By Chris Uwaje & Dan Molina

The shift towards knowledge-based jobs has accelerated the rise of the services sector, creating new opportunities. Time and distance from a business need no longer be the problems they once were.

Outsourcing, as well as various forms of telework, either within or outside organized work units, can generate an increasing proportion of national wealth. “Telework”, or “telecommuting” as it’s sometimes called can create the opportunity to work from geographically isolated locations, as if the same person were in a big city office.

For Nigeria this could be significant not just in reducing personal travel expense, but also as a means of keeping young people in their own rural communities. It’s also an incentive for the creation of small businesses serving local needs.

Need for  vigilance

As mentioned previously, there are dangers; ICTs may fall prey to the baser side of human nature. Vigilance in system design and operation is essential to prevent cyber and economic sabotage, financial crimes and politically destructive data manipulation.

Indeed, the digital culture may also be used to manipulate, magnify and multiply national security issues; it can be exploited by foreign interests and shadowy “online managers” – unseen ghosts in cyber sace whose insidious purpose is to create permanent crises – especially for developing countries who have neglected to properly safeguard their data.

It would be irresponsible and naïve to overlook the fact that for some, there is profit in chaos, and in warfare. Security issues must have the highest priority from the outset.

Typical cyber-crimes target the cell/mobile phone culture. This has become a conduit for economic, social, and financial crimes. There is currently no national database of owners of cell phones and other wireless technologies, including computers. We in Nigeria should be acutely aware the mobile phone was instrumental in the successfully executed shutdown of government, economic and social activities in our country in the previous week!

The challenge now is to join in the very real excitement among those who know all the new technology best; those who see it all at work in their laboratories and workshops, and join hands. The time has come for constructive and practical implementation; we must fashion an actionable approach capable of igniting development and celebrating knowledge.

Implications for governance

First, existing oversized government and ministerial structures and functions must be re-defined and re-structured. They must be smaller in size, but far more effective; to pretend this is not necessary is national deceit. Furthermore, traditional forces alone for a developing economy such as Nigeria are incapable of producing the required change – we can’t sit by and “let nature take its course”.

The initiative must be ours. We must comprehend and master the enormity of complexities and the rapidity of change that is the Information Age Revolution; mix-mode approach model regarding private industry is necessary.

What will the future look like? Can future government and commerce cope with, and survive the new age without for example, a ‘Ministry of Infrastructure’? What purpose will the Ministry of Commerce and Industry serve without the sophistication and competence to manage digital technology trade and commerce?

How will education be improved and positioned without the innovation intensive and knowledge applications, diffusion and use of informatics and communications technologies? How will government respond to the high velocity of trade and commerce — with respect to balance of trade issues — in the information age?

Subsidy Protest: Protesters at the Gani Fawehinmi Park Ojota,Lagos

Indeed, who should be in government and govern in the information age? What skills would/should such people require to perform?

To resolve the national challenges and attain the aspired knowledge-based state of affairs in our nation, there is need to re-structure and reorganize the entire education system with focus on self-reliance, creativity and innovation. Software development strategy may hold the key for latecomers in the national development life cycle, like Nigeria, by developing her information technology industries. At the same time, manufacturing capability in the hardware sector and local content development should also be fortified.

Long ago, the international market for the export and consumption of software generated more than $300 billion US dollars in 1996. A number of governments and firms in the third world recognized the fact that software production has emerged as a major global industry of substantial economic significance.

Some Asian and Latin American countries like India, Chile and Uruguay have taken advantage of this to boost their economies through the export of locally developed software. To make an impact in the computer industry with world standard package software, Nigeria has to follow the example of these countries by deliberately working out schemes and policies to achieve this goal. The main thrust of such a policy will be the provision of locations, infrastructure, highly skilled manpower and the relevant enabling environment.

Danger signs

Again we must carefully appraise the dangers. A “global meltdown” of sorts is challenging financial institutions, the finest technical minds, and the best leadership. This involves the complexities of undefined and carefully laid out parameters, guidelines and global supervisory controls for globalized services and lifestyles. USA and Europe are typical examples of what can befall nations where greed is king.

