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| Mohammed, registrar/CEO, CPN |
Excerpt:
You have been in the industry for a while, what do you think
is the most challenging issue that you have had as a regulator?
NIGERIA as a country, is like we don’t want to be regulated.
Apart from the IT industry, I just observed that we seem to prefer free format
system where anything goes and that is not helping the system as a whole. Let
me give an example.
How can somebody who is normal drive against traffic, just
like that and even when you call him to order as an orderly citizen, it seems
that you are crazy that he’s normal? That’s what we find ourselves to in this
country and it’s not good for any system to work.
Regulation is meant to define an order and the way things
should be done and that is what the so called advanced countries have done in
the past and it has made them to do very well and we now refer to them as
organized society.
The question is this: when will this country be said to be
an organized society? And the way is just by regulating things so that we can
live within ourselves the way it should be.
And there is a correlation between organizing and
development, it’s direct. If we want to develop this country, we must first and
foremost be learned, and be organized, how to observe simple rules and regulations.
Do you know that it is better for this country to have a database about who is
doing what and what is the person doing? But we do not have such data and the
only way government can have such data is to encourage federal regulatory
bodies to do well. There is self and security implications to these, if for
instance, something happens that is not too good for any professional, but if
you have it in place; empowered professional regulatory bodies. I tell you, you
can get any data you want about anybody or who is doing what, easily. So, I
think that government needs to take a look again at these professional
regulatory bodies, they are very essential for us to grow.
What exactly is the core role of CPN?
We regulate, monitor and control the practice of Information
Technology (IT) professionals and we take a good look at other practice. We
determine the standard of knowledge of those who would wants to practice such
professions and we review such standards. And again, we now keep register of
such persons and give basics for nearly all the professional regulator bodies
in this country. The issue here is not whether the Act is weak or that it’s
strong, the issue is the political will of the government; the will to ensure
that that Act is enforceable.
For instance, for you to practice, you must show evidence of
registration to practice then government can decide to do the right thing. All
you have to do either as individual or corporate bodies, nobody care to ask
whether you are a bit qualified or you are worthy to profess that profession,
either corporate or as individual.
Even though things are changing now, but it should have
happened since, so why do we have quacks handling what professionals should
handle.
This is the only country where, a lawyer, doctor, an engineer walks
into this country and the following day he’s practicing. It doesn’t happen
elsewhere, even within the United States of America, if you are licensed to
practice in New York, does not give you the practice license to New Jersey, or
Maryland. That state must certify you that you can indeed practice in that
state – that’s why they are organized and they are progressing.
And if you dare
misbehave or you do what is unprofessional, you are easily caught and the fact
you know that this is your meal ticket and if you misuse it, it’s withdrawn
from you. Why won’t you do well with it? But the fact is that here decorum is
not there, nobody cares. But if you know that`s your meal ticket that is being
given to you, it must not be misused; you are indirectly inducing a well
behaved society.
So what is CPN doing to cut short activities of these
quacks?
Like I said, the story is changing now, unlike five years
ago where someone tells it to your face that you cannot do anything to him. But
the story is now changing; we have gone through a lot of stages where we have
to use enlightening programmes for people to know why certain things should be
regulated and so on and so forth. In our streets now, we can now come forward
to say how do we help them grow, how do we help them do better?
Things are
changing, though, a lot of work has gone and even now government is now saying
that things have to change. So, most of their adverts these days would say
registration of CPN or if you are going to do any other behind work, they would
state that you need to be organized by a registered professional body for you
to bid for a particular job. So things are changing. But we believed that
things can possibly move faster. The issue of regulation is key and it’s
becoming more and more obvious; you will keep on seeing that the level of these
have fallen, the level of that have fallen, it’s because standards are not
being maintained.
What we have been doing is to ensure that standards are
observed and if that can be done, then everything will fall in place and not
only in IT but in all sectors.
The Act setting up your organisation came into being in 1993, do you think
it’s worth reviewing and which areas would you like to review?
