use AI and are thinking of a chatbot connected to ChatGPT. Research is ongoing. I’m also thinking about how to use technology to improve productivity in agriculture. Nigeria is an agrarian country and agriculture is the highest contributor to our GDP. Empowering citizens with technology to improve production will help a lot in job creation.

Thank you so much. It was an absolute pleasure.