NCS Abuja Chapter Maiden Workshop Centers On Local Content

In an attempt to draw government’s attention to its chapter members’ views on how best to improve the economy, the Abuja Chapter of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) will today, Friday, December 2, 2016 hold its maiden annual workshop.

Barrister Adebayo Shittu, minister of Communications is expected to chair the Workshop while Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami, DG of NITDA will deliver the lead paper; Professor Sola Aderounmu, NCS president is the special guest of honour.

Speaking to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek  on the workshop with the theme, ‘The Role of ICT in Taking Nigeria Out of Economic Recession’, Mr. Rex Abitogun, the chapter chairman, said that reiterated that ICT has major role to play in lifting the economy out of the present quagmire.

Mr. Abitogun, also said that local content driven economy would help to entrench transparency, accountability and efficiency in the economy, thereby, blocking the economic leakages across the nation.

The chapter chairman who made reference to Treasury Single Account (TSA), he said that the results so far depict local talents as crucial in assessing ‘local’ and the development of workable tools.

Mr. Abitogun said, “Presently, we are having big challenge in the country; that is the economic recession. How do we get out this? ICT has a major role to play. With all modesty, if we want to get out of the recession, IT has a major role, because IT is about transparency, accountability and efficiency. So, if we have these three things then we can save money by blocking loopholes in the economy. A good example of that is the TSA which has saved government a lot of money. It also tells you that if we can automate most of our processes, we can save a lot of money for the government.

“This conference is important too as we expect the Minister of Communications to grace the occasion and inform stakeholders about critical steps been taken on local content. The DG of NITDA to present lead paper; we feel it is the way to go. It is high time we started having national planning that revolves round leveraging ICT. As it has been observed, when national planning is being done we hear about having good road networks, power, agriculture or other physical policies, but ICT tranverses all; from broadband to local content, we have to empower our youths.

“Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) as an advocacy group has been liaising with government and other stakeholders on way forward. One thing we are taking from here is that this workshop will be different from others where communiqués are dumped in the waste bin or allowed to lick dusts on shelves. We are going to be on their neck to ensure speedy implementation. Secondly, it is not as though local content is not garnering enough attention in the government circle, but the speedy is slow. However, we have to continue to look inwards, because Nigerians have a lot of innovations/ideas to showcase”.

He added that the Government cannot solve all problems; rather its role is to create enabling environment.

“The private sector identifies the problems and where to work with the government. That is why NCS has done well through its seven-fold membership associations. Through the public service body we can reach out to the government on areas requiring attentions and possible solutions. We have gone through the road and have succeeded. Today, JAMB is automated. The people behind the technology are Nigerians. TSA is functioning optimally; other countries are yet to understand how that can be done. Before Systemspecs was chosen by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), they had called on other foreign solution providers, but SystemSpecs as an indigenous company understands what is lacking and how best it can be addressed”.