By Nnamdi Ojiego

If there are few people whose views should be taken seriously in the Nigerian ICT sector, one of them is Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem. A former President of the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria, ATCON, past President of Nigeria Internet Group, NIG, and the CEO of Teledom Group, an indigenous conglomerate company with expertise in broadband ICT infrastructure development, deployment and software development, he can be said to have seen it all in terms of versatility, expertise and experience.

In this interview, Ekuwem stressed the need for local content policy in the ICT sector, just like the case in the downstream sector of petroleum industry. According to him, this will bring about direct investment in ICT manufacturing and assembling, and create jobs for the teeming young Nigerians. Excerpts:

Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem

You supported the call for the creation of ICT ministry. Now that the ministry has been created, if you are to advise the minister, what will be your agenda for her?

What the ICT minister should consider

I will not say my agenda for her, I will rather say my words of exhortation, words of support and solidarity, and to commend her for the efforts so far made and to say very politely and with all respect to her, that she should also consider the following:

One, the Nigerian content development in the ICT sector. We are talking about the actualization of Vision 20: 2020. That means by the year 2020, Nigeria should be in the list of 20 most developed countries of the world. Right now, we are not on that list, and the countries on that list will not stand idle waiting for Nigeria.

Therefore, for us to be in that list means doubling efforts. It means national commitment, dedication, hard work and real determination, and part of that determination and national commitment must be a Nigerian content development.

I don’t want to go through that long list of how ICT can boost productivity but I will only mention three. They are education, health and agriculture. For example, a large pool of Nigerian youths are roaming the streets of this country because they are unemployed.

Again, do not forget that period of the age is the most creative, dynamic, visionary, energetic periods in a human being’s life but we are wasting ours. Our youths don’t have the right skills, competencies and exposure to move forward, and ICT can make a creative change in their life style.

The minister didn’t talk about direct investment in ICT manufacturing, direct investment in ICT assembling. Those ones will produce industries that will employ a great number of young people, that will impart skills, and boost and strengthen the naira. When we import, we pay but when we are exporting, we are strengthening the naira. So Nigeria content development in manufacturing and assembling and applications development will ensure this.

The second part has to do with multinationals like Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle etc. Time has come for them to establish their assembling plants in this country because, Nigeria is their largest market in Africa. This issue was not given prominence in the minister’s speech as it ought to have received.

We want direct investment, for example, when will MTN and other telecoms giants be listed in the Nigerian stock market? Let those companies also be listed on the exhange so that an average Nigerian can buy shares and share in the wealth of these companies as accumulated via the hard-earned income of Nigerian subscribers.

Now that agencies like NCC, NITDA are part of the new ministry, what will be their functions?They are now agencies within the ministry with a supervising minister. So their functions did not change.

Ideally, there should be one regulatory body like in other parts of the world. In the US, they have Federal Communication Commission, FCC, whichdoes the work of NCC, NBC, NITDA et cetera.

Need for Nigerian content in iCT

In all these, what should the minister do?

Nigerian content policy, akin to the Nigerian content policy in the downstream sector of petroleum industry. We need an ICT equivalent. Why are we still importing virtually everything we use in this country? Do you know huge amount of money we are spending in importation of software applications, pieces of hardware used by govt agencies? The solution is that we should encourage indigenous companies like Omatek, Zinox, MainOne and other Nigerian establishments.

There must be market reserved for them by the government. You and I must patronize them, we have to encourage local companies. Zinox is employing people, Omatek is employing people and many others and they are all Nigerians and should be encouraged.

There must be policies in the ICT sector that will encourage those who fabricate, assemble and manufacture in Nigeria, which help strengthen the Naira, and boost Nigeria’s foreign reserves, empower youths through jobs creation and skills transfer.

ICT experts can tackle security issues

What is your take on the current security challenges in the country?

My take on that is that our industry can rise to the occasion. The issue is that the government of this country has never challenged ICT industry. We have never been challenged. So imagine ICT industry with Madam minister’s keen interest, we will rise to the occasion. We will use ICT to push criminals into holes, where they rightly belonged, behind bars.

Have you stakeholders met with the minister?

The honourable minister has not met with the ICT stakeholders be it ATCON, ALTON, CPN, ITAN, NITDA, NCC, NBC, ISPON, Cyber cafe operators, consumer protection council, etc. However, there is need for the minister to set a day aside to brainstorm with all stakeholders on how to move the ICT sector forward.