Prince Osuagwu
31 December 2008
When the United states of America President- elect, Barack Obama concluded plans to run for the presidency of the United States of America, he discovered Information and Communications Technology, ICT as the platform that could give him mileage.
He explored it. While others were calling corporate organisations and well known American millionaires for fund raising, Obama, a practical community worker, went to the internet and ask well meaning Americans desiring for change, to donate a minimum of $10 dollars to his campaign fund.
Before the first presidential debate, while others were yet to count their blessings, Obama was souring away to the banks in the tune of about $750,000. Such is the power of ICT.
However, Obama did not use ICT to achieve a means and dump it. As Americans are counting days to his formal swearing in, Obama has already appointed a Chief Technology Officer, CTO, signaling that ICT is going to be a pillar of his government.
But the scenario seems to be different in the African countries like Nigeria. While industrialised nations have used government funding for research and development in technologies like the internet, digital photography, global positioning system technology, laser surgery among others to empower innovations that have improved their landscapes, a peep into the seven point agenda of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua of Nigeria did not have a clear mention of ICT.
His reform agenda, centred on power and energy, food security, wealth creation, transport sector, land reforms, security and education .
Obviously the only area that could have traceable ICT agenda was in education which the government said would have "a two-fold reforms that will ensure firstly the minimum acceptable international standards of education for all. With that achieved, a strategic educational development plan will ensure excellence in both the tutoring and learning of skills in science and technology by students who will be seen as the future innovators and industrialists of Nigeria. This reform will be achieved through massive injection into the Education sector".
Yet education since 2007 has not been the best of it and ICT besides the tremendous impact made by the telecom revolution has not properly been integrated in governance. And so, to ensure that the year 2009 does not pass without a future for ICT in the country, different Nigerian ICT professional who spoke to Hi-Tech, provided a blue print for the president to chart a governance built on the gains of Information Technology.
For the president of Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem, government should take the issue of national security seriously by ensuring a policy that would make it mandatory that every SIM card used in the country is registered. That way, frauds and other vices that are perpetrated through the mobile phone could be tracked.
According to Ekuwem, " the issue of national security can not be achieved without a proper policy that would ensure SIM registration in Nigeria. Secondly, the state of education in Nigeria must be leveraged by ICT. Yar'Adua should be addressing human capacity as we enter 2009 if his government is to leapfrog on what is available at the moment. Again, the issue of local content development is key. The government should create cottage industries powered by ICT knowledge".
He also noted that the issue of data retention is paramount " there are incessant cases of kidnaping and threats everywhere in the country. These are issues ICT should take care of if a government makes it the fulcrum of its administration. I don't know how far the government has pushed the policy but it must form Yar'Adua's main policies in 2009 if we must arrest some embarrassing cases. Coupled with all these, there should be a policy to bring all ICT players on a level playing ground in 2009 by discouraging anti-competitive tendencies among operators. I think if these are taken into proper consideration, 2009 would be an ICT year" he added.
Corroborating him, his counterpart in the Association of Licensed Telecom operators of Nigeria, ALTON, Engr Gbenga Adebayo, had this to say " I think what the government has to do is to leverage on the prominence that the telecom revolution has given the country by giving full attention to the industry. Actually most of the problem of 2008 was the problem of infrastructure damages and no government thrives when the infrastructures of its backbone are damaged.
Yar'Adua needs to move the government towards enacting a law that protects telecom infrastructure. As a matter of fact government should classify telecom, national security infrastructure, in order to protect national telecom networks, else the growth expected would be stifled. Again, there is the need to address the issue of double taxation in the telecom industry in 2009 because surely this affects overhead cost. I think the federal government should interfere here so that telecom would leverage governance to a desired level. But most importantly is that policies in 2009 must be geared towards discouraging hostilities against ICT experts in Nigeria otherwise there would be serious mass telecom brain drain because those we do not value here are wanted somewhere else and a government that loses its experts are open to virus attacks"
But a knowledgeable IT professional, Mr Chris Uwaje, did not see any other way forward for Nigerian government in 2009 if ICT is not made the basis of governance. For him, " the issue is simple, when they came into power, I advocated that every official must be IT knowleageable but they didn't heed it. There is hardly any government official that can boast of substantial IT knowledge. So the challenge for Yar'Adua is to encourage an IT retreat where government officials in the first place would be acquainted with the knowledge of IT. Today, the only person we know his governance is guided by IT is Governor Fashola of Lagos state and we all can see how his government is transforming Lagos state. That is the power of IT. Obama has appointed a CTO, Yar'Adua should do the same for his government to get into the right track in 2009"
He also added that "there should be an IT academy for government officials to undergo training for at least six months in IT before assuming office proper and existing officers must also avail themselves of the same opportunity, periodically. These, coupled with a special IT rally by the government to properly equip the youths who are the leaders of tomorrow would give 2009 a face lift in the area of leveraging governance with ICT. Even as we are talking of national security, it can not be achieved without a solid ICT policy in place. So the choice is for the president to move to the next level in 2009 with ICT or maintain the status quo to the chagrin and consternation of the people" he added.
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