Software Practitioners Seek More Action on Local Content Policy in ICT

Software practitioners in the country were united on the need for federal government to expedite action on the implementation and enforcement of the various executive orders on local content at the 2018 president’s dinner of Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) held over the weekend.

Olorogun, James Emadoye, president, ISPON, said that the advancement of Nigerian local content in software development, in contracts, science and overall ICT space was essential yesterday, germane today and he has no doubt it will remain an indispensable factor in our history as a country, if we are to change the current reality where Nigeria is recorded amongst the poorest nations of the world.

“The most important resource in any endeavor has been widely recognized as the human resource. Every other resource, processes or even automation, in most cases, are objects that are under human control.

“We cannot thank God enough that he has endowed us with smart, strong and enterprising people.  Other nations are looking for Nigerians in every sphere of human endeavor to help build their system.

“Nigerians are doing exploits in every nook and cranny of the world which of course has become a global village without boundaries, made possible by technology of which software is the domain,” he said.

According to him, ‘ISPON believes that Nigeria can record some significant achievement in the world software business and global market, if Nigerians support local content.

We must remove the conditional statement ‘if’, we must support Local Content; we must ensure that the letter and the spirit of Executive Orders 003 and 005 are brought to the fore and remain our guiding principles in all our business transactions, in the overall interest of our national development’.

He said that enforcing these presidential orders will require the utmost vigilance by all enforcement departments of government as well as security agencies.

“Active collaboration with professional associations like ISPON, NCS and CPN is also significant and required,” he noted.

He added that the recently signed Executive Orders by the president will finally begin to give local software industry and practitioners a chance to improve their skills and products with minimal stifling competition from foreign firms.

Emadoye however, called on the Federal Government to enthrone a National Software Policy Strategy and related Legislation and indeed, all well-meaning Nigerians to give the country a chance to develop for the sake of our children and the generation unborn.

“We just cannot continue the same ways that have failed us. It is time we change our ways. Software-Nigeria is the sustainable way forward for our national accelerated development in the knowledge economy which is currently driving the 4th industrial revolution,” he said.

Prof. Charles Uwadia,  President and Chairman-in-Council of Computer Professional (Registration Council of Nigeria) (CPN), said that software is at the heart of information Technology and computing and that implementation of local content policy is very import because, it is about the future of our children.

“If we don’t implement it, we will continue to have brain drain in the country.”

Professor Adesola Aderounmu, President of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), said that software is going to rule the world and to this end government should create enabling environment for people to go into software development.

“Software development will help to solve unemployment in the country,” he added.