By Ebele Orakpo
Worried by the almost 100 per cent dependence on imported technology for Nigeria’s developmental needs, the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) organised a two-day workshop on Software Licensing and Development in Nigeria recently.

In a chat with Vanguard at the workshop held in Lagos on November 29 and 30, the Director-General of the agency, Dr. Umar Bindir said that the agency, through its activities in the ICT Sector realised that “so many financial and telecommunications institutions go abroad to sign technology transfer agreements which they use in Nigeria to give us telecommunications and banking services.

The resultant effect of this development is that a lot of money is being remitted to foreign software licensors and there is little local value addition to the foreign software used in Nigeria.”

Dr. Bindir believes that without Nigeria evolving her own indigenous technology, it will be almost impossible for her to compete favourably  with other nations.

He noted that between 2008 and 2009 alone, “we have remitted over N20 billion so we decided to invite the companies that are throwing their technology at us, the vendors in Nigeria who are taking the technology and giving to end-users, to the workshop.

Managing directors of banks, big-time communications companies, computer service providers and foreigners working with companies like Oracle, are all here. The question we are asking them is this: Should Nigeria continue doing this forever?

Why can’t we strategize to also develop the capacity and the software? Everybody must be involved. So don’t just do business, there must be a strategy to transfer technology. There must be a strategy to develop technology. There must be fairness in the charges. There should also be good deals when you give,” he said.

Dr. Umar Bindir presented a paper titled: Critical issues emanating from ICT and software licensing while the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Prof. Cleopas Angaye presented a paper titled: Challenges and strategies for ICT and software development and domestication in Nigeria.

The workshop examined the current trends in software solutions in the country; the effectiveness of existing policy on ATS payment to local vendors in the country and assessed the indigenous software development capabilities in Nigeria; and considered  different policy options with regards to software development/licensing in Nigeria.