IT quacks will be penalised CPN, president warns

Vincent Asor, president/chairman of Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria, (CPN), has warned that the Council is determined and fully ready to fish out quacks practicing IT in the country without appropriate registration, just as it inducted no fewer than 300 new members into the IT profession.

Asor, who stated this yesterday in Kaduna at the ongoing 2016 Information Technology Professionals Assembly, noted that Act 49 of 1993 that established CPN makes it mandatory for all persons and organisations seeking to engage in the sale and/or use of computing facilities, and/or the provision of professional services in computing in the country to be registered by the Council and licensed to carry out such activities.

“It is definitely illegal to engage in computing professional practice without satisfying the above conditions registration and possession of a current validity”, he told the gathering at the forum with the theme: ‘towards a dependable and sustainable national IT infrastructure.’

“The nature of the profession makes it possible for a lot of people to use IT tools in their daily operations and some people are now claiming to be what they are not. Also, those who are not qualified to execute IT jobs are the ones getting these jobs. This is quite absurd and unacceptable to us. Therefore, as professionals, we have to join forces to fight the scourge,” he said.

Persons and corporate bodies that are registered with CPN, apart from being eligible to carry out business, he informed, stand to enjoy many benefits including raising professional standards/status and recognition as registered computing practitioners that are allowed to use Chartered Information Technology Practitioner (C.I.T.P) after their names, projection from the public from exploitation, harassment in the course of performing bonafide, legitimate professional activities, among other benefits.

While welcoming the new inductees, Asor said that the legitimisation of their professional practice in IT sector has just begun.

Noting that the new inductees must channel their energies and talents on positive things that would benefit their organisations and the nation, he said that they were expected to contribute towards the development of the Nigerian IT ecosystem.

He noted that CPN was established to determine what standards of knowledge and skills are to be attained by persons seeking to become members of the computing profession and improving those standards from time to time, the establishment and maintenance of registered persons seeking to practice the computing profession in Nigeria.

Earlier in his induction lecture titled: “The significance of professionalism, IT ethics and codes of professionals practice, Tunde Ezichi, the Pioneer President/Chairman of Council of CPN, told the new inductees that they must not go against the code of ethics of the IT profession.

According to him, CPN has a mechanism for checkmating erring and recalcitrant members, adding that disciplinary action would be taking against any member to go against the ethics of the IT practice in Nigeria.

 

Jumoke Akiyode