By Chris Uwaje

The human brain is a computer, and software is a knowledge logic system. The Nigerian knowledge profession and industry is grossly underestimated — due to technophobia mindset — generated by external influences! Indeed, it is the factory and wealth ecosystem in our heads. The Nigeria knowledge industry is worth perhaps ten times (1000%) more than the oil and gas sector. All these can be classified as “Knowledge Software.”

Nigeria has abundant knowledge in almost all significant areas of human endeavour. Professor Chinua Achebe is software; so is J.P. Clark and Wole Soyinka. Christopher Okigbo was a great poetic software; so also was Ken Saro Wiwa. Nnamdi Azikiwe was Software-Nigeria/Africa, so was Aminu Kano and, Obafemi Awolowo and many millions of African knowledge giants such as Nelson Mandela, Haile Selassie and Kwame Nkrumah. Software is innovation and creativity.

Indeed, there is software brain and architecture in this country populated by innovative men and women with creative knowledge. After all, Fela Anikulapo Kuti was software art in his own right – so is Mallam Maitama Sule.

However, one aspect is to recognize indigenous knowledge and the other is a conscious patronage of the products and services of our national software knowledge resources. Imagine if Professor Chinua Achebe after writing ‘Things Fall Apart’ in 1958, was never patronized or read by Nigerians, Africans and the world at large? Imagine if this innovative knowledge-ware was never given the attention it deserved by government and business policy makers?

Currently, we know that the Achebe’s master piece, ‘Things Fall Apart’ was translated into fifty (50) international languages and sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. The above provides us with the technical and vivid alibi of the potency of Software-Nigeria and justifies the decade-long advocacy of the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) for national recognition, promotion and mandatory patronage of Software-Nigeria by government and related stakeholders.

With the demise of Professor Achebe, I am sure it is high time government seriously engages her ‘Technophobia Syndrome” and timely understand the critical importance of indigenous knowledge-ware and Information Technology Software in particular – as the engine of her transformation and development Agenda.

The argument is that ‘no foreigner’ could have written “Things Fall Apart” the way and manner it was culturally and traditionally structured and expressed by Achebe. The same logic applies to software in the ICT domain, which centrally focuses on the e-needs of the people and designing solutions peculiar to those needs to fulfill her development aspirations and sustainable goals. Those marketers of foreign software may be forgiven their pathetic, blind ignorance.

Recognizing software development as a new productive frontier and potential instrument for economic empowerment and wealth creation, ISPON advised government in 2005 to launch a nation-wide awareness campaign based on the technical report of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on National Software Development Initiative (NSDI).

The above observation was based on a factual study recognising the acute danger in allowing deployment of foreign software in key Federal Government functions/operations domains. The advocacy aims to foster and promote the establishment of a National Software Development Policy and encourage the inclusion of the patronage and protection of indigenous software in the IT Bill.

This will serve to improve the level of the nation’s computer knowledge and content competitiveness, as well as promote and spread development and use of indigenous software applications and services in governance, education, health, business, industry, agriculture, transportation, public administration, law and justice, entertainment and national security.

Currently, our knowledge base and technology environment of the “new economy” is greatly influenced, undermined and controlled by foreign information systems and database – where Software plays a fundamental role and viewed as the backbone of modern wealth creation and national security. Setting a national software development policy and awareness agenda therefore, is also against the backdrop that building software capacities presents immense economic opportunities for nation building. Suffice to state that Nigeria can earn $10billion USD in foreign exchange annually from the software industry.

Every software-exporting country has evolved a unique industry, shaped by its own resources and situation and by the particular global opportunities presented at the time. For example, Japan exports mostly software games, India exports primarily software services to large software development shops, Ireland exports software products (created by MNCs located in-country as well as by a growing number of indigenous companies), and Israel mostly exports software technology which is subsequently productized by firms in the US and Europe.

The global software industry continues to evolve, and countries now looking to develop their national software potentials for security, exports and survivability face a different global situation, and are likely to evolve fundamentally different software industries. The current dynamics of the global software industry should, therefore, inform ICT planning and policy, no matter the country’s stage of economic development. For countries with deficient infrastructure and tight resources (such as Ireland in the 1970’s), selective government initiatives have been critical to successful software industry development.

Professor Chinua Achebe has lightened up the literary knowledge-ware domain and indigenous software advocates can do even much more for the creation of wealth and survivability of our future. Goodnight, our Professor Knowledge Emeritus and software literature enigma. Sleep well and rest in perfect peace, because Software-Nigeria is alive. We pledge to carry on the fight with assurances of success in the human knowledge Olympiad.