Experts: Nigeria Yet to Take Full Advantage of Local Content Devt in ICT

Experts in information and communications technology (ICT) have blamed most developing countries in Africa, especially Nigeria, for not taking full advantage of the inherent potential in ICT local content development.

The experts who gathered at a technology conference in US recently, blamed the situation on uncoordinated debates on the necessity of following market-oriented economic policies, the weak capacity of African states to formulate and manage development reforms to conform to local realities and the resistance to the consumption of local products and services especially in the area
technology.

According to them, Nigeria’s ICT ecosystem offers numerous opportunities and challenges in the area of local content, technology convergence, cyber decurity, IT skill acquisition, eHealth, eGovernance, eLearning/online education and other innovative sub-sectors for which collaboration between Nigerians at home and in the diaspora is imperative.

The experts articulated the need for Nigerians to collectively focus on progressive opportunities and solutions across all sectors and specifically, in the areas of ICT.

The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr. Peter Jack, who was part of the gathering, said the ubiquitous nature of ICT has created an opportunity for consistent and thorough knowledge sharing as it pertains to local development.

He however frowned at a situation where most Nigerians are still sceptical about sharing ICT knowledge among themselves and their organisations, as well as to the situation where most organisations did not still believe in locally developed software from Nigeria and other African countries.

He said that Nigeria and other developing nations are finding themselves on the receiving end of massive increase in Internet access due to improvements in bandwidth. This rising phenomenon, according to him, has interconnected these nations with the rest of the developed world with obvious benefits that includes e-commerce among others.

He called on Nigerians to believe in local technology, especially when it is able to meet the needs of the organisation.

Local software developers have over the years, lamented poor patronage of indigenous software solutions, even as the developers try to improve on their products.

The Minister of Communications Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson, is currently championing several ICT initiatives in the country aimed at boosting local content development that will eventually lead to increased use of software applications in the country.