FG Seeks Stronger Collaboration with ISPON on Local Software Devt

The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), has called for a closer collaboration between the board and the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), in order to drive local software development that will address both local and international needs. Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Mr. Ernest Nwapa, who made the call in Lagos recently, during the ISPON President’s Dinner 2015, said: “We need to collaborate with software practitioners in the country, just as we are currently doing with the oil and gas sector of the Nigerian economy, in order to achieve the same level of success recorded in the oil and gas sector through the Nigerian Local Content Policy.” According to Nwapa, change, even though it is inevitable, is always difficult to begin, but the end result is always fruitful.

Giving instances with the local content policy and its implementation process, Nwapa said foreign investors that have been doing various businesses in Nigeria decades, were reluctant to play along with the implementation policy at the initial stage, but explained that the board stood by the policy implementation and that today it is all success story on the oil and gas industry. He said, foreign companies in the oil and gas are now building their own factories and turbines in Nigeria and are embarking on full scale manufacturing in Nigeria, using local content.

The resultant effect, according to him, is the huge volume of jobs it has created in Nigeria, and the increased contributions to the country’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP).

According

to

Nwapa, Nigeria recorded below $1billion yearly from foreign investments in the last 40 years, but today the country is generating over $5 billion investments yearly from foreign investments and it is likely to rise to $10 billion in subsequent years.

He said the board is planning to build oil and gas parks in nine communities that are close to the operations of oil and gas industry, in order to prepare safe investment ground for foreign investors that are willing to operate in Nigeria. “The board has already written letters to states for land where we can develop the parks, and Cross Rivers State has responded to that effect,” Nwapa said.

He said what is going on in the oil and gas sector, could be replicated in the software industry, if there is a strong collaboration between the board and ISPON.

“To promote software, we must agree that certain percentage of software used in Nigeria by foreign firms, must be developed in Nigeria, and once we stand by it like we did with the oil and gas sector, the investors will have no choice but to key into our plans,” Nwapa said, adding that for Nigeria to achieve full local content development in any sector, there must be local manufacturing in Nigeria.

Speaking on the value of locally developed software from Nigeria, Governor Liyel Imoke, of Cross River State, said: “I have seen some young Nigerians that have developed excellent local software and I have also seen some local software used by various agencies and departments. I have seen local software in Cross River State that was developed by Nigerians and used by hoteliers for booking of accommodation and other hotel services. I have also seen local software used by government especially in the state ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). The potential of software industry in Nigeria, is therefore great, but it is something I think we have to develop beyond what it is today.”

We need to strengthen certain aspect of the software to make it more marketable even beyond Nigeria. We need to understand the regulatory environment and the copyright issues. We need to groom our local software developers to develop software within a framework that is clearly defined, he added.

President of ISPON, Mr. Pius Okigbo Jr., said the Nigerian Local Content Policy has been successful in the oil and gas sector, but that a myriad of opportunities also exist in software and related software services, the scope of which lies in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if properly harnessed.

“No doubt, the journey to harness these opportunities