NITDA (the National Information Technology Development Agency) was born at both a critical and very opportune time in the life of the nation; a time when the country was, and still is, in dire need of a diversified revenue base; a time when the country needed, and still needs, to join other knowledge-driven economies. NITDA was born at a time when it could, and still can, become a great institution, comparable to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in terms of its relevance, influence and contributions to the economy.Indeed, NITDA is to technology and knowledge what the CBN is to finance and banking. However, because technology is a cross-cutting enabler, NITDAs strategic role places her in a much more potentially powerful position than any other government Agency! This is not idle talk at all. There are regulatory documents which confer enormous powers on NITDA. These powers, which remain to be fully exercised, are still potent, even if latent. The window of opportunity to make Nigeria great still exists, especially under the leadership of its visionary Governing Board and Chief Executive, Peter Jack.The aim of this article is to show how that potential can still be achieved for the good of the ICT industry and the whole country.On April 16, 2006, NITDA was officially designated the Clearing House for Information Technology (IT) in Nigeria by the Federal Government through an SGF circular with ref number SGF.6/s.19/T/65. That declaration was largely due to the then Enterprise and Strategic Partnership Agreement between the Federal Government and Microsoft Corporation, with NITDA as administrator.The most important part of that circular was the directive that all MDAs should consult NITDA before embarking on any IT project. Before then, and even up to the present moment, MDAs paid scant attention to the existence of an IT regulatory Agency. Government Agencies could procure whatever kind of IT services or infrastructure they wanted or thought they needed with recourse to the technical advice of NITDA, and without any thoughts as to whether the overall procurement was in furtherance of national IT strategy. Billions of naira were expended without real value accruing to the economy. But NITDA was hamstrung by the fact that it had no regulatory teeth. Now it does. Its enabling law was enacted in April 2007. How it enforces that legislation will determine whether the nation will be great in the near future or still remain a developing economy.If we imagine the role of CBN as the clearing house for banking and financial transactions, or the role of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) as the clearing house for public procurement, then we can begin to see the strategic importance of NITDA in the IT industry and the economy at large. It is indeed an extremely strategic and powerful role for any Agency to whom every MDA must come for clearance. The strategic position of NITDA, apart from being subsequently codified in the NITDA Act of 2007, was echoed and further expounded in another and more recent landmark circular from the office of the SGF, circular number SGF .6/S. 12/C .2/II/788 of July 17, 2012. Although this circular is devoted to the issue of local content in Information Technology, it again gives primacy to NITDA, especially where it states that procuring entities shall:(I) Prior to tender, obtain the technical advice of NITDA ( to be given not later than 15days from date of the request) on the configuration of the information systems suitable for the purpose intended;(II) Incorporate the specifications and configuration advised by NITDA in their bid and tender documents;(III) Without naming the brands of the products include in the invitation to tender, such statements which indicate that the items for bidding shall be locally manufactured or assembled brandsThe circular also mentions that such products must be those certified by NITDA. The import of these circulars are two-fold: first, it means that no MDA can procure IT equipment and products (hardware or software), or embark on any kind of IT project without first checking with NITDA to obtain a no objection certificate. Second, it means that the IT products to be procured must be those certified by NITDA as having met required standards and being suitable for Nigeria. The fact that IT products and services are used for e-government, security, e-learning, e-commerce, e-payment, capacity building, communication, word processing, etc. means that there is almost no MDA that would not need the technical advice of NITDA.It is quite easy to see the real intention for the creation of NITDA. Every sector of the economy has a regulator. Therefore, NITDA is to Information Technology what BPP is to public procurement, what CBN is to banking and finance and what the Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) is to national standards. The real power and relevance of NITDA is not that it is the center of attention for the implementation of a clearing house policy for technology. Rather its power is in its potential and opportunity to create millions of jobs and build great local companies by implementing the contents of the various circulars.NITDA also, by the adoption and launch of COBIT 5 Framework on December 4 2013, prepared the ground for business process improvements, IT Enterprise governance and commensurate return on IT investments among MDAs and indeed the private sector. COBIT 5 is the acronym for Control Objectives for IT (and Related) Technologies version 5.0, an international framework for the management and governance of enterprise IT. The framework which is in its 5th version has assisted very many developed economies become extremely competitive and successful in their business processes. COBIT is the single, most important framework for IT governance in the world today. It is capable of helping the country to leap-frog to a developed economy in a few short years!So what must NITDA do against the foregoing backdrop of potentials and promise' Having launched COBIT5, NITDA must take urgent steps to put a regulation around it, develop a compliance framework for it, popularize it among public and private institutions and assist the institutions to build capacity for its implementation without further delay.NITDA will need to develop, communicate and review a national IT strategy to guide public and private investments in IT infrastructure and services. An enforcement and compliance mechanism will then kick in to give effect to both circulars of government. A rigorous IT products certification program is a necessity. It will save Nigeria from being a perennial dumping ground for substandard and pirated products. It will also imbue confidence into the IT sector and allow for the emergence of a truly regulated sector. To achieve that, NITDA needs to collaborate with and strengthen trade associations in the industry. Most of their members would feature as assessors in NITDAs implementation of its clearing house role on IT projects in MDAs. The impact this would have is the emergence of a strong, cohesive, dominant and indigenous IT industry.
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