25,000 MDAs to use Nigerian developed software – ISPON president

Software developed by Nigerian companies can serve diverse needs of over 25,000 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) across the three tiers of government, Pius Okigbo Jnr., president, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), said in a recent interview.

 According to Okigbo, there are “over 20,000 and 25,000 MDAs from all tiers of government that require software solution in just about everything. What does that tell you? It means you can have local software companies constantly writing software till kingdom come to address everything possible in different sectors, and that can only translate to huge billions of naira.”

This is coming on the backdrop of players in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) industry ‎saying that the implementation of local content policy in the sector is the solution Nigeria needs to move forward.

The challenge facing the Nigerian software industry is that locally developed solutions are lowly priced simply because they are made in Nigeria, Okigbo explained.

“There is nothing we cannot write in software programmes, but nobody is ready to trust us and pay us huge amounts of money as to make us bigger players in Nigeria and this is a big tragedy.

“We have developed some good solutions that foreign solutions cannot match. Foreign software became the humongous behemoths they have become because of huge patronage. They all have their humble beginnings,” he said.

To him, the foreign software companies developed through the encouragement of their home governments. That was how the likes of SAP, Microsoft and Oracle have become local and global household names.

“Nigerian software companies need similar support from the government and the private sector players. I still maintain today that there is no foreign HR software system that is better than the locally developed HR package,” he said.

On the issue of government patronising foreign software, he said the use of foreign solutions from places such as India should not happen if we had got our acts right before now. “If you do not encourage companies like SystemSpecs and other indigenous IT companies in Nigeria, what then are you saying?”