There are indications that the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) may soon implement the new National Software Policy of the country, following the receipt of a draft software policy by NITDA.

The National Software Policy Committee, which submitted the draft policy report on June 14, 2012 was inaugurated on December 10, 2010 by NITDA.

The committee is made up of Nigerians representing various stakeholder organisations from both public and private sectors and the Civil Society Group who worked hard to produce the final copy.

Speaking at the presentation, Director-General of NITDA, Professor, Cleopas Angaye, said the inauguration of the committee was based on the recognition of the fact that information and communications technology (ICT) had been globally accepted as the major tool for sustainable socio economic development in the current global economy and software development is the engine of the powerful tool.

According to him, it became apparent that the software industry no doubt was of utmost importance to future competitiveness for economies across the globe.

He said Nigeria witnessed tremendous growth in the ICT sector in the last one decade as internet penetration had increased at an unprecedented rate of less than 200,000 regular users around 1999 to the current rate of over forty million users.

This, he said, positioned Nigeria as the leader in internet penetration statistics on the continent as the growth and the deployment of ICT in almost all sectors of the economy had led to considerable investment in software both in the public and private sectors.

Angaye noted that the development in the ICT sector had lent credence to the fact that there was an urgent need to develop appropriate policy to guide “Software Nigeria” in order to meet our local software requirements, diversify our economy from a mono economy mainly based on oil and explore the knowledge economy that can provide alternative source of revenue for the country.

While recognising the various efforts and attempts at developing the software sub-sector of ICT in Nigeria, Angaye said the efforts included the National Software Development Initiative, National Software Development Taskforce and the National IT Policy, and that the presentation of the National Software Policy was a continuation of the previous efforts.

He said the current realities of national economies across the globe had brought about the need to diversify Nigeria’s national economy and position the country as a key player in the global knowledge based and ICT driven economy.

According to him the process of enhancing and marketing “Software Nigeria” as an internationally acceptable brand, was therefore very apt and of utmost importance to the Federal Government’s transformation agenda.

While commending the hard work put in drafting the policy, Angaye said NITDA would commence immediate actions on the next stage of submission to the Federal Executive Council through the Minister of Communications Technology.

“All necessary follow up actions shall commence without delay and NITDA shall continue to collaborate with all relevant stakeholders and the international community in order to ensure appropriate positioning of the country among the comity of nations in the current digital age,” he added.

Source: Thisdaylive.com