FEC Approves implementation of ICT roadmap 2017-2020

*To establish ICT University

The Federal Executive Council (FEC)has approved the implementation of the Information Communication Technology (ICT) roadmap 2017-2020 by the federal government.

The roadmap, which is a general framework for development of ICT in Nigeria, is described as one of the pillars of Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

Briefing journalists at the end of the Federal Executive Council meeting held at the Presidential Villa on Wednesday, Minister of communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu said that one of the aims of the roadmap was to ensure broadband penetration level to all parts of Nigeria by 2020 targeting a 30 percent penetration level.

Shittu said, “This roadmap essentially, is a framework for development of ICT in Nigeria generally.”

“It is also one of the pillars of Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and the aim among others, is to ensure the creation through ICT of 2.5 million jobs between now and year 2020.

He said that government believed that the content of the ICT roadmap will assist in harnessing the innate skills and opportunities available.

“We know that our youths are very intelligent, very, very dynamic and they will utilise the implementation of the ICT roadmap to ensure that more jobs are created and to really get Nigeria digitised.”

The minister of communications added that the policy, when properly implementedAgain, we believe that this policy when properly implemented, will contribute to growing the Nigerian economy such that even with the government revenue, it could increase the GDP to about 20 per cent by Year 2010. As of this year, the contribution of ICT to Nigeria GDP is a little above 10 per cent.

Shittu added that ICT will also assist in making businesses and service delivery easy because of e-government components of it and because of the e-commerce components of the ICT roadmap.

The minister of Communications also revealed that the federal government would establish a specialized university to be known as ICT university in the country.

He said, “One of the main issues is that invariably, we will have an ICT University which will be a specialized university to try to provide opportunities at the local level for intelligent and brilliant and innovative youths to learn more.

The minister lamented that most of the university in the country today lacked the capacity to equip students with latest ICT skills in line with global trend hence the need for the specialized university.

Shittu said: “As of today, with due respect to our universities, the general opportunities are not really there. If you consider the fact that ICT is growing at exponential leave; if you consider the fact that ICT is also a destructive technology, where if you have a syllabus today, by tomorrow that syllabus is changing; if you have another one tomorrow by the next day, it is changing, because there are many people involved in innovations all across.

“Today, many of our graduates are ill-equipped for the ICT industry even in Nigeria not to talk of exporting their services to other African countries.

What a lot of our people do after graduating from the universities is to go to India to equip themselves better to get all the skills that they will require for this new sector of technology.”

“We feel that instead of our people having to go India, having to go to South Korea and all of that, let’s create a specialised environment in Nigeria where people can train both Nigerians and people from overseas.

In doing that, we will have enough manpower to take care of the ICT industry which of course is multi-faceted within Nigeria and also be available for jobs all over the world,” he said.