Okeremi, PFS CEO Leads Southwest Digital Economy Optimization Dialogue

To identify the available opportunities in technology-driven sector of the economy and lay a foundation for the enhancement of information and communication technology [ICT] in the southwestern states of Nigeria, Mr. Yele Okeremi, CEO of Precise Financial Systems [PFS], would lead an optimization dialogue roundtable in Ibadan on March 8, 2016.

Convened by Development Agenda for Western Nigeria [DAWN], the roundtable dialogue would focus on issues relating to how Western Nigeria could set agenda that would improve the health of the states. How to develop a strategic engagement document, which can be used to generate actions within the policy environment, would also form part of the agenda.
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According to Mr. Oladipo Famakinwa, ‎director general of DAWN,  who would lead a diverse team of professionals to the event, the gathering would agree on actions for setting a regional plan for the growth of the region’s digital/ICT sector, design strategies for building synergy of actions and exploring the collaborative space among others.
 
With this dialogue, he said, the organization envisaged that the opportunity would help to focus its attention on central matter and open up the right conversations that would lead to “achieving a region that is globally competitive in the sector and overall improve our productivity and welfare as a people. That is why we have chosen Yele Okeremi to lead this dialogue.

“We see huge opportunities in the technology driven sec­tor and we must not let it pass us by if we must achieve regional competitiveness, as it is a har­binger of productivity and growth in our economy”, he said.

He added that in spite of great efforts to improve the economic and social conditions in many of these states, “we are still a long way off in terms of optimizing the dig­ital and ICT sector to boost our economic and social productivity”.

He reiterated that the internet connectivity is low while mobile network connections have aided to close the gap of internet connectivity to about 96% of the world’s population.

Quoting a World Economic Forum [WEF] report, he said about 1.6 billion people have no access to 3G or 4G while reliable service at a reasonable cost remains out of reach, thereby hampering the region’s drive to innovate and improve in its competitiveness ranking”.

While lamenting that many states in the region are in a near-bankrupt state due to dwindling federal allocation and their low IGR profile, he reasoned that it is unwise to carry out development projects alone. “For efficiency and economies of scale, the way out is to organise for effective regional actions through the mobilisation of regional endowments and assets and jointly optimise the space for development”.

The objectives of the dialogue, according to him, would include ensuring that the digital/ICT economy form a critical part of the regional economy, turn the region into a hub of digital technology and related enterprises with­in the digital sector, with opportunities in e-commerce, financial inclusion, mobile banking, and outsourcing as well as pursue a Western Nigeria Digital Infrastructure Solidarity Plan, which would ensure that the whole of Western Nigeria is capable of communicating and transferring data at world standards through high capacity digital infrastructure, among others. ‎