ASSOCIATION of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) on Wednesday expressed the hope that President Muhammadu Buhari’s signing of Executive Order 5 would boost adoption and patronage of locally-generated software.

“This will encourage cottage industry to be developed, in conjunction with our local front partners,” ATCON President, Mr Olusola Teniola, said in Lagos.

Teniola spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). NAN reports that Buhari signed the order on Monday to improve local content in public procurement with science, engineering and technology components.

The executive order is expected to promote application of science, technology and innovation toward achieving the nation’s development goals across all sectors of the economy.

Teniola said that the government action would give Nigerian companies an opportunity to survive.

He told NAN that advancement in science, technology and engineering should be the priority of any administration.

He said that Nigeria recently recorded low performance on the global Information and Communication Technology (ICT) league table.

“We have this strong dependence on carrying files and writing things on paper where we should be using automation and run more on digital technology to make things efficient.

“The usage of information technology will create an efficient and productive economy that will increase the country’s gross domestic product.

“With a good productive broadband, the country can allow our productivity to increase by 1.38% as defined by the World Bank.

“To achieve this, there is need to ensure that we have an enforcement and monitoring scheme to ensure that indigenous  companies are able to survive and contribute to the development of the ICT industry, in conjunction with our front partners.

“Then we need to have what President Buhari has done, an executive order to ensure that, at least, ministries, departments and agencies start to adopt, employ and patronise locally-generated software.”

According to the ATCON president, the current structure of Nigeria’s ICT industry shows that a number of indigenous ICT companies are working with foriegn partners.

He said that such partnership had given the local companies the opportunity to acquire skills that had been adapted to Nigeria’s environment.

“We need the knowledge brought by these technical partners to be transferred to local content because most of our youths have gone to the university, have studied but are unemployed.

“Nigerian companies are not able to maximise the input in the value chain.

”When government is procuring technology, we need to see a larger part of that procurement going to Nigerian companies.

“This will enable them to employ these graduates, and give opportunities to those that are ready in the ICT sector to contribute their quotas,” he said.

According to Teniola, Nigeria does not need to rely on foreigners for skills proven to have been acquired by Nigerians. (NAN)

– Feb. 7, 2018 @ 18:49 GMT |