In the opinion page of The Guardian on Sunday of August 26, 2012, Reuben Abati wrote among others and I quote: "They in this piece refers to all the cynics, the pestle-wielding critics, the unrelenting self-appointed activities', the idle and idling, twittering, collective children of anger, the distracted crowd of Facebook addicts, the BBM-pinging soap opera gossips of Nigeria who seem to be in competition to pull down President Goodluck Jonathan".Before I launch this piece, let it be emphasized that Dr. Reuben Abati is himself a digital/technology knowledge addict and enthusiast. The piece is a contributory response to Abati's excellent attempt on re-awakening, re-constructing and re-positioning the need for Naija digital revolution and averting disaster – viewed from a centrifugal force mirror of the Nigeria we don't know but fear. Our technophobia and subverted innovation ecosystem? Is that the synopsis of our suppressed development?
The fear of that creature painted and recognized in our mind image but remains impalpable; these digital addicts gradually emerging into an e-monster? But, who is to blame? "They; Them; or collective Us"?How did we get to this point of being entwined as an e-helpless nation by this centrifugal flip-flop storm of information bits and bytes that is gradually clustering and seizing us with octopus spider-web claws of the digital age?
Reuben Abati – a fine gentleman deserves our pity – as he becomes the barometer with which we can measure the gravity of our national digital contradiction. Thank you for prompting us on the shape of things to come! Before we are consumed by this ferocious e-storm, now is time to call for action.
As an active player in the Nigeria IT space and the President of the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) I had earlier questioned the residence of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan on Facebook – not as an individual, but as President of Nigeria. It was a fatal trap in the ocean of digital connectivity and e-cacophony — learning to e-swim in that space without a prepared army of software code warriors, Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) and above all, e-disaster recovery roadmap!
The nation owes Reuben Abati a profound gratitude and deep appreciation for unveiling the critical state of the nation's ICT. It is a wake-up call, with respect to how to consciously map our national challenges in the information society, and indeed, how to engage global competitiveness in this ferociously emerging global knowledge Olympiad.
It goes a long way to show and translates to the fact that, the traditional model of government, education, finance and environmental engineering have become obsolete and require a national emergency transformation strategy.
For the past 12 years, IT Professionals have advocated the establishment of the office of the IT Officer of the Federation, a Professional National IT Adviser to the President, establishing and moving IT Ministry to the Presidency, building a National ICT Gateway, establishing PKI, CERT, knowledge clusters and IT Parks all over the country and engaging the more than 60% of the Nigeria population (youth) code warrior with assignments, creating incentives, rewarding and mentoring knowledge rather than breeding and creating BBM and DST….. bandwidth consumer battalions, both real and imaginary.
My friend Reuben knows, and is history conscious of the fact that a nation's character and global image perception (brand) is dictated by the innovative design, structure, organization, secured access and sustainability of its information and data management systems.
Nature teaches us that even the chicken in the village is conscious of the might-in-flight and danger of the vulture and therefore protects her chicks from falling prey of the danger. The don't care attitude of flooding the national spectrum and bandwidth with all-comers information, data and content engagement is equal to a cancer that is eating deeper and deeper into the development and growth of the fabrics of our national knowledge chamber.
And again to Reuben our friend, we say thank you for identifying the digital space as the albatross of the Nigeria leadership and indeed of the survivability of the Nigerian nation? Thank you indeed for availing us with the precious information that the situation is very alarming — and raging at the Presidency like a bushfire in the harmattan.
"But sir, that is why he's doing this and doing that in the name of transformation agenda. And that is why he is doing XYZ and that is why the Presidency and inner-circle are the true representative of the national aspiration etc." Agree, but having identified the core strength of the emerging e-monster as the digital minds and presence in the cyber space and their hidden audacity to distribute terabytes of digitized half-truths and lies – what are the next steps?
Knowing that these under-construction national e-consumer moulds of digital gluttons and deep-throats are capable of brinkmanship on the tallest skyscraper, does our current national e-readiness inaction not translate to that of presenting a loaded gun as a present to a 10-year old at Christmas and letting him/her loose — with access into a warehouse loaded with gun-powder and explosives!
In other words unless we redesign, restructure and reconstruct the nation's ICT landscape and digital information gateway, access, security and activity domain, we may regret the nightmare that will befall the nation in the unregulated digital odyssey swamped by digital half-truths, lies ,lies lies……
Yes, I agree, President Goodluck Jonathan is to a large extent misunderstood by many including youths, and intelligentsia. But are we surprised, having left all our e-flanks open? How do we fortify our national e-Gateway, Networks, trenches, and cyberspace, knowing that these phenomena will not abate but rather increase momentum and eat deeper into the fabrics of our existence and national sustainability? If left unstructured, professionally organised and managed, I predict that it is capable of abruptly sweeping a President out of office and bringing a surprised institutional stampede to find a hero and change the direction of nation building.
All said, one significant lesson we must learn from the digital addiction of Naija youths and people online is the recognition of the availability of quantum resources of e-Knowledge potentials in our youths who make up more than 60% of the population. The nation stands at a great advantage if the required enabling environment is urgently created to harness those potential resources to drive national transformation and eluding change management.
Fix Power as signs are beginning to show, Automate all government processes, establish a reliable national database system and security; make education mandatory, establish science, innovation, knowledge and IT and BPO Parks – create incentives for investors in those domains — sit back and watch the e-spin. God bless Nigeria. Thank you Dr. Reuben Abati.
Source: Vanguard
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