?Mr. Okey Ikpe, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Office Machines Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of Office Machines Network LLC, USA, is one of Nigeria’s most experienced Information and Communication Technology experts, who has managed big projects in and outside the country for multinational ICT companies in the world, including Microsoft, IBM and Compaq. In this interview with SONI DANIEL, he examines the ICT industry in Nigeria and gives reasons why the country must adopt a robust ICT policy and system in order to fast-track its socio-economic development.
What is OMNL doing in Nigeria?
OfficeMachines Nigeria Limited is doing a lot in Nigeria and other countries in West Africa. We operate in two continents- Africa and the USA- with operations in about 45 countries. In Nigeria, we have our regional office in Abuja, which oversees West Africa.
My responsibility is to set the strategic business objectives, plans and policies as well as work with my line managers to orchestrate those policies. We are an IT company that is focused on consulting, audits, system integration, training, software development, support and services. We have been very successful in these areas and can best be described as one of the fastest growing information technology companies in Nigeria.? We say this not necessarily because of revenue or market size but the positive impact some of our deployments and solutions have generated in organizations.
It may interest you to know that we designed the IT policy for the Ministry of Niger Delta, which covers security, standards, process, systems and enterprise architecture. We rolled out a portal solution and were part of the team that set up their data centre. Those are the physical things that one can feel and touch that we have achieved to help fulfill the mandate of that particular ministry. So, we are a company that is for the long term, designed to excite the customer while enabling communities and citizens unlock their potentials.
How would you describe the ICT market in Nigeria?
The Nigerian market is a reflection of other sectors of the economy:? what I mean by this is that IT market is not isolated from the turbulence that is prevalent in the economy and polity. However if you ask me my opinion in terms of the potentials in the Nigerian market as it concerns ICT, I would say, there are enormous potentials because at the moment, Nigeria is at the rudimentary stage when it comes to the utilization of ICT infrastructure, solutions and resources.
Similarly, based on my understanding of the market and my interaction with customers in terms of what is implemented currently in government and the private sector my modest assessment is that Nigeria is still at infancy stage. However, the financial services sector in Nigeria has made significant progress in deployment of IT infrastructure and services. In other words, the banking sector is ahead of others in ICT application.
What do you think Nigeria should do in order to get at par with other countries that have made progress in the ICT industry?
Well, I think Nigeria has to take several innovative and novel steps to leapfrog to a digital society. The first thing is to elevate ICT as one of the functional departments in government, the school curriculum from primary school right through to tertiary institutions should be reviewed, civil service processes should be automated and government service delivery to citizens should be largely electronic . The recent creation of the Ministry of ICT is a step in the right direction. It is a bold and positive step. Regrettably, It is stupendous to know that the Nigerian IT policy was written over seven years ago, the modified version or updated version did not go through professional peer and expert review so I would not classify that as a comprehensive and robust IT policy.
A lot needs to be done to produce a national policy that can stand the test of global best practices. The policy should align with national priority and policy objectives of government such as poverty reduction, improved security, quality and functional education, better healthcare and innovation for economic growth through citizens’ empowerment. Just to give you a pedantic view the plan, architecture, activities could focus on renewable energy or development of local software economy. What this means is that the curriculum in schools should elicit excitement in pupils in writing codes, software and applications. By 2015 Nigeria would be well positioned to tap into the 300 billion dollars annual global software industry.
The elements of the IT policy should define the national inter-operability and connected government framework. It should detail the e-government services, governance framework and standards. It should detail cyber and information security framework and policy. These should of course be backed up by legislation. We should deal with human inertia of adopting IT processes in its operation. If this is done government will foster a system that promotes efficiency, accountability, transparency and productivity.
These are words that are abhorrent with civil service and public servants dictum.
Now those are fundamental things that have to be in place. Adopting ICT in offices is one thing but allowing the citizens to have access to government services through the internet with minimal physically interaction is another. That is the next phase we have to look at because if that is not prevalent, then it means that we have not started. Take for example if I want to apply or update my driver’s license why I need to visit the VIO office before that is done?? If I want to pay for electricity bill why do I have to go to NEPA office? If I want to get my JAMB result why do I need to buy a scratch card to access what should be free to applicants. This is not a normal situation and our current leaders, policy and law maker are disrespectful and wicked to the youths, the young and innocent children of this country.? I want to fill the forms and submit and go to bed knowing fully well that in the next day or week I would have my driver’s license etc.
These are services a functional ICT system can deliver for a country. It is a no brainer though common sense is not common.
Would it have eliminated corruption in the country?
ICT helps a great deal to mitigate, checkmate and potentially eliminate corruption.? The audit trail functionality which provides information on who did what, when and where, helps to track users of IT services. So, if you have a system that captures information about how many barrels of refined products, delivery routing and tracking device of where fuel, for instance, was delivered, by whom and where, it would definitely help to improve accountability. Thus in between the process, the person who managed the process; the person who discharged; the person who filled the forms and so on and so forth in the transaction will be clearly recorded and that will also bring about transparency in the system. But because it is completely a manual process at any point the information can be mutilated, forged or manipulated thereby increasing incidents of corruption and fostering corrupt behaviours.
