Lukman Lamid Idowu

Lukman Lamid Idowu is the Special Assistant on Innovation and Research to the Director-General of NITDA.

Some leaders manage what already exists. Lukman builds what does not.

Lukman is on secondment from the National Information Technology Development Agency to lead Jigawa El-Meena Farms Ltd.

He is building Nigeria's first smart and industrial-scale irrigated alfalfa platform: a 1,021-hectare operation, with 715.2 hectares under active irrigation, designed to close the country's forage deficit, earn foreign exchange through GCC exports, and prove that a farm can be run with the same precision as a digital economy. He brings to agriculture the same design thinking he used in building the national digital programmes under his boss, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE. His recommendation is backed by over fifteen years of building institutions from nothing, from managing IT systems for brand marketing at Tequila Nigeria to shaping national digital economy policy at NITDA. Lukman was a founding member of NITDA's Digital Economy Department, where he shaped the policy groundwork that launched the Nigerian Smart Initiative and produced the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS). He went on to drive the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture, the Nigeria Cloud Computing Policy, and the National e-Commerce Policy and Strategy (NEPS), among other national initiatives.

As Special Assistant to the Director-General on Innovation and Research, he championed the Renewed Hope Technology Centres of Excellence, each in six geopolitical zones, to turn research into commercial enterprises. He created the Idea2Impact programme, an annual challenge that discovers and funds Nigeria's brightest corps members and interns, turning them into entrepreneurs and their ideas into startups. He also initiated the Nigeria Tech Outlook Research, a national study tracking how digital technology is reshaping the economy.

The common thread is simple. Lukman believes innovation must meet a real human need. He designed the Regional Digital Innovation and Investment Programme (RegDIIP) to help regional governments discover innovative enterprises that can turn local comparative advantage into shared prosperity. Jigawa State was the first to answer that call. Its land, water, and climate became the foundation. JEFs was born.

He holds an MSc in Business IT with Distinction from Kookmin University, South Korea, and a BSc in Computer Science. His executive credentials include the Certified Strategic Management Professional, Business Transformation Management Methodology, MIT digital transformation and platform strategy, ISO 9001 quality leadership, PECB data protection, and a nanodegree in generative AI for business leaders.

He does not wait for the future to arrive. He designs it.