As the political terrain gains momentum for the 2007 general election in the country, the immediate past-president of the Information Technology Association of Nigeria (ITAN), Mr. Chris Uwaje, has said that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) knowledge and literacy should form the prerequisite for political aspirants.
Mr. Uwaje who also is the chief executive of Connect Technologies Limited, made this declaration in a chat with ITRealms Online in Lagos.
“ICT knowledge and literacy should be one of the fundamental and critical factor for all political aspirants for 2007,” he asserted, stressing that also, tax clearance and criminal conduct as well as clean slate should form the bases for endorsing any politician.
In using ICT literacy as a criterion for 2007 political aspirants, he said, the central issue here, is because government in this 21st century “Can only function with the knowledge of electronic Government (e-Government) by government policy makers.”
He cited an instance where members of the future legislators are not ICT literates, which he postulated would amount to a disaster.
Emphasising that ICT literacy requirement from the political class would facilitate the way to a knowledge society.
“The future National Assembly should be in the forefront of transforming our nation in preparation for the knowledge society,” Mr. Uwaje said.
Just as Mr. Uwaje, who also presides over the Event and Sponsorship committee of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), pointed out that being ICT literate would engender the compliant policy makers to re-engineer the education, culture, environment, entertainment among other sectors including telecommunications.
This, he said, would require abundant ICT projects to succeed.
According to him, all they (policy makers) will need is the ICT knowledge in order to transform and restructure change instrument like the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
“As a disaster recovery structure for national development” he said and stressed that all these would not be achieved without the knowledge and skill of ICT by politicians at this time in point.
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