Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has made a strong case for the country to shift attention from the ‘monolithic’ concentration on crude oil as the country’s mainstay for the economy to Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
Speaking when he declared the 2016 e-Nigeria Conference open in Abuja, Prof. Osinbajo stated that in no distance future the country reliance on petroleum would whittle down due to the recent innovations in the ICT sectors pointing that many countries such as China and Japan have begun the use of electric and driverless cars.
“The innovation in ICT has compelled us to diversify and create new opportunities practically in every aspect of our human life because oil being less and less important,” Prof. Osinbajo stated, and added:
“The technological advancement we are witnessing today has shown us that we may not be depending on oil much longer because cars are the largest users of petroleum but technology is changing all of that.”
To meet up with the recent challenges posed by ICT innovations, Prof Osinbajo disclosed that the “federal government is investing very aggressively in technology. We have budgeted for training of 65.000 Nigerians in the area of Software and hardware in our social investment programme.
“This will mean that we will be building more local capacity to build, assemble hardware, and to write innovative programmes. We also will be focusing on technology for media and entertainment. We intend to create a reservoir of human capacity in technology that can be exported internationally. Nigeria can lead India as a market for technology and innovation talent.”
The Vice President said with sheer determination and enabling environment “our young entrepreneurs are set for world-class achievement” because of the recent innovations they have come up with.
Prof Osinbajo explained that government would be formulating policies and giving incentives that would ensure the local capacity building in the industry. He added “There are all manners of policies that we are doing and we need to be able to identify these policies that will make a big difference and that way we need to develop the collaboration between the private and public sector to define thoroughly”
He assured that the Ease of Doing Business Conical recently constituted by the government and creative people both in private and public sectors would be a source of motivation to drive the policies and incentives plans of the government.
While seeking for collaboration between the public and private sectors, the Vice President said such collaboration is highly needed because “there is nowhere in the world where technology is developing without collaboration.”
“Development in technology today means that several people from across the world are working together online to ensure that they share awareness and innovations in the field. There is another kind of collaboration also between the private and the public sector. The public sector today is willing to collaborate with the private sector, that willingness is evidenced in practically everything and the investments that we are making in technology,” he added.
e-Nigeria is the annual conference and exhibition organised by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigeria’s IT Regulatory agency.