Minister blames Nigeria’s poor state of IT on fraudulent practices

Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, has attributed the poor state of Information Technology (IT) in Nigeria to fraudulent practices by industry players and weak supervision.

The minister, who was represented by IK Orji, the director of ICT, Ministry of Education, during his opening remarks at the 2016 IT Professionals Assembly in Kaduna, also said the substandard state of IT in Nigeria could be as a result of poor critical IT infrastructure, power and inadequate funding.

The IT Assembly is an exclusive networking event for senior Information Technology (IT) decision makers, IT consultants, upcoming IT entrepreneurs, IT practitioners, teachers and IT Systems administrators.

Although the Nigerian IT sector has recorded remarkable achievements, the Minister listed other challenges affecting the sector to include   poor data, low capacity of teacher to deliver on IT in education, IT curriculum dynamism, among others.

Noting that the Federal government recognises the critical role of IT in its development agenda, he said that fraudulent practices and weak supervision of IT contracts practices must be addressed immediately.

According to him, the poor state of IT is unacceptable and must be readdressed, if the country must make appreciable progress towards the attainment of the national goals and the sustainable development goals.

To expand the frontiers of IT development in the country, the Minister said that, “we must address critical national IT infrastructure and professional development as a priority. We must also facilitate technology-enabled learning as a way of preparing our youths for the future work place.

“We must expand on borderless access to teaching and learning and address curriculum issues to facilitate integration of ICT into education. We must create the necessary platform for the management of date and information,” he added.

According to him, addressing the above challenges will be a huge challenge. However, it will inevitably create a knowledge society that provides the country with comparative advantages in an increasingly competitive global village, he said.

He challenged the IT professionals to come up with recommendations on how best to address the issues.

The 2016 IT Professionals Assembly, among other things, provides a platform for IT practitioners to showcase their products and services