By Chris Uwaje

WElcome to the digital universe! Welcome to the world of Computer Life-Code! If Computer Code is life, can it be said that Nigeria is a Codeless Nation? The gravity, complexly and implication of the above configured question cannot be over emphasized but intricately challenging.

Indeed, it is an albatross to nation building and development; based on the fact that a Codeless Society within the context of 21st century global development and competitiveness is more or less a dead nation! In other words, she has lost the right for existence and national survivability before the dawn of the Information Society (IS).

The reason why a 21st Century Codeless Society should be classified as a dead or non-existent nation is due to the fact that humanity now lives in a software-first world, and any nation which cannot originate, create, control, defend and preserve her knowledge base in coded format is not fit to exist!.

Currently, Computer Code has become new Universe and will continue to dictate and control the totality of human life – today and in the future!

Collective humanity

Today, the new embodiment of the life of our collective humanity is originated and driven in zeros and ones – which exist in an electronic flip-flop state, known as computer code. The consolation is that Nigeria is indeed NOT a Computer Codeless Nation, but an abandoned and untapped sovereign resources of computer knowledge and Software Code.

There are so much value-added computer application codes that Nigeria can contribute to the world, if the enabling environment and legislations are provided.

With about 60 per cent bubbling and Internet savvy youth population out of an energetic confluence of more than 150 million people, Nigeria is without any fear of contradiction, a hot contender for the global e-Knowledge Olympiad. In clear terms, Nigeria can earn a ten fold from Computer Codes, compared to what she currently earns from the Crude Oil Wells!

Computer Code is pure magic, economic and political power, national security, prosperity, wealth creation, development sustainability, Art and Cultural protection and productivity, knowledge accelerator and multiplier, 21st Century High Risk manager, scientific innovator and creative computational machinery – all rapped into a whole. It is the New World Order, the New Economy and the ultimate Power.

The gravity of the above message is that Nations who neglect the fundamental responsibility of establishing sustainable Framework and inter-disciplinary capacities for harnessing her software knowledge potential and resource will be extinguished from the committee of existing and relevant nations of the 21st century. Based on informed Professional findings, the above is not negotiable!

For the purpose of this write-up and clarity of its understanding, it should be emphasized that computer code can simply be defined as the life-wire and centre of gravity of the emerging knowledge-centric Information Society (IS). Moreover, the source code within Computer Codes is the engine room of our new universe.

Software system

Source Code is a fundamental key in a Software Programming Language (SPL) which unlocks the misery and meaning of any fully executable description of a software system – which includes a machine code, very high level languages and executable graphical representations of systems.

Software Engineering Development and Programming languages are not only useful to command computers; they have also increasingly become the central medium for human communication.

This vindicates the school of thought that communication is secondary to and indeed a subset of knowledge – which is an extraction of Information activity clusters. In other words, it may rightly be argued, that it is an absurdity to establish a Ministry of Communications Technology! A Ministry of What-for-What?

According to Lenski in his scientific analysis on national development – taking a more modern approach – he focuses his theory on Information. The more information and knowledge (especially allowing the shaping of natural environment) a given society has, the more advanced it is. He identifies four stages of human development, based on advances in the history of communication. In the first stage, information is passed by genes.

In the second, when humans gain intelligence, they can learn and pass information by experience. In the third, the humans start using signs and develop logic. In the fourth, they can create symbols, develop language and writing skills.

Advancements in the technology of harnessing communication translate into advancements in the economic system and political system, distribution of goods, social inequality and other spheres of social life. He also differentiates societies based on their level of information technology, communication and economic attainment models.