#NITMA2015: Obaro Bags ISPON Best Software Entrepreneur Award

John Obaro, founder of Systemspecs, owner of Remita, the electronic platform, has emerged as winner of Engineer Simeon Agu Prize as the Best Software Entrepreneur 2015 at the National Information Technology Merit Awards (NITMA).

Engineer Simeon Agu Prize as the Best Software Entrepreneur award was initiated by the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) in honour of the late software sage.

Other notable Nigerians were honoured at the same ceremony.

NITMA is an annual event organized by Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) to acknowledge, celebrate and reward corporate organizations and individuals who are outstanding in their various information technology (IT) practices.

Professor Adesola Aderounmu, president of NCS, had descried NITMA 2015 as intended to reward excellence contributions in the Nigeria’s information technology industry.

“It is a night of awards to celebrate the best of Nigerian information technology creativity and innovation that has fundamentally changed, and is still changing the Nigerian nation. Award winners are recognised for being inspiring symbols of the IT community. The Nigerian nation has moved forward because of their contributions. It is honour well deserved. Nigeria, not just the IT community, owes them a huge debt of gratitude”.

Having enjoyed a successful career with International Merchant Bank (IMB), Obaro founded SystemSpecs some 23 years ago as a West African Partner to Systems Union, UK offering the SunSystems suite of solutions.

Systemspecs is a leader in the e-payment market in Nigeria with its Remita solution, which offers e-payment solutions on a single interbank platform. Remita currently processes about $6 billion worth of transactions on a monthly basis.

Recall that Remita moves the federal government Treasury Single Account [TSA] and the platform is an entirely locally developed electronic platform. The CBN, after a multi-level and rigorous evaluation exercise in 2011, selected this software. Remita was selected on merit over and above other foreign and local options.

While receiving the award on behalf of Obaro, Deremi Atanda, executive director of the company, said that, “Obaro is passionate about the promotion of Nigeria’s indigenous software industry. He believes that the homegrown software is capable and can rival any other software anywhere in the world”.

Atanda added that Obaro is known in many circles as ‘the consummate innovator’. “He is a trail-blazer on many fronts. His footprint is evident across multiple sectors of the Nigerian economy”.

Others personalities that received honours at the NITMA event include Funke Opeke, CEO of MainOne Cables, Florence Seriki, CEO of Omatek, Etim Amana, CEO of MIS and Tosin Ilesanmi, Regional Director, RLG.

Also, Honorary Fellowship awards were received by Sir Demola Aladekomo Founder, Chams, Dr. Chris Nwannenna, CEO, Condata Systems, Mrs Ibukun Odusote, permanent secretary, political affairs office of SGF and Mr. Babatunde Fowler, Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service [FIRS].

Aderounmu expressed optimism that the high profile award night will promote excellence, high performance and innovation within the Nigerian IT community to encourage more of such performance from practitioners, organisations and stakeholders.