Minister laments drift to cities

From Walter Ukaegbu, Abuja

Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, has lamented that 54 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban cities, thereby adding numerous challenges to government in making cities efficient, safer and conducive.
He made the remark in Abuja during the press briefing to herald the proposed Smart Cities Nigeria Summit.
“We are wrestling with both an infrastructures gap after years of underinvestment and innovation gap from poor innovation performance in the business sector over the years,” he said.
Shittu explained that the Nigerian Smart Cities initiative was not a silver bullet or magic wand from government to make all cities and government operations smart with one shot, but it was a conscious effort by government, the private sector and other stakeholders to forge a public-private partnership to develop scalable, replicable, interoperable and measureable solutions that would make the cities and citizens smarter.
“It starts by doing simple things the smart way, one step at a time. That is why we are willing to work and partner with everybody in the IT space towards this unique and sustainable project,” he said.
The event would take a critical look at the level of preparedness, unique challenges and emerging solutions necessary for a sustainable smart cities initiative for the country.
Shittu stated that the ministry would work with partners to design and proffer practical steps and solutions that would assist government in formulating a unified and robust national policy that would have a corresponding implementable frame work towards the Smart Cities Nigeria initiative.