Nigeria Losses Revenue from Improper Planning- Oyedokun

Mr. Oyewole Ayodeji Oyedokun is the president, Records and Information Management Awareness Foundation (RIMA Foundation).
He is a member of renowned international networking bodies, such as the Network and System Professionals Association, USA; International Association of Business Communicators (IABC); Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) and Computer Professional Registration of Nigeria. He works for a major oil and gas company in Nigeria, where he has served for over thirteen years and still waxing stronger.
 Oyedokun was among a thirteen-man committee inaugurated in March 2010b by the Lagos State Government for the formulation of Policy on Records and Archives management in Lagos State. At RIMA’s first quarterly training for Information Management professionals, he spoke with Peter Ugwu on the imperative of a national database, among other issues. Excerpt.    

Encouraging Societal Changes through ICT and Records Management
 
Overview of RIMA’s Activities

RIMA has been in operations since 2004 as a Non-profit Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), with the sole objective of promoting proper management and security of records and information in Nigeria, and Africa in general; for the benefit of the society encouraging investment and provision of employment opportunities.

 
Records and Information Management (RIM): A specialized Discipline

Yes; RIM is a specialized discipline with gamut of disciplines that requires different skill set. Some of the functions in the Records and Information Management (RIM) industry include but not limited to Records Management (RM), Archives Management (AM), Documents Control (DC), Health Information Management (HIM), Data Management and Analysis (DMA) and so many others. Regrettably, within the scope of Africa, one will discover that majority of these disciplines are almost non-existing and people have been lamenting for lack of employment opportunities; uncharitable structures for investment and so on. RIMA Foundation discovered this gap and realized that by developing the records and information management industry; this will really help to alleviate the sufferings of our teeming youths. Records and Information are very important aspect of any business, required for the efficient administration and sustenance of the business regardless of the sector they belong to. And when we talk about governance, we will find out that majority of the problems we are piqued with, especially in this part of the world, are largely drawn from poor handling and management of records and information thereby making it almost impossible for government to demonstrate to the populace talking about transparency and accountability, not necessarily in the financial aspects alone, but in the area of good information management governance. For example, for a government to prepare a budget; beneficial to the citizenry, there has to be accurately captured and recorded information concerning the population, which will inform certain government’s decision in implementing assured policies. Information, if properly harnessed could give government the right direction. You can imagine, each general election period in Nigeria is followed by revalidation of voters register, with several millions budgeted for it, but if we had a proper national database, budgetary allocation to such exercise would have been cut down and channeled towards other developmental projects.

 
Records and Information Management Policy Debate

I will say this forms part of our mandate. Our directive is to identify the various gaps, challenges being faced in the information management industry, covering both private and public arena, and proffer a way on how to tackle them. So, we are favorably disposed to any legislation that will promote proper handling, management and security of records and information in Nigeria.

 
Improper Information Management and Security Lapses in Nigeria

Infact, managing information is very keen and directly applicable to every facet of our life. So, in the area of security, if we had maintained good information governance about the citizenry, adequate security would not have eluded us as it is presently.

 
Manual Record Management in ICT Era

There are cases of things being done wrongly because of the system we run in Nigeria, and so many things are responsible for that. Firstly, there is growing fear in people when it comes to ICT. In fact, some people, when you mention ICT, they are thrown off-balance; a lot of people feel threatened by this. Even in organizations, workers will think that implementation of ICT solutions will lead to job loss, which is not. Is aimed at enhancing whatever activity they are involved in. They are supposed to see it as complement to whatever profession they are involved in. IT is not coming to take over anybody’s job; rather it will create greater opportunities and better career ladder which will eventually give room for growth within the organization.

Awareness Campaign

We have been involved in so many awareness campaigns to raise the tempo for proper management of records and information in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. We have worked with many international organizations for us to learn best practices, around the world. We target a-home-grown solutions to our problems and our activities are progressive in nature. RIMA has been partnering with a good number of international organisations on different projects and programmes. Aside the free quarterly training organized for students, professionals and other interested members of the society, we have outlined a number of awareness programmes for the year. And we are not giving up in promoting professional ethics among RIM practitioners in Nigeria and Africa. Quite a number of them are not aware of certain expectations that they are supposed to leave up to within their organisations, which is one of the key consciousnesses RIMA Foundation is out to create in them.

Perils of Inexistence of National Database

Apart from the improper planning and decision making suffered by the different countries as a result of lack of a national database, the country will continue to loss revenue.

 
Generic or Unified Retention Period of Confidential Records

The implications of not having a generic or unified retention period for confidential documents has a lot of negative implications, but I will stress on the fact that if we continue to shy away from maintaining a general standard for every practice, we should not expect (positive) results. Because people will tend to do things the way it suits them; which boils down to revenue loss. We will continue to mark time, while losing valuables. And the process must be back up by the law.

 
SIM Card Registration and Skeptic Public

I will not out-rightly blame whoever is skeptic about his or her data being captured, particularly in the absence of framework or infrastructure in place, like the records and information policy we are harping on. Presently, we do not have laws to address personal information protection act or law in Nigeria. In fact, it is very wrong for government to start asking for (personal) information from the masses without putting the necessary infrastructure in place, because a house that is not built on a solid ground will collapse.   

 
Unfair Treatment of Professionals

I will share the blame between the practitioners and the organizations. From our findings, quite a good number of Information Management Professionals (IMPs) are not doing enough to convince their management on how relevant they are to operations of their organizations. Some of them are not innovative enough to come up with projects that will add value to their organisations. Talking about the organizations, you will find out that most of them are yet to realize that information is a very important aspect of their businesses, thereby not regards it as an asset to cater for and guide jealously. These are some of the challenges that we (RIMA Foundation) believe will be overcome with time as we proceed in our resolve for a better society through information management.