Shittu Seeks Industry Support, Says Ministry Ready to Implement Plans

Barrister Adebayo Shittu, minister of Communication, has called for information and communication technology industry stakeholders' support as the Ministry moves to the implementation phase of its plans.

Shittu made the remark at the 2016 eNigeria organized by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NiTDA) in Abuja recently.

The Minister lauded the expo and conference theme: 'Leveraging ICT Innovation for Economic Diversification', adding that the Ministry has been on the vanguard for ubiquitous deployment of broadband across the country as one of means to encourage Nigerian youths take advantage of the opportunities of the Internet, especially in e-commerce business.

He said, "The Ministry will leverage more on the communication technology sector to solve the problem of unemployment in the country because the revenue from the oil and gas sector has been on a steady decline since early 2015.

"As we prepare to move to the implementation phase of the plan, we welcome the support of all development partners and our various stakeholders to join us as we embark on this journey which we believe will be major contributor to the growth of our economy, the increment of our GDP and the creation of more employment opportunities for our youth."

He said that eNigeria has become an institutional means of setting goals, targets and timelines for the demonstration of best practices and repositioning of Nigeria as key player in the global knowledge-driven economy. It has also provided a veritable avenue for the stakeholders in the nation's ICT industry to discuss and extensively explore practical strategies for maximising the benefits of ICTs for urgent task of nation-building, national development and economic prosperity.

According to the Minister, the present economic challenges and the dwindling revenue from oil sector to spur national alternative to diversifying the economy for sustainable development.

"There is no such better alternative than ICT, which has recorded tremendous growth and contribute about 12.62% to total nominal GDP and 12.68% to total real GDP in second quarter of 2016 according to National Bureau of Statistics.

"The ICT revolution offers a historic opportunity to enable national adjustment to a fast changing and knowledge-driven global economy. It opens the opportunity for Nigeria to transform to an open, smart, and inclusive economy. It offers new tools and platform to address the region's challenges particularly in areas such as governance, employment, demands for public services, export diversification, structural transformation ,and global competitiveness amongst others.

Shittu reiterated, however, that the challenge presently focuses not only on closing the gap in access to technology but also on enhancing ICT innovation and promoting digital industries.

"Indeed, the access to technology is an important factor for us in Africa and for that we should focus our efforts on collaborating with the ICT private sector in the digital economy and the key role SMEs play in our digital ecosystem as well as regional strategic partnerships in order to be able to do business and make it possible for all to communicate; but we need to address the ultimate application of this potential technology to tackle the underlying challenge of human capacity development.

"Developing the capacity of human resource gives us an opportunity to turn on the furthest reaching and fastest growing technology to bridge the gap. There is need therefore to tap the potential of this technology so as to ensure that everyone can enjoy the opportunity for economic mobility, personal advancement and higher quality of life."

The Minister observed that the shift in world economy towards knowledge based products and services have become indispensable in recent past as globalisation and developments in ICT had changed the business scenario and the entire landscape.

To this end, Shittu told delegates at eNigeria that the Ministry will collaborate with NITDA to ensure all tiers of government consider the adoption of Open Data Policy (ODP) as a means of creating jobs, making data available for policy formulation and decision making as well as reducing the cost of governance and improving service delivery.

He said, "Data has become the currency of a knowledge-based economy, the need to protect data cannot be over emphasised...our policies at the Ministry are geared towards using ICTs as a catalyst for innovation in every sector of the economy."

He added that the incomplete understanding of the impact of ICT at every sector for economic development has hindered the design of effective policies to enhance fully advantage of the technologies. "This has posed so much for developing countries like ours as the success or failure in leveraging ICT startups and innovations for development will determine how quickly we will catch-up with the developed countries.