By Nnamdi Ojiego

It has been established that information and crimes would always be linked, as various crimes are committed based on information.

This was the view of the Chief Operation Office, Enterprise Systems Division of International Data Management Services Limited, IDM, Mr Atul Kshetry. According to him, crimes are committed because, there is always an information available to the perpetrators.

He said with or witholut technology, tendencies to commit crime would continue to exist because, there will always be information. “ Technology is one tool which is used to create crime and then, also used to prohibit crime. Crimes come from information. If you don’t have technology today, crime will still exist because crime comes from information. For example, if I know the amount of money in your bank account, I will be tempted to steal it. So, information and crime will always be linked and that is why crime will always be there.”

He stated that in this internet age, security in IT has become a serious issue globally and should be accorded serious priority at all levels of human existence.

Speaking further, Kshetry said Nigeria does not have enough IT professionals to drive the country’s economy, stressing that no economy could grow without a standard IT and personnel to man it. “Nigeria is still growing. It still has a long way to go in the IT training. IT should become an ingrained function of any business because, no business can run without a standard IT. Can you think of any organisation today which can run without computers?, he queried while stressing that development of any business was closely linked with IT which nobody could do without.

He revealed that there was a huge demand for Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP in Nigeria. Said he; “ERP is very important and trained personnel, to me, is one of the biggest requirement. it’s not just trained in all IT, he is trained on how business flows in every sector.”

He suggested that IT training needed to be vocational based, as according to him, it was not enough to learn how to write in a spread sheet or java but one must learn how business is done and how IT is enabled into businesses. “Young people coming into the industry today have to learn not just how to write a small programme but how to do business by following correct methodology. Training is very important. It has to be given a relevant importance because, the more importance you give to IT training, the better it will be. To me, in terms of training, Nigeria is still on the tip of the iceberg. The amount of ICT training that is needed in this country is still very low.”

On outsourcing, the IT consultant said outsourcing was very much needed in Nigeria because of the high cost of living in the country. He disclosed that outsourcing would benefit the overall economy of the country particularly, when it is outsourced within. “we are into software implementation and development of systems and we know that it is expensive to even start developing new software on your own. It is cheaper, it is better, it trouble free and it is most simpler to use already made applications.