Nigeria software industry innovative, virile but lacks govts’ support— Olajide
More Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Nigeria have continued to raise issues bordering on government’s lack of commitments to the development of software sub sector of the industry.
Latest concern was put on the public burner by the executive director, Finance and Administration at Sidmach Technologies Nigeria Limited and the executive chairman, WaveTek Nigeria Limited, Mr. Mike Olajide.
Giving an insight on the challenges of developers, Olajide averred that Nigeria has failed as a nation to do what we need to do to develop the software industry.
According to him, “It was a deliberate policy of the Indian government and people to develop the software industry for both local and international consumption. We have not developed and implement such a policy even now. What you are seeing today in the software industry is a product of private initiatives. Young people decided to move the industry on their own. Even the local content policy is not enforced for the MDAs not to talk of Private Enterprises. Government only reacts to what people are doing in the industry”.
Continuing, he revealed that the Nigerian Software industry is innovative, virile and versatile but the management and support from the government is still very low.
Olajide noted further that “Indians have grown their homemade software and are exporting them to the world while Nigeria still depends on imported. We pride ourselves in imported products than homegrown products. The time has come to have a change of attitude”.
“Software development costs time and money. No developer can survive without requisite expertise, experience, financial clout/support and patronage. For more than two decades now, Sidmach have been engaged in software development, which are deployed to our clients’ sites and they have performed optimally without fail. We pride ourselves in software development and we have engaged many young people through this”.
Key factor he identified as being the major bottleneck in the growth of software industry is lack of patronage of local software companies in Nigeria/
“A situation that is not applicable in India. Due to non-patronage or low-patronage of local software in Nigeria, the country loses much in foreign exchange. The payment made in dollars and euros for subscriptions and annual software maintenance fee could be reduced and retained in the country through the purchase of local software”.
“For example, let us imagine what we would have gained if, at least, just one Nigerian bank decides to use an indigenous software rather than the prevailing situation where they all use foreign software or if the software used by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) or the one installed at the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation [OAGF], Federal Inland Revenue Service [FIRS], NIBSS and the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] are powered by indigenous software companies. This is possible today but it is requires government policy. WAEC, JAMB and NYSC are not using foreign software and they have continued to do very well in carrying out their functions”.
Other industry experts have also expressed deep concerns on the poor attention accorded to software sub-sector noting that majority of governments’ attention in the development of the sector have been cosmetic and never tailored to grow the sector.
This according to them, this has been the reason why majority of financial institutions and manufacturing companies have been trooping to India, US, Israel and parts of Russia and Europe to buy software.
