DR Jimson Olufuye presently is the President of the Information Technology Association of Nigeria (ITAN). ITAN, as a body, is Nigeria’s representative at the World Information Technology and Services Association (WITSA), a global IT body which held its congress in Amsterdam,  The Netherlands last month.

At that summit, Olufuye, and by extension, ITAN moved up several notches as Olufuye was elected WITSA Vice-Chairman for Africa for the next two years.

OLUFUYE, ITAN President

However, earlier, at the e-Nigeria summit which held in Abuja mid last month, Olufuye, also CEO of Kontemporary Group spoke with CyberLIFE on the Nigerian ICT sector generally, and opines that leadership will be a critical factor in the successful implementation of the National ICT4D Plan, adding that for the telecoms revolution we saw in the last decade to be sustained, government must take care to appoint Engr. Ernest Ndukwe’s successor. Excerpts:

What is your own vision for ICT4D and its chances of successful implementation?
Normally, once a country has a policy, it must have a strategic plan to drive the policy home and for that strategic plan, we have been delayed in getting this ICT4D off the ground. Imagine, since 2003! We ought to have been fully operational with the plan.

That is a lot of mileage we have lost but all hope is not lost yet. Once the will is there, there must be a way. You know the Nigerian factor, once we are determined to do something, we push to get result. So, ICT4D is  really the blue print for development.

So, if you want to develop and realise Vision 20-2020, there is no way other than to embrace ICT for development. What I mean by that is, whatever we do, we give room for ICT to drive it because data is the life blood of any organization. Today, we are talking about information revolution, a knowledge economy.

It is an economy that is based on digits, zero and one. It also based on data which can be stored and retrieved. For us to be able to synchronize these for development, it is only important we work in sync and be able to retrieve data quickly.

That is all about ICT. Being able to use ICT to do what we want to do with it is the issue. In health care for instance, the doctor should not be searching for a patient’s files, but be able to punch the data base and also to consult with his peers elsewhere through telemedicine and teleconferencing for information about his patient.

Of course, in government, the need for ICt cannot be over-emphasised. There are a number of taxes citizens need to pay for instance, on some services..We need to have these services through ICT.

Also, in education. Learning by ICT is also called e-learning. This is using electronics gadgets in the learning environment. With that you can learn faster, learn at your own pace. The whole idea is fast-racking developing and for us in the ICT arena, it is only ICT that can make that possible.

What in your own opining has accounted for the delay of this project for seven years?
Leadership is the problem because the leader is the one that gives direction for others to follow, and benefit. Unless the government decides to move, the nation cannot move.

Nowadays, the government calls the shots legally. They are the ones that are legally and duty bound to take such leadership. We in the private sector are for advocacy. We in ITAN can only add value, contribute and encourage them on where to go. But the actual leading is for the government.
Telecom has advanced tremendously, at least in the voice aspect of it in the past ten years, and there seems not to be corresoponding advancement in IT. What do you think is responsible for this?
In the ICT growth, we have four segments — communication, hardware, software, and the services. Communication is by far, the biggest. The iCt market globally is worth more than four trillion dollars and communication is worth about 45 percent of it, while other sectors hold the remaining percentage. Well, communication has thrived because a policy enabled it to be so.

That is why it has expanded. Now it has expanded, but funny enough it’s more of consumption. It’s actually capital flight in the sense that when people invest they take the money out. So, it does not really add to the GDP per se. Now we need to adjust the other areas, like software development. We know right now that to manufacture from the grounds is  not our strength at all.

Of course we have the human capital that can be topped up to serve, as in BPO (business process outsourcing). That does not need much magic. Our battalions of youths can be mobilised, given good training to acquire these skills and they will be ready to go. Whereas in ICT, the lacuna is clearly different, there has to be a government interested in meeting up with international standards to get the outsourcing jobs.

Right now, we have no company in Nigeria that has achieved CMMI certification, that is capability manufacturing model. It is an internationally acceptable model for development processes.

We don’t have such. Egypt enjoys that now and has started hitting the one billion dollar mark in software export. This what we need to do and that is what this conference is trying to address. We are also committed to ensuring that this improves and is not truncated.
How do you think the problems of infrastructure will impact on the system, especially our energy crisis?

Since 2001 when it all started, the telecom revolution is the success. So, we can’t sit down and blame power, saying because of power we are not going to move forward. We just have to move forward to power it. Government has to the open energy sector. If telecoms has worked with generators, how much more when we organize properly.

We should devolve power license in such a way that communities can now have their own turbines for independent power generation with government supporting it. So, generators can power it, and  with N12,000, you can buy the cheapest generator. If you get, say, ten laptops and donate to schools to be powered by generators, children that have not seen computer before will see it. So, it is no longer an excuse that we don’t have light from PHCN.

How do we tackle inadequate indigenous capacity in original equipment manufacturing and investment in ICT?
The capacity has to be built up; you have to make it lucrative. Government must do the right thing and lead the way with the 2010 e-Nigeria summit in Abuja. When they lead the way with the appropriate policy for IT, things will boom. The private sector must have the financial muscle and they must see government setting the pace for them to put in their money there.

In telecoms, the chief driver of that effort has just left office, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe. How do you see the future of that organization in terms of continuity of the success recorded?

The sustainability is very important. It is not just enough to build, but you must be able to sustain it. Empires have been built and are no more today due to lack of sustainability.

The mighty empire of Alexander The Great, the Roman empire, Soviet Union all failed because there was no sustainability. Government must factor in sustainability and look properly and get the right person to succeed Ndukwe.