Getting Local Software to Work

Ministry of Science & Technology last week said that Nigerian banks have spent more than N23 billion on purchase of foreign software between 1995 through 2008.
Though not totally unexpected, it is however coming as references are made about the compelling need to seek alternative sources of foreign exchange earnings other than oil.
Experts agree that the most rational option for the nation to insulate herself from the vagaries of the meltdown lies in the diversification of the economy.
The need to grow the local software industry comes in readily here.
While countries like India, China, Brazil, South Korea among others depend on their locally produced software for global competitiveness, Nigeria is yet to appreciate the huge potentials that exist in the local software market.
Available records have shown that biggest computer companies in the world such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems are among the top richest companies in the world and are known to produce some of world’s richest people such as Bill Gates
Dr Alhasan Baku Zako, minister of Science and Technology agreed that the vision 2020 may be derailed if the country continues to depend on foreign software for her economic development.
By investing N23 billion holistically on Nigerians to acquire skills in software development, the country would have been among the software nations of the world.
By the minister’s own admittance, if Nigeria is to realize her dream of being the top 20 highest economy in the world by the year 2020, then she should realize that it cannot continue to remain insulated from the global requirement to be a software development nation and should take note of these realities and recognize that software development is an important key to national economic development.
Luckily, Nigeria is blessed with some of the best brains in software development who have remained in the background as a result of financial institutions’ penchant for imported software.
To get them to work and contribute to the development of the economy, government must as a matter of necessity to put in place measures to encourage local companies to patronize local software which pass quality assurance tests.
There is also need to fix the country’s notoriously unreliable power supply, bad roads, and inadequate transportation networks.
The school curricula should also be rjigged with emphasis on software development right from the basis.