FG, CAPDAN COLLABORATE ON ICT TRAINING, DEVELOPMENT

IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – Relief will soon come the way of Computer and Allied Product Dealers Association of Nigeria CAPDAN, following the decision of the Ministry of Communication to partner and collaborate with members of the association.

This good news was dropped by the Minister for Communication, Barr. Adebayo Shittu during his one day walking visit to the computer village Ikeja recently to familiarize with the quality of activities at the largest computer hub in West Africa. The minister also hinted that Federal Government was putting finishing touches towards the establishment of Information and Communication Technology ICT Development Bank in Nigeria.

The minister, who was excited and pleased with the level of ingenuities among young Nigerians who are doing wonders in the ICT sector in the village, challenged CAPDAN to sit down and articulate its views, programmes, proposal and present it to the ministry for actions.

He assured the group that the ministry and federal government is ready to collaborate and partner with the members of the computer village for development.

“Please, sit down and articulate your views and programmes and present to the ministry for possible actions. We are ready to partner and work with the CAPDAN. We are happy with the development going on the village. Bring your proposal to me in Abuja ,let us sit down work out things” he said.

He also assured the CAPDAN of the federal government readiness to collaborate with them because computer village is first contact and it is on ground to meet the people’s needs both locally and internationally. According to him, the ICT bank, when established will be fashioned in the way of bank of industry to provide cheap loans to those who wish to engage in ICT business in the country.

The bank ,he stated will be suitable for telecommunication industry and it will have one digit interest rate to encourage investors to have access to fund to do their business. He also disclosed that the bank when established will require all ICT investors in the country to make contributions to it, if they will like to do business in the Nigeria.

He said that the ICT bank was part of the federal government efforts to make Nigeria an ICT Hub in the world ,stressing that if ICT is well developed in the country it would step up the level of doing business in the country.

The minister also disclosed that with the deployment of ICT, Nigeria was able to come out of recession last year, adding that ICT remains the only way to go in the development of the country.

Lauding the skills and activities in the village, he said that computer village represents a window to Nigeria ICT and telecommunication industry and that government was proud of the activities.

Shittu further disclosed that the federal government would do every thing possible to encourage and protect the local content of the nation’s ICT and called on the members of CAPDAN to always have at the back of their minds that government is with them.

“Government is adopting policy towards complementing the ICT products in the country. Nigeria must reject being a dumping ground for all kinds of ICT products and must be seen by all as unacceptable development to continue to be a dumping ground for all kinds of ICT product” he said.

The Minister assured Nigerians that any product that is produced in Nigeria must be stopped from being imported as part of government efforts and commitment to local content protection.

According to him, for any nation to grow, ICT must be a catalyst for the growth, saying that most countries in the world without oil have outgrown Nigeria in economic development due to their ICT development.

He advised the organization to sanitize the industry by clamping down on fake and substandard ICT software and hardware, urging them to evolve a self regulatory mechanism towards achieving free sharp practices in the village.

According to him, government was building many incubations centres across the country to strengthen the development of ICT in Nigeria.

Earlier in his welcome address, the president of CAPDAN Mr. Ojukutu Ahmed appealed to the minister for his ministry to collaborate with them in the area of training and research funding.

He also asked that the federal government should stop patronizing any ICT product that is not made in Nigeria because that is the only way to move the sector forward and protect the small and medium scale business enterprises in the country.

According to him, the computer village generates over N1.5billion every day and if it collaborates with the federal government and ministry of telecommunication it will generate more.

He also requested the minister to give go ahead to the ministry to open incubation centres across the country to enable those in the business to move to the next level of doing their business, saying that the village would like to have dedicated fund from federal government to fund development of ICT production in the village.

According to him, research fund should not only be made available to universities but should be made available to institutions like the village to develop the manpower need of the nation , stating that the village has 3,500 small and medium enterprises creating employment for millions of people.

He also disclosed that ICT has the highest number of graduates contributing to the development of the economy, creating jobs for the teaming populations.

According to him, most of the big dealers in ICT in Nigeria started in Computer Village and the village has several partnership and collaboration with some of the agencies in the federal ministry of telecommunication.