Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) has harped on the urgent need to recognise knowledge as a resource that can be codified, registered and made tradeable.
To achieve this and more, the Society in a communiqué after its national conference in Enugu recently, said that domestication and localization of Nigeria ICT policy vertically through the various tiers of government and laterally across Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government, has become paramount.
The communiqué signed by Prof. David O. Adewumi, president, Nigeria Computer Society, Prof. ‘Sola Aderounmu, deputy president, NCS and chairman, National Conference Communiqué Committee and Moses Braimah, chairman, Conferences Committee, read that after the paper presentations, technical sessions, contributions of the participants and exhaustive deliberations, the following decisions were reached:
“i. That Information Communication Technology (ICT) is an enabler for growth and national development, capable of being the highest employer of labour in Nigeria;
ii. That competitive advantage in business has always been driven by knowledge;
iii. That multiple stakeholders need to collaborate to build strong partnerships in the transformation of Nigeria from information society to knowledge-based economy;
iv. That a knowledge-based economy is predicated on the production and dissemination of ideas;
v. That there is the urgent need to recognise knowledge as a resource that can be codified, registered and made tradeable;
vi. As such, there is the need for a well concerted investment in knowledge production through ICT;
vii. To achieve this requires immediate domestication and localization of Nigeria ICT policy vertically through the various tiers of government and laterally across Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government;
viii. That state-level agencies should be created to implement, coordinate and monitor ICT activities geared towards indigenous knowledge production in the 36 states of the Federation and FCT;
ix. That such state agencies should tap from the wealth of experience of Nigerian IT professionals and practitioners who are members of NCS;
x. The Conference also empathises with the Federal Government over the various security challenges being faced in the country and noted that the effective use of ICT in intelligence surveillance could assist in arresting some of the terrorists; and,
xi. Finally, the conference commended the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture for the giant strides being made through the deployment of ICTfor agricultural monitoring and information dissemination”.
The conference theme was ‘Building a Knowledge-Based Economy in Nigeria: The Role of Information Technology’.
Presentations were made by speakers drawn from a broad spectrum of the Nigerian society: IT professionals, policy makers, academia, industry and businesses.
In addition there was a special event convened by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to discuss critically, the issue of ICT policy for states in Nigeria.