Leading pioneer technology pundit, former President of Institute of Software Providers of Nigeria (ISPON) and Director-General, Delta State Innovation Hub, Mr Chris Uwaje, has raised an issue of urgent national importance, saying time has come for Nigeria to customise its social media and cyberspace evolution.
Speaking on the sidelines of a recent gathering of ICT experts in Lagos, he argued that “Creating Nigeria’s own social media platforms like China did; which is resonating in the Nigerian ICT sector, will raise citizens’ and public awareness on any form of national threat.
According to him, “Social media has become a phenomenal revolution and is now rewriting the socio-continuum and existence of humanity. Today, the social media narrative has become the existential currency for millions of people and has already impacted the fabric of social frameworks and to a large extent, that of governance.
“Social Media has indeed become the mainstream platform to beat. It is people-based, self regulated to some extent, and able to give people medium to voice their opinion and transform society.
“Therefore, it should be people-led. Intellectuals, youths and concerned citizens should be at the forefront of the movement. Not only that, business owners also have a lot to gain by promoting and supporting the establishment of social media platform because it delivers equitable playing field for their businesses as much as it helps to build and reshape brands.
“Above all, it is a strategic development vehicle for national and global accountability. The new media presents a win-win situation, because it cannot be controlled and exclusively manipulated without short-term detection.
He noted that “The power of social media has now become absolute to the extent that any business, politician or government that neglects it is bound to perish, and averred that “It is not only important but strategic for Nigeria and indeed, Africa to establish and own its social media platforms”.
While submitting that “The ultimate goal of social media is reshaping and transferring the real power to the people, as a refined layer of democratic living process,” Uwaje turned the heat to the government, saying “Government should begin to gradually build robust ICT infrastructure to accommodate broadband, Internet of Things and 5G Technologies’ development. These are critical and inevitable for attaining the Sustainable Development Goals.
Continuing, former ISPON boss added that “There should also be concerted efforts at building massive ICT capacity and skilled capabilities of Nigerians to engage digital knowledge. When all these and more are done, we would have leveraged on ICT to redefine knowledge and apply a merit-first models of existence by building a digital trustworthy society”.
“We don’t even need to ask whether there would be results because the Mexican population was able to build support and arrange protests, to change the balance of power and set the record straight, using social media,” Uwaje noted.
