FG need to create office of IT General of the Federation -Uwaje
Dr Chris Uwaje, currently the Director General, Delta State Innovation Hub, Asaba; and past President of ISPON, in this interview with TONY NWAKAEGHO in Lagos, speaks about the way forward for the ICT Industry in Nigeria. Excerpts
What is Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) doing to engage the youths in the ICT ecosystem?
The Universal Service Provision Fund has introduced Change Mega Challenges for innovation start-ups for the whole country and people from the whole regions compete with each other. This is the start of Knowledge Olympian where the five best from 241 teams from six regions will be selected for the national competition which is coming up at Digital Bridge Institute in Lagos to compete among themselves in concepts, video presentations and others, Now the best five which is 30 teams are going to showcase what they have in their knowledge practically on that day.
The preliminary job is how to scale them down to get the best 10 who will now come in on the d-day and be judged on presentation before the best three that could win the award of the road map to the Knowledge Olympia. Investors, government officials and youths will witness what is happening. That is one of the ways we can engage ourselves. This has to do with thinking out of-the-box to solve local needs.
We need to use the Internet to create wealth. Nigerians are limited to the access to those who are making the decisions and we can only open that road map through the Internet. We must get more involved not only on face book.
Hitherto, a lot of negative things are being said on Internet. Why can’t you create the good Nigerian on the Internet as a web site and publish anything good about Nigeria and see how people will embrace it and make money out of it? Nigeria is 119 out of 139 of e-readiness including the Internet, infrastructure and the economy and the over view. And that is a poor mark, it’s a poor score.
We have very intelligent people in Nigeria; and these must cluster together to aggregate our demand that Nigeria deserve a better rating, a better road map, a better strategy.
Above all, we must fight for digital resolutions, digital enabling laws like other countries have. Rwanda have been able to cluster people to partner with a company and come back and make sure that as we are here we donate blood and this blood is sent to 30 villages across the country for primary e-health using drones.
South Africa alone has an incubation centre of about over 1000 people; and you can just walk in and get breakfast, lunch and dinner. With National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA); we need a cluster position of 50,000 youths doing somewhere, commission a stadium and only Internet and innovation will be done there. I know that we are trying to do something, but we are late comers. Our voices must be heard and so let us tell them of what we are and it is by Knowledge Olympia.
The government has a responsibility; and this is where unemployment could be really curbed when you teach people the skill and how to code. It is multiplying talent for the future and ensuring that capital flight to other countries will not be. It is really advocating local content.
The ICT industry is trying to do something on a road map across all sectors, there is an Act on local content in oil and gas, but there is no Act that covers other sector except the executive order 3. What is your take on this?
That is very true. But you see, even within the local content Act 2010, you have specialized recognised bodies in the ICT -in training and advocacy.
They are an integral part; and that is why the people from National Content Development Board always come to have meetings with us. It has helped to put companies, like Shell and Chevron on their toes to be able to comply with the Act. What is missing is that specialized areas that have not been done. ICT needs a specialized legislation for itself for local content and for manpower growth. This is what professionals are pushing on to and the CPN under the Chairmanship of Prince Uwadia is really adamant on this. In fact, very soon, you will see them going to individuals who are practicing who are not registered and companies who are practicing and delivering the practice of ICT to enable their business and shut them down.
So, there is a monitoring system just like the engineering and the bar association now. The area of specialization is core now; and we need to make sure we push that specialization regime, because a lot of people don’t understand what IT is all about and what it is not. Information Communication Technology is really the core attribute on the centre of gravity of modern life; and it has come to fulfil a super layer of the rule of law.
Because the rule of law is about governance and recorded information, which is going to permeate every facet of life, work, health in our life time and that is why it is so fundamental to have a specialized space.
Moving forward, first thing we need to create is a national IT frame work bill. Under that bill will create the office of the IT General of the Federation, just as you have the office of the Attorney General of the Federation. That will be the consolidation park where everybody can resolve policies, strategies and innovations, everything can be tabled.
Having suggested an office for IT General of Federation, What are the necessary steps to ensure that the IT industry realises it?
When you talk about policies, most of the time it is really the industry and the stakeholders who drive government policies as an advisory, because government doesn’t really have the entire wherewithal. So, they rely on professional to be able to come as advisory instrument to produce.
If today, stakeholders come together and say we need a national IT frame work bill to do this under the credit bill, subdivided into two the body of the bill and the Act. The Act for the Office of the Director General for the foundation of IT, the bill, which has been there to be fused into cyber security will be for institutional framework to be built under the curriculum in the education sector, will be on governance can fuel the acceleration of productivity and employment in Nigeria.
You can cluster all these branches, you can work with lawyers who have the craft to streamline but they don’t know about IT. Even the law is deficient in IT governance; so, you will be able to do that. How can you create an Electoral Tribunal in a country where you have been able to use digital interface to collate the results, but when the argumentation comes in to protest the bio data they go to court and no professional is there to tell them how the electronic data are decided.
It is only the lawyers that are there; and this is unacceptable. It is not workable, we wouldn’t call it a fraud, but that is not the road map. The Judge that is deciding that without knowing this information, intricacies and connectivity and how the biometrics is talking to those data in terms of images and whatever cannot be fairness and justice. Professionals must be on the table. Let us create expertise domain in the entire segment so that we can all come together for the good and benefit of the country.
It appears that the youths are being isolated in teams of the curriculum in school for their development in ICT. How do we begin to restructure the curriculum from the grassroots?
Sometimes, the issue of the curriculum challenge is traded in a complex trade wall. Now, the curriculum really is not about bad template, the curriculum is about that environment of teaching it on the students. There is a gap, there is a complexity. The curriculum problem is about teaching it, the lecturers, and there has to be a special attention for teachers of Computer Science and IT in the University.
Curriculum itself as a template worldwide are always fusing and converging together. You can take curriculum from MIT, its open, its online, redress it, and re-domesticate it. But who will teach it? You need to train the lecturer who might have been to a forum like this in the last 15 years. The issue is for the government to support the IT lecturers, computer science and technology lecturers and give them recommendation and facilities for them to put their minds into it.
They need to create Innovation and Discovery Labs, which are fundamental and sine–qua-non to what we can do. TetFund should involve lecturers and media people to be able to talk about it for the benefit and opportunity of the people of this country.
Stories by Tony Nwakaegho
