Nigeria: World Bank criticises the lack of attention to electricity generation and education for success in outsourcing

Dato.Dan E. Khoo, WITSA Chairman,( right), Dr Chris Uwaje, former ITAN President (middle)) and Dr. Jimson Olufuye, ITAN President at ADIPENG 2009 conference held recently in Abuja From the attainment of e-learning, e-health, e-commerce, speaker after speaker who spoke during the capacity building conference noted with pessimism that Nigeria may not get the expected result in its quest to survive the 21st century knowledge society given the current IT infrastructure in the country.

Leading the speakers, the Senior Economic Officer at the World Bank, Mr Radwan Ismail who is excited about the possibility of Nigeria becoming a major outsourcing destination that can compete with $100 billion outsourcing market basically and Philippines noted that if energy problem is not given priority attention, vision 2020 may be derailed,, adding that Nigeria has all it takes to survive global competitiveness.

While arguing that President Yar Adua’s seven-point agenda ought to be reduced to one-point agenda, the World Bank Chief who has shown great interest in the development of the Nigerian IT sector through capacity building said that nothing can be achieved in the country without addressing the problem of power.

“One of the ingredients of modern society is electricity. If you do not have in place, not enough result would be achieved. Developed economies of the world have survived because of power. Nigerian telecom sector has the potential of becoming a major business process outsourcing center. To bring down cost of internet access and telephone in the country, Nigeria needs build broadband internet across the country.

“It is very unfortunate that Nigeria is not paying enough attention to IT education. Without funding education, Nigeria will continue to lag behind in the knowledge Olympia. IT education has survived many economies of the world. Nigeria should borrow a leaf from India that survived its economy through software development. A word is enough for the wise” he said.
For the visiting World Information Technology Services Alliance, (WISTA) Chairman, Dato Dan Khoo, Information and communications technology (ICT) must be a meaningful portion of stimulus packages to spur recovery from the current global economic crisis and lay the foundation for long term growth.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/35128/51/">World IT conference:World Bank,experts worry over vision 2020 bottlenecks