By Prince Osuagwu
Participants at the recent concluded West African ICT (WAfICT 2010) Congress which coincided with the 10th edition of the West African International Telecommunications and Information Communication Technology Exhibition (W.Afri.Tel), agreed that more efforts needed to be expended on Africa’s ICT sector to sustain developments already made.

MD Zinox Technologies, Mr Mukoro Emomine, Former Communications Minister, Engr. Olawale Ige and Publisher IT&Telecom Digest Mkpe Abang at recent concluded WAFICT 2010 in Lagos Nigeria.

Speaking on the first day of the Conference, Executive Director of Nigerian Communications Commission NCC, Dr Bashir Gwandu who also represented the Minister of State for Information and Communications,Mr Lebaran Maku,  commended the positive contributions of the Conference and the W.Afri.Tel exhibition to the development of ICT in West Africa, generally.

Dr. Gwandu in his paper at the Congress traced the historic rise of Nigeria from relative obscurity in telecoms to the giant in Africa and pointed out that in spite of the nearly 80 million subscribers in the country; there were still more work to be done.

For him, challenges that are common among countries in the sub-region include multiple taxation and levies; poor state of power generation, poor road network and inadequate skilled manpower required to drive the exponential growth in the region.

Similarly, in his keynote presentation on the second day of WAFICT, former Executive Vice Chairman and chief executive of NCC, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe identified some of the landmark events that have helped shape the ICT landscape in West Africa and identified the need to get to the rural underserved population as an issue that must tackled with every strength by the sub-region operators and governments

Identifying some of the impediments to speedy and  cost effective roll-out by operators in the sub-region, speakers like the Chief Executive officer of Main One Cable system, Ms Funke Opeke,  Chairman of Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo,  and Olaseni Ashiru, West African representative of Ericsson, heaped the blame on poor harmonisation of policies across the sub-region, poor protection of operators’critical infrastructure like fibre optics lines, insecurity, power issues and low development of last mile infrastructure to carry traffic.

Other issues that were raised in the course of the three days of the combined programme include the need to appropriately educate consumers by operators and businesses in the ICT sector.

According to the General Manager, Customer Care of MTN Nigeria, Mr. Akin Braithwaite, who spoke on Business Growth as Corollary of the Chemistry of Customer Care, the customer must be educated to retain his/her total  loyalty.
Braithwaite insisted that the customer must not be perceived as just as a common peach when one does not need care or  attention.

However,  Mr. Basheer Patel of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation CTO noted that a huge amount of funding was needed to get ICT in Africa to desired level.

He revealed that there were various options for financing for operators in the sub-region and  emphasised that these funds are always available for  viable and objective projects in the ICT industry.

For former Nigeria’s Communications minister and member of the NCC board, Engr. Olawale Ige, there is the need to always remember where the countries in the sub-region are coming from and the underlying factors for their seeming poor infrastructure development.
In  his opinion, although the sub-region may appear slow in catching up with the rest of the world, there is a lot that has been done and even in the present state, there are still more work that need to be done by the various stakeholders including government, operators, regulators and the public.

He was corroborated by MD, Zinox Computers, Mr. Emomine Mukoro, who also agreed that there is a need for harmonisation of the operating and policy environment of West African countries if the sub-region was ever going to make more progress.

His own argument was that collaboration would help remove the various bottlenecks that continue to impede the actual development of ICT in these countries.

Emonime said if that was not done on time, Africa could take another 500 years to reach where countries of Europe and America are presently.

He added that this paradigm shift in both regulatory and investment climates should not be cosmetic but be backed by genuine intentions.

Mr. Chris Uwaje who is the President of Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) and a member of the Governing Board of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), was concerned with the country developing software and applications that will help sustain the growth so far recorded and take the country to a new height.

Ironically, the issue of developing local and marketable content came up for discussion on the third and last day of the conference as most speakers observed that every of the present content used in Nigeria and indeed the West Africa sub-region are generated outside the region and if the region is ever going to be independent and maximise its potentials and generate more revenue, local contents would be necessary.

Another Engineer, Titi Omo-Etu who is the newly elected president of the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), urged Nigerian operators to “commence the domestication of their domain name. ATCON took this decision only a few days ago,” thus signalling the ‘Nigerianisation’ of the long anticipated domain name of businesses and individuals in the country.

Identifying the enormous work that still needs to be done by Nigerian companies especially in the area of data, Engr. Lanre Ajayi who is the president of the Nigerian Internet Group (NIG), said the country in spite of the large number of voice subscribers is far behind even in Africa in Internet penetration and he suggested an urgent step be taken to remedy this situation.

It was the conclusion of the speakers and delegates that there is an urgent need for governments in the sub-region to harmonise their policies in the area of ICT as this would enhance the speedy growth of the sector in the sub-region. The question was also raised on what must have caused the recent headlines news that second national operator, Globacom was threatening to withdraw from its license in Ghana over uncomplimentary conducts in the West African country.

In closing, the panellists on the last day, Mr. Basheer Patel, Engr. Olawale Ige and Mr. Stanley Jegede, CEO of Phase 3, were all convinced that although the three days interactive programme of WAFICT and the exhibition, W.Afri.Tel were successful, there is still a need for government officials to participate in such discussions and they canvassed for more support for the event and its organisers.