By Chris Uwaje & Dan Molina

The central message of the national fuel subsidy removal and related economic crisis is: “The Industrial Era has ended and the Information Society Era has commenced”.  All these noise about oil and gas, oil and gas – yes, removing the subsidy has created hardships, but focusing on this and identifying or calling it our central problem, is like chasing shadows.

Fact is, governance is constructively and visibly disconnected from the people – of which 60 percent are youths! Full digitization and automation of government processes, access to and delivery of e-Government services, constitutes a significant part of the eluding solutions.

The entire fuel subsidy crisis can simply be defined as an un-organized information cacophony – an environment myopically entangled in consumption. Instead, we’d do well to view this as a crisis of national information resources and governance.

The time has come to shift our focus away from our dependence on consumption, and concentrate instead on seizing immense new opportunities for building within, and firmly, finally, controlling our own destiny. These are the opportunities of high technology and the Information Age. By understanding and using them, we can expand prosperity, manage our country properly, and drastically reduce the chances that “economic and social earthquakes” such as our current fuel subsidy crisis will occur.

Defining moment

Nigeria has arrived at a defining moment in its history. Our problems are real, and, in darker moments, we may fear they can overwhelm us. But this climate of anxiety, of fears for our future, need not exist at all. The answers are within our grasp – we can see them in action all over the world. The answers have to do with the new tools, the new way of thinking that is the Information Age.

This demands a lot from us; a deeper comprehension of the path to building a merit-centric, knowledgeable, prosperous, wealthy and peaceful future – driven by information technology, and this can, and must be done. The ominous headlines about Nigeria now being read around the world shout the message to us – we must do it. The Information Age, the high technology society is here and we cannot continue to wish and carry on as if we still exist and live in the feudal era. The present approach is like prescribing analgesics to treat leprosy!

Primary focus

Our primary focus should be on a degree to which information technology can accomplish large-scale, permanent change for a better and sustainable Nigeria, and, by extension, the future of nations throughout the African continent.

Technology skills can effect positive change in the most immediate matters of everyday living; things such as more innovative and effective methods of governance, education, information exchange, dialogue-based communication technique, agriculture, better management and use of natural resources, general economic development, health care, everyday communications, social vibrancy – and perhaps most important, the conscious need conflict management and gradual minimization of reasons for physical conflict and warfare; the spread of peaceful alternatives.

Applying high technology in the pursuit of crisis management and peace is central to the vision of the Nigerian nation. The Global Early Warning System Association of USA is developing one promising approach. This is a group associated with Columbia University in New York City and the Millennium Institute in Washington, DC.

The system involves deployment of a network of mini-supercomputers capable of gathering and efficiently processing massive amounts of data concerning critical, fundamental issues. This information is then used to assist in formulating decision-making alternatives based on rational, objective facts. Today, for example, Nigerians could be using the system to place reasonable, truthful policy options regarding fuel subsidies in the hands of our country’s decision makers and the Nigerian youths and people.

This one, single application of high technology has the potential for attracting massive Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Nigeria and engendering fundamental, positive, sustainable change.

There is a similar concept called the National Database System (NDS). This is a prerequisite for effective planning, organizing and delivering a transparent model of how our nation’s vital affairs are being conducted.  It is a foundation for building the trust of citizens, confidence that basic services are functional and effective, and that life and property are being protected.

The economic and political character of a nation is largely defined by its basic structural framework, or “constitution”; its organizational capability; its administrative efficiency; and reliable management of its information systems.

Cause of crisis

Today in Nigeria all these are fraught with deficiencies. This is why we state that the root-cause of the current fuel subsidy crisis revolves around the non-existence of a centralized National Database System (NDS), which ensures that these basic elements of a healthy society are in place, functioning and transparent.

Thus the NDS is simply an amalgamation of available data and information variables which translates to budgetary process and distribution of resources; the implementation of policy. The constitutional divisions of the Nigerian government ‘Executive; Legislature and Judiciary’ and its administrative organs (MDAs) are designed to function in a ‘separation-of-powers’ setting.

However noble in concept, this has evolved into a classic snail-speed of file-carrying administration that has not only strangled the information flow, it has created enormous loopholes for corruption:  Information manipulation, the denial of rights, subversion of merit, ignoring, discouraging or otherwise eroding of potential of Nigerian youths, and slamming the door to the dynamic innovation, participation, and creativity of the people.

It is, then, no wonder that today we witness all the bottled-up anger and visible suppressed national development, at all levels. It will be recalled that in year 1999-2000, Nigeria was a nation with a population of 140 million people served with 720,000 telephone lines out of which only 400,000 were functional! That translated to a telephone acquisition waiting list of five years for its citizens.

Today, not much has changed in our Government Information Network System.  In the new language of the Information Age, a significant chunk of millions of terabytes of information is isolated, analog and dormant or minimally digitized, isolated and unconnected.

Information is inaccessible

This means that information as critical national resource is inaccessible and therefore, effective governance is denied to the citizenry. The message is that it is not possible to effectively govern 155 million people through a traditional manual file movement model, especially when about 43 million of the people are connected to the Internet. A robust and automated information and communications technology system is urgently required to resolve the endemic challenge.

As for oil, suppose we forget about that for a moment.  New sources of energy and renewable energy are emerging, and emerging very fast. Two years ago, I rode in an electric–powered car on the streets on New York City and instantly got the jarring message that indeed things have changed, and it won’t be long before it dawns on us that the game is up for consumer nations – like us — we face innovation at the speed of light and stiff global competitiveness.

Today, humanity can be classified as living in a “machine society’ where technological tools are predominant at different levels, interfacing in the day-to-day activities of man. These livelihood activities constitute and deliver economic, social and political benefits and potential risks to the survivability of nations – especially developing nations like ours.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and human capital have become the centre of gravity and indeed the heart of sustainable national development and in particular for structured effective governance, education, advanced knowledge and intelligence activities, product development, manufacturing techniques as well as organizational financial and management systems – all of which are the cornerstone of global competition  through automated globalization.

Automated IT-based systems are performing many of the tasks previously done manually by humans. ICTs have also enabled more efficient, information-centred management and contributed to the breakdown of the bureaucratic/industrial organizational model. Public and private sectors are downsizing and flattening the hierarchy as systems become more accurate and efficient.

Wisdom also warns that within this development cycle and its embedded opportunities and benefits, the risk of techno-crime grows. Systems must be designed accordingly.

For future governments to function effectively using e-government tools and skills, major ministerial structures, functions and the human resource base must be completely re-defined and overhauled. Indeed, it is a tragic irony that while the private sector is busy restructuring, re-engineering, and upgrading its operations to use the advantages of things like cloud computing and nano-technology, the operating structures of governance remain unchanged!

It has been demonstrated that ICTs can provide opportunities to change traditional practices.  This is especially important in Nigeria and our sister nations in Africa, where short-sighted divisions, personal quests for power and wealth, and the priorities of foreign powers have so impeded introduction of ICTs can change the accepted social distribution of power.

This is why the interfacing relationship of government and citizens, through technology must be systematically understood, strategically organized, constantly examined, tracked, monitored and managed for sustainable development of national resources and the survival of our national sovereignty.

Chris Uwaje is CEO of Connect Technologies, and President of ISPON. Dan Molina is a Journalist, former Correspondent for NBC news  and Film Producer.