Nigerians must change attitude to IT says Daura

The acting Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Dr. Ashiru Sani Daura, until his appointment was Director, Software Development and Technical Research and Outsourcing. He spoke to the Group Executive Editor, DigitalSENSE Business News, REMMY NWEKE, at the just concluded second National Council on Communication Technology (NCCT) in Akure, recently. He posited that Information Technology (IT) goes beyond mere communication, insisting that Nigerians must change attitude towards IT to see it gains. Excerpts:

Can you tell us why you are here in Akure?

I am here to attend the meeting of the National Council on Communication Technology. Statutorily we are members of the Communication Technology Ministry by virtue of being under the ministry of ICT. As a stakeholder in ICT we are here to present our memoranda to council.

You presented some prayers to the council, can you share some of these prayers with us?

Actually, I presented two memos; one being a memo on general collaboration with NITDA and the states, because NITDA have a number of activities which we thinks the collaboration is important and NITDA has a number of activities its carrying out.

In some of these activities in the states, and in some states we have problems due to lack of collaborations, so we need the collaboration to carry them out successfully. This includes the Rural Information Technology Centres (RITC) for the training of graduates and we deploy this equally, so we need the corporation of the States to successfully carry out these projects.

 The other memo is for the collaboration we have with the Cross River State government, so we have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish an IT Park within the Tinapa Knowledge City. That is a special MoU we do have with them and we are working to achieve the agreed issues on that MoU. We also have other cases of collaboration like the development of IT policy for the states. We have done it for three states, Niger, Enugu and Osun.

So, we will like to do it in other states until it covers the whole country. Of course the ICT4D is there with strategic plans for implementation. So states need to come in, in the implementation in some of the plans that are applicable to them at their levels. These are some of the things we need the states to collaborate on with the States for a successful implementation of these projects.

Out of these prayers, how will you rate the acceptance of some of the prayers or all of the prayers as it were?

All the prayers were accepted at the meeting and that is 100 per cent acceptance.

Congrats on the acceptance of all your prayers. So now you have gotten 100 per cent support from the council so to say, what should be your next step of action?

In fact, if you remember the other paper presented to the council, you will remember that even members were asking for more than what we proposed on local content. We proposed some percentage of patronage of local software or hardware, but members were even asking for a 100 per cent and even legislation to enforce members to do those things, so that those who default will be compelled by law.

Then the percentage?

They are asking for 100 per cent or more than what we presented to support local content. That means they were even convinced and felt there should be legislation, not just appealing.

Now that you have the nod, what should be the expectations?

We are encouraged and strengthened to do those things with more vigour and more determination, so that when we come to the states they will accept and collaborate and also pursue other things that NITDA has.

Our mandate is really wide, virtually anything IT. You see, one of the problems is that, may be because of the invisibility of other aspects of IT, people only think of communication. But the issue of IT or ICT is beyond communications. Communication is just one aspect; communicating information, but if you look at the area of manipulating that information, the way you get that information, produce it, present it, store it, retrieve it and so many others areas and even the area of securing that information.

Now, each of these is areas of circulating this information and nobody is regulating these areas or putting policies except NITDA. NITDA has the mandate to develop policies, set policies, data storage, issues of interoperability of other things, cyber security and other things. So, NITDA has a lot of work and our plan is to take our job more seriously and pursue them so that we can really develop IT in this country to the required level.

Currently, our rating is very low in eGovernment, eReadiness and others. You see, except for Internet penetration, we are nearly low in all other indicators. So, we have to work hard to make IT as our mission says, the backbone of our economy, so that we can compete with other economies in the world.

Are we looking forward to getting more States with IT policies between now and end of the year?

Yes. We have like I said earlier, Niger, Enugu and Osun. We are collaborating with them to develop the IT policies. Now, we have put in our budget to have more states to collaborate with. And if you can recall, Rivers announced at the Council section, they will like to be among the next set. They requested that and if we can, we will like to have more states and may be, in the next two years or few years, this will be over.

Already, as you may know, Akwa-Ibom, Kano and some others too, have their policies in place. So, what we have to do is to work on the remaining ones that do not have.

With respect to sighting of the Rural IT Centres (RITC), how do you perceive the comments from the Council, especially in liaising with NIPOST?

Yes, that’s a good idea. You see, because the biggest problem regarding this RITC is the issue of sustainability. Initially, our plans or arrangements was to give the equipment and then give bandwidth for one-year, but in most cases after the one year, the communities refuse to go further or renew the bandwidth for another year or coming years, so that is the problem. But the arrangement that is being proposed, I think it’s very good, because now we will have another government agency hosting it.

Now, this government agency, NIPOST, is not like the communities that is not getting anything out of it, but it will get something out of it and still do other businesses, from their pay for the sustainability; maintenance and other things, because it’s part of their building. So, the issue of maintenance will be much easier. It’s not in the case of a community where you have just one building at the local government headquarters, may be that will be the only functional equipment they have in terms of equipment in IT and then politics and other problems.

There is one case, chairman of a Local Government cooperated and we got the nod to have one RITC established and then another chairman came and asked the contractor to move ... laughs.

In this Nigeria?

Yes.

How?

The contactor complained that he installed such equipment as approved by the previous government, but was asked to stop installing the equipment that was approved by the previous government. It happened that we have concluded with one leadership in the local government and in the next few weeks, there was a change in government and some equipment were installed, he asked the contractor to remove that equipment.

