Nigeria's Tertiary Education Trust Fund has inaugurated an Advisory Committee to identify and recommend six public Universities to host new Centres of Excellence in Robotics, Coding, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Cybersecurity, as the Country moves to close a widening digital skills gap.

The committee, chaired by Professor Yakubu Ochefu, immediate past Secretary General of the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, is tasked with setting merit based selection criteria and ensuring representation across the Country's six geopolitical zones, in line with the TETFund Act of 2011. The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, directed that the first phase of the committee's work be completed within 30 days.

Echono stated that the centres would be hosted exclusively by public Universities and would provide students and researchers with modern facilities to drive innovation in emerging technology fields. He noted: "We are not only addressing issues around national security, but we are also preparing future generations of our youthful population to contribute meaningfully to national development and to fill knowledge and skills gaps globally."

He added that the initiative received presidential approval, disclosing: "We secured Mr President's approval to establish at least six additional Centres of Excellence across the country."

The initiative comes as Nigeria ranks 103rd out of 127 countries in the 2025 Network Readiness Index. Industry data shows the country has approximately 50,000 AI workers and produces about 2,500 AI graduates annually, figures experts say fall well short of what is needed to sustain a growing technology ecosystem. Only 31% of universities in Africa offer dedicated AI programmes, and 34% depends heavily on imported technologies and foreign technical expertise, a gap the new centres are expected to address.

Professor Ochefu pledged the panel's commitment to identifying Institutions with demonstrable capacity, noting that countries making progress in the digital economy had deliberately invested in research hubs that connect academia with industry and translate ideas into commercially viable products.