Those acts of financial recklessness and cyber-carelessness have consequently subsumed our human abilities to meditate and see into the future. At the global level, the resultant effect is that we have built a monumental cyberweb patched by layers of greedy human minds.

This has established and left us in heavily techno-beclouded rooms where gross fixing and number-crunching manipulation of quantum data – even beyond the comprehension of computational machinery — have become the order of the day. Now, the moral centre of gravity can no longer hold.

As I write, the new revelations from the perceived causes of the global financial meltdown are compounded by the information pyramids of technology jargons that are added to our digital world-mindset from nanosecond to nanosecond.
Similarly, digital-savvy and electronic criminals continue to search and smoke-out the loots and unsecured green notes around the globe. Countries such as Nigeria will remain vulnerable to oil and gas theft, unless urgent and smart steps are taken.

Indeed, the bailout adventure may lead nowhere for Nigeria, unless multi-parallel actions of leadership political will for re-structuring government, re-designing, rebuilding and fortifying our National Information Infrastructure (NII) — as well as building commensurate information society code-warriors are taken seriously – simultaneously.

Nigeria stands to gain immensely from unleashing development information resource through IT; Nigeria should take full advantage of its quantum opportunities. There is a fundamental need to prepare her workforce to have access to and apply and use IT facilities like the computer.

In the developed world, IT is permanently established in education, human knowledge, research and socio-economic activities. It is available to us, and the most populous nation on the African continent must use it. If nothing else, it is a primary obligation to our youth.

Summary and recommendation

Nigerian runs a suppressed development model at the moment. This must change. e-Government is mandatory as a significant part of the current and other solutions to the crisis. Information Technology is a global revolution and an important nation such as Nigeria must be involved.

Nigeria’s main objective should be reactivating its governance, educational and institutional structures with an overriding purpose — the attainment of a confident and respected player status among the information age societies. This is a new path to status in the world that is ours for the taking; it is a paramount assignment, which should top the list of national development priorities.

Its framework should be supported with a dynamic IT Policy, capable of achieving and sustaining meaningful growth using technological skill.
The entire national workforce should be re-tooled. A critical minimum competence goal must be established and attained.

This should be followed by enhancing the national technological capability. Knowledge is essential for harnessing and building the potentials of this great nation. Government must play a significant, active role. The role of government should be driven by a positive interventionist strategy capable of networking the entire IT development phases.

Apart from utilizing technology government has an important role to play with respect to its regulations — these should embrace technical, financial and techno-legal frameworks. This offers options for resolving issues like the fuel subsidy, the improvement of electoral processes, resource allocation, improving government structures, education, economic development, legislation, health-care, international relations, environmental protection — the list goes on.

It is mandatory that the development of IT be controlled by Nigerians themselves — even as we recognize that international cooperation in this field is absolutely healthy and necessary. On the other hand, for meaningful IT development growth to be attained and sustained, the private sector, academia, professional bodies, government, as well as the local community must form an alliance and work out an enduring national IT policy.

Such a policy should recognize IT Education in Nigeria as the engine room of our future. Within the context of this paper, the following recommendations are presented as a path-analysis to workable solutions.

IN CONCLUSION: Nigerian youths should take their destiny in their hands, ensuring that it is accomplished through sincerity, hard work, transparency and accountability. Equipped with technology, Nigeria should pursue innovation and creativity, applying the use of media in a fashion appropriate to the times, their demands, and opportunities.

The onset of the Information Age is one of those moments in time when matters of importance are evolving too quickly for earlier patterns of thinking to grasp. The Information Age is here and permanent. The clock cannot be turned back. Nigeria has the choice of embracing it, or being consumed by it. CONCLUDED.

Chris Uwaje is CEO of Connect Technologies, and President of ISPON. Dan Molina is a Journalist and Film Producer.