Cost of Production Must Make Business Sense-Ekuwem

Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem is a thorough bred engineer with an undiluted passion for ICT. Ekuwem was once assistant director (Technical Services) in the Aviation Ministry, a fellow of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)/ Tril Programme.He is presently UNESCO’s ICTP (Trieste,) regional coordinator of the Nigerian Universities Network (NuNeT). Ekuwem spoke to

Local Content and Assessment of ICT

You will remember that we held recently a whole stakeholders forum on that topic. If it were not a serious topic, if it were not relevant to the growth of our country, we would not have organized a stakeholder’s forum on the topic.

If we want to own the industry; if we want to grip the industry firmly, if we want to contribute to the emergence of Nigeria as one of the first or top twenty countries by the year 2020; then we have to use ICT as one of the catalysts to lift Nigeria up to that position. The question is, what do we do in the industry? What are the tools of the industry? How many of the tools are made, designed or assembled in Nigeria? When you emphasize on Nigerian content development within the ICT sector, you are aiming at creating jobs and wealth; you are aiming at ensuring the sustenance of the industry. That means you have no control over, cannot be said to be yours. We are not talking about 100per cent control, it is about what I call, a symbiotic control in the sense that our foreign partners work in tandem with us so as to ensure the growth and sustainability of the industry. We use pieces of software in places such as banks, universities, corporate bodies like Teledom and so on. How many of these pieces of software that we use on a regular basis are developed in Nigeria? Are Nigerians competent enough to develop pieces of software that can be used in those establishments? All I can tell you for sure is that there is no software that we use today that cannot be developed by Nigerians. I hope we are not suffering from what Fela Anikulapo Kuti used to call ‘kolo mentality’ in the sense that we perceive imported goods as more superior to locally made ones. Are you telling me that good mobile phone casings cannot be produced in Nigeria? Are you telling me that even casings of the computer and TV antennae cannot be made here? They sure can. You must know that those companies abroad may not produce the totality of their products in their factories; they outsource them to their partners who are being paid for the services.

Who is Responsible?

First, the cost of production must make business sense. When you look at the cost of production in Asia and that in Nigeria, if it is cheaper in Nigeria, entrepreneurs will come to produce in Nigeria. Our duty then is to ensure that cost of production of goods in our country low. Electric power is to the national economy what food is to the human body. The national economy is as epileptic as it is today because its source of energy is epileptic. The day we get our bearings right, the day the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) wakes up and the day we make good availability of electric energy for use in the national economy; you will see an avalanche of creativity, you will see an outburst of development; you will see Nigerians design and manufacture things that meet international standards. So, infrastructure like electricity is contributing to the increase in the cost of production. Nigerians are not the smartest people in the world but we have individuals who have potentials and can be trained to be highly skilled in certain areas. I would say that the right policies must be formulated; there must be public awareness, support from government and an institutional or legal framework that would compel operators or entrepreneurs or companies within the industry to introduce a certain percentage of Nigerian content in their operations. So, policy, institutional and legal frameworks are all the things that need to be addressed to ensure that we can have Nigerian content sufficiently large within the ICT industry. If you have only skilled manpower, how are you going to come to terms with the technical complexities of the material that will be used? I can tell you that dearth of manpower is not peculiar to Nigeria; there are many countries in the world that share similar experiences with Nigeria. Am convinced that the moment government, the Nigerian public, the telecom companies, the operators, the regulatory bodies like NCC; show some commitment to the cause of Nigerian content development within the ICT sector, be rest assured that we will go a long way. In that case, it is the will for us to move forward.

SIM Registration and National Security

We can capture data. But we have to start from somewhere. We cannot because of the fact that we are having difficulties in authentication turn a blind eye on SIM pack abuse; anyone can walk into a shop and buy one then use it to commit fraud, make threat calls and so on. A phone with GPRS, with voice call, with web browsing facilities, is an access point into any nation’s information super highway.

With that phone and connection, you can have access into companies’ database and even wreak havoc. We should be able to match these phones which are the access points into Nigeria’s information super highway with particular individuals within Nigeria, otherwise there is danger. This point of access must be accounted for; its origin and ownership must be known. There is a high rate of threat calls according to police reports. Hired assassins and even kidnappers in the Niger-delta use their phones to carry out operations but those calls cannot be traced to anyone. In most countries in the world, SIM packs are being registered because they have realized it is necessary for national security.

Registering 30 million Subscribers

We will not say goodbye to the Nigerian national security because operators are uncooperative. ATCON is not a regulator but we work in close partnership with the regulatory body. We are not the National Assembly, we do not make laws; we only do professional advocacy and ensuring that with our expertise, the Nigerian public is well informed. Operators may not be willing to register SIM packs because it will lead to a decrease in the number they release. But we cannot for that reason joke with national security. They need not do these registrations themselves; they can outsource that to a small firm. As we said in ATCON press statement, a period of six months to one year will be given during which every subscriber would be documented. You can walk into the nearest service center and register his SIM; so there will be no hurrying.

 Teledom Group

Teledom Group will soon be 10 years. We are a broadband informational telecommunication infrastructure company. We started with wireless and we discovered that Nigeria being a developing country had a problem of good quality ICT infrastructure. During the time of NITEL you know how difficult it was to get a line. We then said ‘let us look for a technology that will be broadband, that will be scaleable, that will be easy to install and easy to dismantle’. So, Teledom International Limited’s core competence is broadband wireless, we are experts in that area. We have a software development company and we have IT mart that is a one stop infotech super store. We have had a lot of encouragement from Nigerians; we have been patronized by some very good corporate bodies in this country and we are quite gratified that we have grown the way we have grown. The next phase we are entering is that of local content via manufacturing.