THE rising rate of unemployment in Nigeria threatens the welfare of hundreds of thousands of individuals, and exacerbates the current economic crisis.

However, industry experts believe that only spurring investment in Nigeria’s ICT environment may effectively provide  immediate strategy to compensate for the damages unemployment has created.

Yet, while investments to improve the country’s traditional physical infrastructure like roads, bridges, rail system systems, among others are necessary and important, investments in certain parts of Nigeria’s information and communication technology (ICT) resources, or digital infrastructures, will have a greater positive impact on jobs, while at the same time laying the groundwork for sustained productivity and innovation.

Nigeria has made considerable efforts to be one of the leading nations in ICT development, atleast making history today as front runner of African and world telecom growth. But playing up investment in other areas of ICT like software, broadband, computer and electronic payment platforms would further, rather than undermine, those efforts.
This ambition, though should be consistent with the 2010 budget which was allegedly signed by President Yar’Adua into law recently.

Unfortunately, while other nations like Australia, Canada, UK and the Americas are reviewing the ICT involvements taking painstaking decisions to leverage their economies on the shoulders of technology, Nigeria’s budget proposals do not reflect a country that understands the power of ICT as economy lifter.

For instance, the 2009 Budget provided 91% of the capital vote to five key ‘priority’ sectors: Critical Infrastructure which includes capital allocations, Power, Petroleum Resources, Aviation, Works and Transport; Human Capital Development, comprising Health, Education, MDGs Conditional Grants, MDGs Quick Wins Projects and MDGs Capacity Building; Land Reform and Food Security focusing on Agriculture and Water Resources; Niger Delta, comprising NDDC and the newly created Ministry of the Niger Delta.

The 2010 budget, takes similar turn, resting its economic recovery path on some other factors other than the ICT even when the thrust of the 2010 budget is to ” accelerate economic recovery through targeted fiscal interventions intended to further stimulate the economy and support private sector growth”.

The same purpose serves the Canadian budget proposal in 2009 but the difference is that it tailored the federal budget to include several investment initiatives geared to the ICT sector. With a view to closing the gap in broadband access between urban and rural areas, the Canadian government pledged $225 million to Industry Canada over three years to develop and implement a strategy on extending broadband infrastructure in unserved Canadian communities. The budget described this funding as an example of the government’s commitment to encouraging the private development of rural broadband infrastructure.

However, to ensure that Nigeria’s economic recovery actually rests squarely on ICT, industry practitioners have provided a roadmap which the government must follow if the journey to economic recovery is sincere.

From the President of Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria, ISPON, Mr Chris Uwaje, President Nigerian Internet Group, NIG, Mr Lanre Ajayi and Chairman Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria, ALTON, Engr Gbenga Adebayo among others, the resolution is that critical investment must trail the entire ICT sector for the country to get its footing in the world order.

Adebayo said: “We need a continuous improvement in our National Energy Supply, we need a continuous improve on security of existing infrastructures and we have requested that Government should classify telecom infrastructure as National Security infrastructure and ring fence same from all forms of interference.

“There should also be rapid improvement in our Broadband penetration, Government should remove any form of barrier that will hinder broadband deployment across the country.

Most importantly we need to keep up the pace of progress and development of the industry and be mindful of processes and policy directions that may limit the growth”.

After looking back at 2009 with a view to determining what 2010 would give, Mr Lanre Ajayi, said that “there was a dire need for appropriate specrum for the rollout of broadband Internet. The licencing of the 2.3 GHz spectrum was a great opportunity to fill this gap. The cancellation of the licencing exercise was therefore an anti-climax.

The controversy that surrounded the licencing exercise was unnecessary and could have been managed better. The consequence of that is the fact that operators who had wanted to invest are not able to rollout broadband service thereby limiting the broadband penetration of the country. For accelerated growth of the Internet sector, there is an urgent need to make spectrum available for broadband Internet rollout.

“We need to be consistent with our policies. We decided to opt for a liberised, deregulated,and private sector led economy as conceptualised in the Telecoms policy and Telecoms act 2003. It is therefore a seeming policy reversal when government starts to run ICT businesses as the case with NIGCOMSAT and Galaxy Backbone. It is important that government is seen to be consistent with its written down policies. ,

For Mr Uwaje, a critical mission, demands a critical strategy and those involved must be focused, doing the right things at the right time. The agenda for 2010 must among other areas of ICT, see to an increased investment in the software sector. But the key assignment is establishing and passing a National IT Framework Bill as the superstructure and Roadmap to our national ICT success