Ajayi, three others emerge new NIG exco

Nigeria Internet Group (NIG) has elected new officers to lead the organisation for the next two years, just as the immediate past vice president, Mr. Lanre Ajayi, emerged the president.
Mr. Ajayi was elected along with three others including Mrs. Ufuma Daro, as the vice president while Mr. Bosu Arebuwa emerged Treasurer, Mr. Qasim Olalere Akinreti was elected into the office of the Publicity Secretary.

Mr. Ajayi, who is also the Chief executive of PiNet Limited, an Internet Service Provider (ISP) had previously served as the Vice President, Internet Service Providers Association of Nigeria (ISPAN) as well as the immediate past vice chairman, African Internet Service Providers Association (AfrISPA) and currently serves in the board of AfrISPA.

In his acceptance, he promised to continue strengthening the group from where his predecessor, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem stopped.

Dr. Ekuwem, who also is the Executive Vice chairman of Teledom Group of Companies made it clear that he would not recontest the position, even though he had only served one term in office.

Dr. Ekuwem had earlier served under the Mr. Jim Ovia presidency of NIG before taking over the mantle of leadership in late 2003.

Meanwhile, NIG has concluded its third annual convention cum annual general meeting which culminated into the election of new officers.

The convention held at Golden Gate Paradise, Ikoyi Lagos, with the theme: "Youth Restiveness: ICT to the rescue" was attended by NIG board chairman, and former Communications Minister, Chief Olawale Ige, President of Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), and chief executive, Condata Systems Limited, Dr. Chris Nwannenna, chief executive, Connect Technologies, Mr. Chris Uwaje as well as immediate past president, Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN), Dr. Gabriel Obi and chief executive of Linkserve, Mr. Chima Onyekwere among others.

Speaking at the occasion, President, National Association of Computer Science Students (NACOSS), Mr. Olutayo Olusegun, lamented the rate of decay in the nation’s tertiary institutions especially at the department of computer sciences.

He said that most higher institutions do not have computers in their laboratories and where available, it is limited in number and most of them are not working.

The two day, event have discussions centered on sub-themes such as ‘Youth Empowerment in the digital revolution, becoming employable using Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Job opportunities in ICT- Starting with N15,000 capital, tele-education, tele-training for point-of-need skills acquisition, a click to hope and wealth and ICT for food security and poverty alleviation.

Other sub-themes include "Enabling infrastructure, ePayment, human capacity development, legal and regulatory framework, security, Internet content development, .ng ccTLD and Internet Governance".

NIG is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation promoting internet access and awareness in the country and was very active in the battle to domestic the nation’s country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD).