BY EMEKA AGINAM

In apparent bid to fast track the process of making the country a capable 21st century knowledge economy, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has urged state governments to leverage on the IT policy for states initiative, it recently rolled out for national development.

The development agency had written to thirty six states of the federation asking for their collaboration to drive the policy which is expected to further push Information Technology penetration to the grass roots

However, state governments appear to be showing little interest as only three states including Enugu, Niger and Osun states respectively have responded to the call.

Although NITDA is upbeat that the states would surely adopt the policy, it also frowns at the low pace of implementation. Meanwhile the agency has announced that it has started the second phase of implementation of the policy in about five states including Ebonyi; Yobe, Sokoto, Kogi and Kaduna.

NITDA believes that one of the fastest ways to achieve national development would be for states to formulate their own IT policy based on local needs to grow their markets.

Areas where the agency believed states could leverage with the IT policy included poverty reduction, education, health among others..

In developing IT policy, each state, according to NITDA, must focus on many things including visioning the role of ICTs for development; development of ICT policy and e-strategies; identifying priority areas and developing action plans; management, monitoring and evaluation arrangements and financing and resource mobilization.

Highlighting the importance for states to develop their own IT policy based on their local demands, recently, Director General, of NITDA, Mr Peter Jack said that, “the intention is to extend this initiative to all the states of the federation in order to encourage them to position IT as the main driver of their priority areas”.

Also corroborating his DG,the agency’s Director of Corporate Strategies and Research, Dr. Vincent Olatunji, said that it was imperative for states to have a definite IT policy to accelerate economic development. “Though, it is not compulsory, but we believe that it is necessary for states to have a definite ICT policy, which can ginger them to accelerate development.

“We are currently facilitating an eReadiness award, targeted at measuring the level of technology development across the states. The policy is being currently implemented but it is a gradual thing. I can say there has been serious improvement in its implementation.

“We had earlier written a letter to all the 36 states of the federation, but only three states responded. We have more five states that latter indicated interest. Hence, we decided to begin with them in the pilot phase of the project.

“It is our belief that if we do not drive IT policy from the federal to state and to local government levels, we might just be scratching the surface. The plan is to encourage states and local governments on how to drive ICT from the federal level, irrespective of their various priorities, and in doing so, we will be spreading ICT deployment to every part of the country, and that is why NITDA is collaborating with the states to drive the initiative.