The seventh Nigerian Information Technology and Telecom Awards (NITTA 2008), the country’s foremost platform for rewarding excellence and enterprise in the sector, will hold on November 14 this year at Muson Centre, Lagos.
When it was initiated in 2002, barely 18 months after the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) operations commenced in the country, little did the world realized that indeed, the initiators of Nigeria’s prestigious ICT awards programme, saw into the future: that a few years down the line, the country will be the centre of attraction of attention for the whole world.
The reward that Nitta brings to industry operators as it enters its seventh edition this year presents for the industry something to ponder. And that, with vision, the highest of mountains can be surmounted. The Awards serve as a reminder to Nigerians and the ICT industry players that at about this time in 2002 when Nitta first rolled out, the country has achieved a few million lines, but we were still grossly conscious of an earlier time that were dominated by hopelessness, fear, ineptitude, and unbridled lack of trust in an institution that ran the affairs of telecommunications and by extension the ICT industry.
In 2008, it is a whole new world for Nitta and the industry that has made nonsense of earlier predictions that ‘nothing good could ever come out of Nigeria’. Providing a modest platform to show appreciation to men and women, companies, institutions, agencies and governments, among others, who often have to sacrifice time, money and at the extreme, love in order to bring joy and comfort to the lives of others would not be too much a thing to offer. That was the thinking of the magazine’s management when it instituted the Nitta awards.
A statement by Mr. Mkpe Abang, editor-in-chief of Africa’s foremost ICT magazine, IT & Telecom Digest initiators and managers of NITTA, informed that a high powered federal government delegation backed by the cream of the ICT industry, as well as professional bodies, are all billed to grace the occasion.
He confirmed that the magazine’s office has already been inundated with enquiries from companies, individuals and other interested parties who want to book a place to witness the event.
"Enquires have been coming in a flurry. From those who want to enter for an award or awards to those who want to nominate a product, company or person; indeed, to those who want to book a table just so that they do not miss the occasion; the enquiries have kept us practically quite busy," Abang stated, adding that such enquiries, including several by emails, was an indication of the high esteem in which NITTA is held by the industry in particular and the country in general.
Seven years after, that position has not changed, if anything it has become more fortified and strengthened by the size and dimension the industry is going. Like most things big, it is quite easy for good works to pass unnoticed while those good souls that have done all the good go home and brood the seeming ‘lack of appreciation’ from the society. Thus, in 2008, Nitta will sustain the celebration of the champions of ICT in Nigeria, a process that Nitta has upheld phenomenally year after year since the first event in 2002.