The Federal Government has pledged to collaborate with indigenous tech firms, including Imose Technologies, to bolster local smartphone manufacturing and advance Nigeria’s digital economy.
During a recent visit to Imose Technologies’ assembly plant in Lagos, the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, discussed the need for local production to achieve the nation’s connectivity and innovation goals.
“We need businesses that can build solutions tailored to our people’s needs,” Tijani stated.
“As we expand fibre-optic networks to improve internet access, the availability of affordable devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops becomes critical. Companies like Imose Technologies are key to ensuring this vision becomes a reality.
“So that’s why we need indigenous companies like Imose Technologies and many more out there to understand their pain points and how we can support them so that they can start to truly fully manufacture devices in Nigeria. And that way it can become affordable and our people can have access,” Tijani said.
The minister’s assessment of the factory was part of efforts to identify ways the government can support indigenous companies to scale their operations and reduce production costs.
“There are so many ways we can collaborate. For every sector, there’s a complete supply chain, and there’s also what you may call the value chain through which the actual product is created and consumed.
“The government cannot leave all of that to private companies to do. There is a need for collaboration, and as a government, we have to ensure that our regulations are proper to allow indigenous companies to develop solutions and manufacture products.”
The Chairman of Imose Technologies, Osayi Izedonmwen, thanked the minister for his visit and assessment while arguing that smartphone batteries are one of the core components that could drive down the cost of producing mobile phones.
Given the large concentration of lithium in Nigeria, Izedonmwen envisions a future where Imose Technologies could produce lithium batteries for mobile phones locally, with a bigger plan to mass-produce such mobile phone batteries for export.