Angst as Nigeria Sits @ Outskirts of $10Bn Software Industry

A cross section of software experts have returned a damning indictment on the federal government, accusing her of “paying lip-service to software development”, and insisting that the government didn’t really care about the sector, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can report.

The experts, who waxed worriedly at the weekend, said that the government was ignorant of the potentials of the software industry to “cheetah-pole-vault” the economy.

Chris Uwaje, national president, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), said that in other countries, software or the knowledge technology is promoted by the number one citizen and that Nigeria seems to be doing the opposite.

 “It also has legislation requirements. For instance, we are going ahead with the legislation on cyber security whereas, we have not legislated on the software industry.  This is an anomaly, because everything about cyber space is about software. I think, it is a confused state and for whatsoever reasons, professionalism for software has been abandoned. That is why we are not relenting in advising the federal government and, even the national assembly” Uwaje added.

Nodding in agreement,  Agboola Toheeb, chief technical officer, ITRDN Technologies Limited, said that Nigeria is sitting at the outskirts of the $10 billion software industry.

Toheeb, also said, that local industry loses close to $2 billion yearly to software importation.

He said that “There is no doubt that this is as a result of an undefined policy framework and investment strategy on the side of government. So there has been no significant inflow of investment into the local software industry in Nigeria, what we have had so far is IT companies buying rights to resell software licenses”

Commenting, Tobi Asehinde, chief executive officer, Vibe Web Solutions Limited, urged Nigerian banks and financial institutions in the country to sack all foreign information security workers on their payrolls.

 “Since banking is based highly on trust, security issues will remain a special and major concern.  It is important for banks to develop local talents to combat information security issues as this will not only build trust amongst customers in Nigeria but will attract those in Diaspora and foreign investors to grow valuable relationships with the banks that can foster economic growth” he added.

Latching on that, Uwaje insisted that “all the important indices for rating countries in the knowledge economy are anchored in the software domain.  That is why telecom is thriving in Nigeria, but the rating about Nigeria has been very low in the IT environment”

The ISPON boss added that “In fact, Nigeria has been going down because we have not been able to get it right in the indigenous software ecosystem. That is why ISPON has been championing and promoting software in Nigeria for the past 14 years”.

Elsewhere, Asehinde warned that “It would be unhealthy and unwise for banks to have their information security knowledge bases and technology dominated by foreigners “

 Corroborating him, Tohheb said that “My fear however is that the government is not doing enough to grow the local software industry or should I say not sincere because government institutions remains the largest consumer of these imported software – let’s take INEC as a case study and the amount the electoral body spends yearly for voters registration using software imported from abroad.”