By Emeka Aginam
The award  of contracts for the supply of about  132,000 units of direct data capture (DDC)  machines for the voters registration exercise by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to largely foreign vendors has drawn outright condemnation from Nigerian  IT professional bodies including the Nigerian Computer Society, Information Technology Association of Nigeria, ITAN and the Institute of Software Professionals of Nigeria, ISPON , the Nigerian Internet Group, (NIG) as local players were left  in the cold.

The core issue and concern of Nigerian IT experts and software practitioners and professional bodies is that Nigeria  may pay a great price down the line if our national database is left for foreign agents to manage. Major  concern among  Nigerian IT experts, however  were that award of the contract to foreign vendors would lead to capital flight and as such, will not in  any way encourage local players who have been sidetracked in the execution of government IT jobs.
Meanwhile, Haier Thermocol, Zinox and US based ICT firm, Avant  Technology after Lenovo was dropped  were said to have been awarded the contract for supply of INEC’s DDC machines for the voter’s automation process ahead of 2011 general elections.

While there is general expectations  that both the hardware and software aspect of INEC’s DCC machine should be controlled by indigenous solution providers, experts in the Nigerian IT industry who spoke to Vanguard CyberLIFE   noted without mincing words that the present posture of the government in sidelining other local Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) including Beta Computers, Omatek, Brian Integrated Systems and other indigenous software makers in the deployment of solution for the  automation process raises some sort of doubts in their  commitment to support  local capacity.

With this development, the professional bodies had queried for awarding the contract for the supply of thousands of notebooks, webcams, printers, back up batteries,  finger print scanners, among others that make up the DCC to  foreign vendor when local vendors in the Nigerian ICT sector have the capacity to do the same job.

Majority of IT professionals who reacted on the present  government postured noted that they were not consulted in the e-automation process.

For the President of Nigerian Computer Society, Professor Uwadia,  neither CPN nor NCS was consulted before the decisions were taken.

“The position of NCS on substantial local content in all IT contracts remain. This position has been made known to the new INEC Chairman at our last meeting with him.

“It is also important for the country to continue to assist the local oems in building sufficient capacity in order to avoid reliance on importation which eventually leads to capital flight. NCS has continued to canvass the protection of local industry as well as government patronage through implementation of existing policy on it” he said.

On the timeline for the exercise, the NCS President believed that if all parties involved play their role properly and on time too, the exercise is achievable within the scheduled time line.

For the president of the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), Chris Uwaje, who has been preaching local capacity building,  there is urgent  need to rethink the process deliverables within the context of data security and critical Software issues. The election process should be viewed as a fundamental laboratory for Nigerian IT professionals and industry experts to master the intricate challenges of electronic-based elections. It also provides an enormous platform for employment creation.

“Indigenous companies are capable and should deliver a chunk of the scope of works. No nation can succeed in the 21st century economy without the incubation, development and mastery of its indigenous software knowledge-base. This is what nations like US, India, Malaysia, Ireland and others have done and many more nations have developed strategies to positions themselves to earn the tremendous benefits from the global software opportunity windows.”

According to him, the critical issues of 2011 elections and the deliverables of its infrastructure and solutions should be given a rethink based on the fact that the future of any progressive nation is largely controlled and managed by its indigenously controlled software.

For the  President of Nigerian Internet Group, Engr. Lanre Ajayi, government cannot continue to hide under the excuses of exigencies and “lack of competence” to sidetrack local companies in favor of their foreign counterparts.

“One does not have to be genius to know that the more opportunities you have to take on a task the better you become. If government does not give local companies opportunities, how do they expect them to develop their competencies. Moreso this particular task is nothing too technical. All the components of the DDC (computers, cameras, fingerprint devices) are off the shelf devices that can be picked up anywhere.

“The software and integration is a little bit technical which is certainly not beyond the competence of local companies and in fact a number of local companies have handled similar projects before,” he said, adding that  sidetracking Nigerian companies in a project like this as a misnomer and a lost opportunity for Nigerians to further deepen their skill and business scope.

Similarly, the ITAN President, Dr Jimson Olufuye, while noting that  the professional bodies were not consulted lamented that government ought to use local  resources to grow our economy.

“A long term plan is the solution. A regime of off-hand, short term planning like in the case of our election process will defeat the actualization of the MDGs by 2015 & Vision 20-2020. No nation succeeds without inward looking and sustainable support for her local economy” he said.

Meanwhile, Haier Thermocool is a joint venture between PZ Cussons Nigeria plc and Haier Group. The Hiaer Group is a Chinese company and is the largest white manufacturer worldwide producing over 30,000 products including tele -vision, DVDs, refrigerators, among others.

Avant Technologies on other hand is a US is a Texas based OEM with specialization in microships and backup servers.
Among the three companies, Zinox is the only local OEM with presence in Nigeria and West African sub-region.

It would be recalled that Prof. Maurice Iwu, former INEC boss  had, in 2006, awarded multi billion naira Direct Data Capture contacts to three principal contractors: Trenko International (22,000 units of DDC), Image Technology (5000 units of DDC) and Intersecurity Ltd (5,000 units). Zinox Technologies later came in to do a rescue job through a sub contract for 12,000 units of Trenko’s 22,000 units using labcal software on HP laptops.

In 2006, all the contractors had a big challenge meeting the contract requirement of the hand held Direct Data Capture machine and had to change to laptops with labcal software.

The real problem allegedly cropped up because some yet to be identified contractors reportedly used pirated software which had made integration of captured data difficult, if not impossible – the reason for the jumbo 120,000 units contract of DDC by the new INEC.