After the long delay in announcing his ministers, we all waited with great anticipation for who President Buhari  will appoint to  replace Omobola Johnson as minister for Comminucation Technology.

Omobola had been appointed the pioneer minister of this ministry by the last administration and stayed in the post for about 3 years.

During that period , she had left no one in doubt that she understood what it required to build a tech ecosystem for Nigeria that will rival any other rindustry in the country.

At every encounter, she tried to rally the tech industry to stand up and be counted as one of the biggest contributors to Nigerian GDP.

She was knowledgeable and articulate. And humble about it.

I believe that the industry responded to her and  suddenly, the idea of a viable tech ecosystem not necessarily dominated by the telecoms industry started becoming a reality.

Yaba tech hub started becoming a name across Africa as one of the hotbeds of tech innovation.

Venture capital companies started looking for deals to be made in Nigeria . ecommerce took off . Tech hubs, accelerators  started popping up, with new tech entrepreneurs minted daily and some getting funding.

And there were signs that a real momentum was building for the tech industry to explode. Similar to what happened to Nollywood and the music industry. But this time, bigger and more orderly. 

And better funded , following the models that have worked in several countries with Silicon Valley as the poster child for the world.

She was not solely responsible for this. But she was an apostle and avid supporter. And she put her money where her mouth was.

‎Then came  the end of the Jonathan administration in May. I think it was too soon to see her go. So when the time came for a new minister to be announced, I guess the industry was high in anticipation that whoever succeeded her must be someone who understood the tremendous work that had been done and would continue the legacy.

When Mr Adebayo Shittu a, politician and a legal practitioner was announced as replacement, the first thing that came to my mind was Shittu who? And being in tech, I am sure most of us went to the net to Google him to find out his background and pedigree.

We did see a politician with pedigree. But with little or no tech credentials. That’s been a source of uneasy silence in the industry.

I have nothing against Mr Shittu and I am sure he is a brilliant lawyer and  politician. But the industry fought to have a special ministry designated for her because of the nature of technology and its capacilty to impact the society.

And like health and legal professions where industry professionals run such ministries, we thought that it made sense to have industry experts from the tech ecosystem to guide the fairly new ministry.

I remember long ago when a pharmacist was named the Minister for Health. The heath industry was up in arms against the Minister , one of the best Pharmacists in the country then and a member of the health  industry. But no.

Doctors , the more powerful in  the ministry would not have a pharmacist heading their ministry. And lawyers? Can I ever aspire to be Minister of Justice in Nigeria?

So you can imagine the uneasy silence in the industry since the announcement was made.

Unfortunately, the industry does not have the noisemaking capacity of the legal or medical profession to lay a siege on the presidency and demand that “justice’ be done.

And our lobbying ability is very limited. Tech people in Nigeria are just cobbling an industry together and lack the age long experience of the more mature industries like lawyers and doctors .

But its necessary that we learn fast to protect the industry that will increasing be relevant in which ever direction the Nigerian economy wants to go.

Anyway, we have Mr Shittu. All we can do I guess is to welcome him.

And pray he has the appetite to quickly learn about the industry and take on from where Omobola left. There is a lot that needs to be done. And I will mention a few.

As Nigeria grapples with the challenges of sub $40 oil, Tech is one of the best options for diversifying the economy.

But for that to happen, there is a lot that needs to be done to create the industry that will create wealth and employment.

The ministry should continue to catalyze this. Chief among them is the financial system that funds tech  companies and startups. From angel investors to venture capital companies.

As at today, startups in tech will not get funding from banks and your normal financial institutions.

And intervention funds do not list tech as one of the areas they cover. This has to stop. We fund textile. We fund mining. We fund manufacturing and agriculture. We are even funding Nollywood. 

So why not  Technology ? The ministry needs to help create the structures for  more funding to both early stage tech companies and the matured one to help them scale and create wealth and employment

The tech industry has two main subsectors, the ‘ bigger’ and better funded telecoms industry and the less funded IT industry.

It is the less funded IT though that has the capacity for mass impact. The telecoms industry is developed and maturing. It has very few players and while its influence on the economy is huge, its capacity for really creating entrepreneurs ands wealth is limited. How many people does MTN employ?

And how many entrepreneurs has the telecommunication industry produced? Compare that to Jumia or Konga and their competitors, after  only a few years.

Omobola understood this and spent as much time in Yaba as possible, trying to pull up the IT industry to compete with telecoms.  I hope the  the new Minister will  follow the same path.

In the last two months, two issues that relate to Tech have dominated the headlines. The first is the  $5.2b fine imposed on MTN.

The seconds is the TSA/Remitta issue. What is the minister’s take on both?  The tech industry is local but with  an  international influence.

The few investments we have seen in startups and the telecoms industry are mostly from international players. How will the fine on MTN affect international VCs and private equity companies who provide the funds that drive the growth in the industry?

Is the Minister as a lawyer going to focus on the legal side of the argument or the business side?Are we going to see more regulation in the industry? Or less?

In concluding,  I suggest  the industry  quickly sit down with the minister .

Not on  merry go round courtesy calls but on serious discussions around the future of the industry and how the industry can help Nigeria diversity the economy.

There is a lot that can be done to help Nigeria out of the current economic crisis and I believe tech will play a big role. The hub of the industry is in Lagos.

We must invite him to come take a look at what we are doing and let him tell us how he can play his part.

It is not going to be an easy task for him to run a ministry that supervises technology, a queer industry dominated in most climes by young upstarts who think they will change the world. And some do. I wish him luck and assure him that if he is willing, he will get the support he needs.

And for the future, the industry should start getting interested in how it is governed at the highest level. And should let the country know that it has competent people who can man the ministry and protect the interest of the practitioners.‎