Didn’t he know it will benefit his community?

You see some of these people don’t look at it like that. They look at it as something done by the other people. They look at it in some other narrow manner. They think that if they leave that, it would be added as part of the legacy of the previous administration and they will not like to be associated with that.

How do you think you can remedy that and resolve that kind of misunderstanding, because it’s actually the community that is at loss?

Yes, I think these things should go beyond IT. Generally, there should be a plan from government that whosoever comes into office should sustain the development of those infrastructures, irrespective of who did, instead of tying it to which camp or whether I was in good terms with the previous person; these things - RITC - will continue to flourish. It goes to the extent of some instances we have seen, where a governor registers a domain name and a new governor will come to throw that away and wants to register his own kind of domain names for the state.

It seems they don’t know the implication, which includes changing of the documentations etc?

Sometimes, you may not fault the new governor, because what happens is that at times they give this responsibility to political office holders. You find out that Special Adviser on Technical is a political office holder and he has the password and has everything concerning the domain names for the state, and such a person alone can authorise changes and the rest of it and then he goes out of office, instead of giving this kind of assignment to a civil servant who will remain in service even after the political office holders have gone.

With this kind of development, why can’t NITDA propose to the Council, for some of these things to be statutory in the civil service instead of handing over to the political office holders?

It’s true and I think it’s something we can propose and we will talk to NIRA - Nigeria Internet Registration Association; and see how we can work it out. Although sometimes, some state governments do employ consultants to help out, but at times they are not paid and they go away with the password, but we have to work it out so that whoever will administer this has to be a technical person in the civil service, etc.

May be it will help to ensure that even if any state will like to use the contractors, it could be put on papers that such a contractor surrenders every technical concerns to either NITDA or hands over to an in-house technical person?

That is a good idea too.

Now that the Minister and commissioners will be coming, are you expecting anything different from what has been achieved or accepted by the technical committee for the past two days or expecting any special position?

Yes, I think what we will have in the next two days before the end of this Council meeting, those things that the technical committee has approved. I mean those prayers that have been accepted will be forwarded to the Minister and Commissioners for rectifications. Now, they can accept it or reject it, according to certain things they may know, which we and their subordinates may not know about government and government policies, but I see that most of these things would go through.

During your earlier comment, you made mention of our internet penetration being the only place we seem to be doing well. How do you go about improving on other index in the IT sector?

First of all, we have to look at what contributes in raising the level of penetration. If you look at eReadiness, what is eReadiness? What does it entail? May be we have to pursue those factors vigourously to ensure we raise the overall index. Now, one very important thing which I even mentioned during my presentation earlier is the issue of attitude. We need to really have a change of attitude in the way we do things. Sometimes, it’s not the funding, it’s not expert, but some of other things. I am sure some other countries in Africa are really doing more with less funding.

So, we really have to change our attitude towards national interests or national projects. Of course that attitude is the one that leads to corruption; issues of wanting to work in silos and wouldn’t want to cooperate and collaborate. For me if we change these attitudes we will change the issues of corruption and I alone will go and people will collaborate, synergise between themselves. I think if we do this, we will see more results.

On the issue of RITC and its sustainability, do you think the traditional rulers have any roles to play to make things better?

Well, traditional rulers, as we have now don’t have any role. Their roles are mainly advisory more than any other role so to say. May be also they are not convinced, because if they are convinced of the importance of these RITCs to their communities, they can like try to tell the local government chairman and other political office holders and other government officials the importance to them, they may have to look at these proper.

Are you satisfied with the level of commitment from the government especially the Presidency and the Ministry of Communication Technology?

The government has a lot of goodwill, for instance from the Presidency, at least there are two people who are IT people; the president has a special adviser and there is a senior special assistant. They are all IT people and they are advising in this area. I learnt also that the president has a lot of passion for IT. He wants to see it really driving Nigeria. Now, the minister is also trying as an IT person and has a lot of passion also for IT-enabled services; e-government and others. She has been working seriously, putting a lot of energy into it since she assumed office as the first minister of Communication Technology. She has been doing a lot, very helpful in driving a whole processes with the best she could do.

You have been very keen on issues of outsourcing in this industry before you became the acting DG, how will you rate outsourcing so far in this industry?

Its poor, so far, but we have set out plans to push it forward. When I say poor, its relative to what we can do. That is currently performing poorly to our capability or what we can do. I know we can do much than we are doing now and when compared to a country like Ghana, you can say we are not doing much, but I have a lot of hopes in that area, especially with the establishment of the umbrella association for outsourcing - NITIP. I think it will galvanise various efforts and groups towards pursuing the outsourcing agenda very vigouriously and more seriously and in few years, we will see that Nigeria will become a hub for outsourcing services and activities.

Advise Nigerians on the use of IT?

My advice is that people should not be fearful of IT. IT is a useful tool. And not only that, in the nearest future, IT will be indispensable. Even now to be comfortable, to save time you need to use IT. Now, our banks use IT to offer Internet banking and IT makes things simpler and saves a lot of time. So, we need to embrace IT and use it in all aspects and facets of our lives; be it government, education, health and so many others and we will see a lot of improvement. In fact, I don’t see you achieving the Vision 202020 without IT.

Therefore, we need to embrace IT. IT is the technology of the day and also of the future. Nothing really can now work without IT. IT is an enabler and must be seen as a sector in itself to be able to reasonably earn something from IT; get the skills, develop programmes and people will learn a lot from it.

 

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