What would you recommend if you were to formulate an ICT policy for Nigeria?
I had the opportunity to look at best practices of what other countries have done and how they did it and as a matter of fact, I participated in Ghana connected Government Framework, and I witnessed a simple, sincere country that was ready to move ahead using ICT infrastructure and ICT services in government. If? I were asked to recreate the national policy, what I would do is articulate and align the policy to SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) objectives of government. I will design specific industry policies, strategies to realise the objectives, develop governance / standards that drive strategic and operational / tactical engagements be it in Education, Healthcare, Agriculture and Oil Sector etc.
The policy would look into the future in identifying what the global needs, trends and projection of economic growth and interdependencies are. It would seek to promote talents and address issues of Internet, Cyber space, cyber and information security. It would focus on identifying and supporting the introduction of Information Technology as a major revenue-earner better than the India, Israel and Ireland model.
It would also focus on harnessing the silo of data into an aggregate of a rich and robust database. Whether you call it removal of subsidy or rigging the election, whether it is well managed or not, all these issues revolve around the fact that we do not have a true robust data base of people who are Nigerian citizens. We are not even able to know what government revenue and expenditure are, of people who should be pay taxes, of how many cars etc that are imported into on country, of how many cars ply on Nigeria roads every day, what do we consume and so on. These are the finite information that ICT can provide.
The president can then have on dash board real time information on the status and state of affairs of the economy etc. So no kitchen cabinet member or otherwise can deceive him about what is going on in any sector of the economy. All these are fundamental processes that won’t just happen until ICT is properly deployed in the system.? And people always assume that if you deploy ICT, it means you are going to relieve people of their jobs. It is not so.
ICT rather creates jobs and that is what America is doing.? America is investing hugely on research in green technologies, leading on innovations which help the country? to stay ahead. If you look at the advancement in technology and ICT you would notice that American is the pace setter. And of course the biggest ICT companies are actually American companies. And if you look at it from the size of the market point of view, global software industry annual revenue according to independent consulting survey is about $426 billion, global chip set annual revenue is about $306 billion. How much of this revenue is earned by Nigeria? Approximately less than 1%. The problem is that we do not have any of such industry in Nigeria. That is why we must begin to de-emphasise on revenue from oil and pay serious attention to other sectors that can take Nigeria to a greater height and make it a stronger nation.
Knowing the state of our ICT , do you think that it can support the cashless economy as stipulated by the CBN?
No the Central Bank of Nigeria has just promulgated a policy that would foster cashless economy. The onus is on private companies and institutions such as commercial banks, bureau de change and other government institutions such as the Nigerian Postal services to provide services that can support the orchestration of this policy. Typical of Nigeria, the central bank wants to eliminate volume of cash transactions while promoting cashless economy in isolation of the private enterprises and institutions that could make it possible.
How will that work. I will not be surprised to see the Central Bank set up loan scheme for SME’s that would promote cashless economy just like they did for agriculture.? The country is not ready for it, we have 774 local governments and I can guarantee you that more than 60% of these local government areas do not have electricity; neither do they have banks, payment systems or internet kiosks. The citizens too do not have access to credit cards and there are no merchants to process the electronic transactions. So what that does reflect is that we have an apex bank that is not in touch with prevalent circumstances in Nigeria. It will not work period. From the standpoint of corruption the policy makers will kill it knowing fully well that elections in Nigeria are cash based.
However it is a way to mitigate cash transactions and encourage electronic payment, which is a very good thing because of the security implication as well as its impact in elimination of corruption. Now whether we are prepared as a country to implement this and to have this policy introduced, observed and practiced by everyone, I think Nigeria is ripe and overdue for that. It is not new because even smaller African countries are already doing it and it is working for them. South Africa is a good example.
It is a very good policy that all Nigerians should support and work for its success. However, my fear is that in a typical Nigerian way, some people would want to circumvent it. The Central Bank policy process is not systematic and embracive hence the policy will fail.
I often hear complaints that Nigeria does not have a strong internet backbone, have you ever thought about that, now that we are going cashless and then more and more people are deploying the internet for their services, what would happen with the weak internet backbone in the country?
The Internet gateway has been liberalised so you have fibre optic cable provided by companies such as Mainone and Glo.
There was monopoly when NITEL was the sole provider of the internet gateway, all that has now changed and I believe that we will have less of slow connection, slow speed and expensive access cost. The reason why some networks are slow can largely be attributed to bandwidth overload and congestion.
Could this explain why if you are in the US and you click on the internet it is so fast, but if you click on the internet here in Nigeria it is so slow
No, that is not the reason. The reason why you have the slow link is because most of the independent service providers are mischievous. This is because they overload their bandwidth in their quest to make huge profit thereby sacrificing quality in speed and reliability. They most often commit to a bandwidth but provide less.?
I know the federal government and workers are not getting the best from what they commit themselves to at the moment. They are not excited and happy about its internet service being provided by a monopoly but it is one of those fuzzy government issues in recent times. The truth is that in so far as there is insincerity and lack of transparency in government by government the economy and people of Nigeria will not have a positive vibe and experience on how informational technology and its cool tools can help create excitement and positive socio economic romance and experience on the people.