Empowerment as key to developing local content in ICT.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up and knows that it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed, and every morning in the same Africa, a lion wakes up and knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. Now, it doesn't matter whether you are the lion or the gazelle, the important thing is that when the sun comes up, the wisdom dictates that you had better be running as no one can rest on yesterday's success and expect lunch today.

In today's competitive world, this quote by Christopher McDougall reminds the wise of the importance of always being on ones game. It is a career, life, religious and economy advice that should never gets old.

Nigeria today is besieged with different issues ranging from Boko Haram crisis epileptic electricity supply, fuel crisis, graduate unemployment, entrepreneural deficiencies, insecurities, lack of focus and the list is endless but the most dangerous of it is graduate unemployment.

According to statistics, 8 out of ten graduates are unemployed, underemployed or unemployable.

It is so pathetic that Nigerians has not realised that above religious and tribal wars, the crisis soon to rock this nation will steam from well trained able bodied, frustrated jobless university graduates with thorn shirts and patched shoes.

Even the elites and leaders do not yet know how endangered their lives and their loved ones are in this hellish country. 2022 is here with us and we are still talking and fighting over oil.

Nigerians and Nigeria needs new direction and that is "Development of local content" in ICT.

There are many talented Nigerians who are ready and willing to explore the technology world and move the country from being a technology consumer nation to a technology producing nation. Interestingly, from the dwindling revenue from the sales from crude oil and the nations desire to diversify her economy, it is good that the federal government identifies the promotion of local contents in ICT as a way to create wealth and provide jobs for unemployed Nigerians.

Let's take a cue from leading economies' example , like Singapore, India, China, America and host of others.

The compliance to the local content guidelines is vital to achieving the mandate of economic diversification and empowerment of the ICT eco system in the country.

Luckily, by virtue of our population, Nigeria has the human capacity to become the technology power house in Africa, if not the world. The challenge has always been the lack of right knowledge and skills as well as funding which should be addressed by the ICT regulatory body, NITDA.

With a strong political will and the efforts of NITDA,

Nigeria can get back in the right track to achieving the lofty goals.

However, sustainability, consistency and continuity will be key to achieving the desired end for the country...

By:

Franca Idemudia.

Journalist/ Media expert.

Category:

Technology 

• 2 Jul, 2022
• Franca
• 1642 views