Minister of communications, Adebayo Shittu, has decried unchecked capital flights and loss of employment annually suffered by Nigeria as a country based on the engagement of foreign ICT firms as against the local engineers for the provision and construction of ICT and internet.
Shittu said despite Federal Government policy on local content, which supports development of local variables, a large number of public and private institutions still sought and engaged foreign firms for installation and construction of internet infrastructure and engineering services.
He said almost all the foreign companies for which internet infrastructure and engineering services were contracted would still subcontract such to the local engineers at ridiculously cheap fees.
Speaking on the exploitative character of foreign ICT firms at the detriment of the much-touted local content policy at the sixth Regular Meeting of National Council on Communication Technology (NCCT) in Abeokuta on Thursday, Shittu said if issue of capital flights and exploitative stance of foreign ICT companies were not addressed, the ICT contributions to the gross domestic product would be seriously hampered.
The minister, who was categorically referring to one of the memoranda submitted at the fifth National Council on Communication Technology held in 2017 in Katsina tagged “Strategic Plan on Technical Manpower Shortage in Nigeria” but was stepped down then, requested the 2018 Council to deliberate and address the issue as it is crucial to ICT development in the country, coupled with the socio-economic benefits it would bring to the country.
He said, “I think this Council has to deliberate and proffer solutions to this exploitation of local content and ICT engineers by some ICT firms who will engage for internet infrastructure.
“For example a foreign ICT firm (name withheld) is awarded an ICT contract that costs N100 million, it would give it to local engineers and pay them a paltry N5 million and sign an undertaking that they would not do similar job for another firm, this is the oppression and exploitation of our local content and local engineers.
“This, must stop and we must deliberate on this if not, such an issue will have to wait and our local engineers will have to groan under such an exploitation until we constitute another Council November next year.”
Meanwhile, Governor Ibikunle Amosun has required Nigerians, especially those that are working and earning a means of livelihood in ICT and internet space to use and deploy ICT as a weapon of mass development and not as a weapon of mass destruction, saying that the current realities as being manifested in the ICT industry and the usage of social media, showed that some Nigerians are being tempted to be using ICT as weapon and agent of mass destruction.
Governor Amosun, while pointing out that Ogun State is using ICT to employ and engage youths meaningfully in terms of employment and contributions to gross domestic products, but he requested the Council to come up with a mechanism that checkmates illegal usage of ICT and social media platforms especially as the nation inches towards electioneering.
