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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
Last month, the director-general of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, said plans were in top gear for Nigeria to achieve 95 per cent digital literacy by 2030.
Inuwa said a cocktail of initiatives, including the establishment of tech incubation centres, was in the works to ensure that the target was met. However, given the plethora of challenges plaguing the nation’s economy and the ICT industry in particular, commentators insist the comments of the NITDA DG remain impotent political statement meant to titillate gullible citizens.
To realise the mission, industry watchers want government to first sort out problems around insufficient funding, poor infrastructure, poverty, capacity issues and insecurity, among others.
Many are of the opinion that a nation with high illiteracy level, battling protracted insurgency could not be promising 95 per cent digital literacy in less than seven years from now, if the aforementioned headwinds were not addressed.
According to Rogba Adeoye, executive secretary, Information Technology Systems and Security Professionals (ITSSP) and past chairman of Nigeria Computer Society, Lagos chapter, the road to achieving 95 per cent digital literacy by 2030 is rough and needs to be paved for the programme to drive smoothly.
He also noted that certain foundational issues need to the addressed.
“We have to look at the programme itself. Who are the trainers? And when exactly are we to assemble the agencies that will be involved because it will require an inter-agency effort to achieve that.
“Having said that, you must look at structures for those targets. In IT, everything is achievable, provided you have your programme well laid out, monitored and followed through. If this is done, we can achieve it, but we must realise that 95 per cent are we talking about in Nigeria? Is it total population or is it the active population? Because we have the infants and we have the aged. And the active population is between 50 years old and 60 years old. Some segment of this population are already digitally literate. Of recent, every student in Nigeria in higher institution pass through JAMB CBT, that means they acquire digital literacy before they can do that. If we are targeting the rest how can we a chieve that? Infact, it can only be driven by effort and pronounced by government”, he told Daily Sun.
In his submission, the president, Nigeria Computer Society, Prof. Adesina Simon Sodiya, said the target was achievable, if there is sincerity of purpose and hard work.
“We have to have to develop a working strategy for us to realise it. You know the level of digital literacy in Nigeria has continued to improve over the years. More and more individuals, more and more organisations are showing interest in developing themselves in the digital ecosystem. The answer to whether achieving a 95 per cent digital literacy by 2030 is not yes or no but I am very sure that it is possible and of course, we have also seen some government agencies that are also coming up with programmes that will also help us to leapfrog our development in the area of digital literacy in Nigeria.
“At the level of the Nigerian Computer Society, we are also coming up with a number of programmes. We are also coming up with a number of programmes to deepen digital penetration at primary and secondary school level. In the digital ecosystem, we have those we call the digital migrants and the digital natives. Those that were born probably in the last 10 years, as they are growing now, their level of digital literacy is higher than those of us that were born long time ago.
“So, what we are saying is that we are not going to have much problem with the people that were born in the last 10 years. We should rather concentrate more on the older people because it is so difficult for some of them to even adapt or get used to the digital technologies we are talking about.
“Many of them, what they have been doing in the past years, they want to continue with it. Our marketwomen, how do you convince them to start advertising their businesses online, to start using digital technologies to manage their products? Some of them up till now when you want to pay them electronically for their products, they decline. They will say they want cash. We still have a lot of work to do and of course, it is something that the local government, the state government, corporate organisations, stakeholders and corporate professional bodies like us need to push.”