The world is not static and going by what has happened
between then and now, definitely there is need to look at the Act again and see
how the issue of empowerment for enforcement is better strengthened and if that
is done, I believe that to enforce would be much more easier and then we will
have a much more organized society and indeed development.
One other issue that usually comes up is for people to be
part of the system. We always see it as very rigorous because of what the
system is demanding.
Is there a new way out for those who may want to be CPN
members, the graduates and even those offering computer appreciation trainings,
do you have a place for them?
If you go through our Act again, you would see our
categories for membership. We have average, associates, free member, and so on.
The Act accommodates all categories that can be called reasonable categories of
membership. The word rigorous is not so, it’s just that people do not do things
they ought of have done and now costs of doing it have gone up.
In fact we are even developing a model whereby we engage
membership as they are about to leave tertiary institutions, where they pay
almost nothing. In fact what they would pay is just the equivalent to what they
should have paid to register as students’ member to now sit for our examination.
So, the model is such that the moment you are about leaving the university, if
your university is accredited or about to be accredited by CPN, your graduates
will be allowed to come in for our professional examination and they have
exemptions up to professional level II. With this model, we would be able to
now harvest these intelligent students and usher them into professional line.
What happens to those whose schools are yet to be accredited
by CPN?
This is one of the reasons I believe such school would now
want to be accredited. We need to know the strength of that school before we
can admit their products to now be giving certain privileges of exemptions.
Is it the strength or the interest of the students, because
most students do not know that their schools are not accredited by CPN and they
are interested in joining CPN, what happens to those that find themselves in
this kind of situation?
The fact is that many students are now approaching their
departments for them to get accredited. It’s a model that we want to instill
into the system, the moment it gets to the system and once you leave university
or polytechnic, you are given some privileges to now start from whatever level.
It’s going to spread round and those schools that are not being accredited
would want to be fast about it.
But again the issue of university being
accredited is not by choice. When we go to that school, we look at what they
have and we let them know the gaps they have to fill. The fact that that school
has shown interest is enough sign for us that we have to put that programme. It
shows that they are on the path to what CPN should do. So we also consider such
move to be given such privilege. The model is not that as one is leaving the
university system, you are ushered into professional line; we also showcase the
talent of our students, a kind of mentoring them.
I have gone round, I have
seen talents everywhere but harvesting these talents is what we want to take so
that our graduates would be able to compete favourably well with other students
in order universities around the globe. We are starting that and God is going
to help us.
Recently, the ministry of Communications Technology was one
year in office, from your own perspective how would you rate the performance
and your expectations in the coming years?
The ministry is still in infancy and they can do better than
what they are doing now and I wish them the best.
What would be your projection or expectations from the
current administration?
The president is trying to do certain things at the same
time and of course I can`t blame him, it’s what he had to contend with. But I
want to appeal that you don’t write off our professionals, whether IT or
medicine or engineering etc. This country has talents; you cannot harvest these
talents, unless they are tested. You should create down some lines of foreign
idea. What am I saying, in our industry in particular is that they should not
have allowed foreigners to infiltrate our system and we tend unknowingly to
look down on our own products that are good.
In that case, are we referring to Nigerians in Diaspora, who
are practicing in Diaspora and then maybe the local development?
What am talking about is that, most of the juicy contracts
in this country today are being given to foreign companies, but we have
companies who can do these things here. We have to grow our own and they cannot
grow unless they are tested and when there are issues that they need to do,
they do.
But the way it is now, without knowing we are killing our own home
grown industries without knowing. Before now is the issue of NEPA but thank God
now that things are improving, we need to try these hands, we need to expose
them and again the policy that came out last week that made-in-Nigeria is not
being patronized, fantastic. Government should wait and see what’s going to
happen, they should not only say it, however, they should also work it. We must
work the talk, so I think that it’s a good policy in the right direction but we
must not only say it, we must follow it through that its fully implemented.
Can you shade more light on your expectation on this new
policy, precisely?
To patronise make-in-Nigeria hardware and software.
But they have always said that?
Yes, that’s why I am now saying that we should not just
talk; we should now work the talk.
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