Calls for Nigerian software focus

COMPUTING

Nigerian authorities have called for greater focus on the country’s software development sector.

While the telecoms sector is seeing rapid growth, software development is lagging, they say.

The Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) has urged the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to do more to champion strategic policy for software development in Nigeria.

The President of ISPON, Chris Uwaje, said Nigeria urgently needed to establish an effective mechanism for developing a National Software Strategy to develop indigenous applications and the local skills base.

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr. Eugene Juwah, echoed these sentiments this week, when he lamented the lack of software encoders in Nigeria. He was speaking during a courtesy call on the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion, NOTAP, Director General of NOTAP, Dr. Umar B. Bindir.

Recently, Communications Minister Omobola Johnson also noted that Nigeria’s ICT sector needed growth and support in all areas, not just the telecoms sector. She said the country had to replicate the success of its telecoms sector in all areas of ICT and to deliver programmes, policies and plans to allow Nigeria to leap-frog from a resource-dependent to a knowledge-based economy.