7-point agenda lacks IT component – CPN

•Plans IT Assembly-10

The Registrar, Computer Professionals (Registration) Council of Nigeria (CPN), Mr. Sikiru Shehu, has disclosed that the Federal Government’s seven point agenda lacks Information Technology (IT) component, just as the group’s annual conference otherwise tagged IT Assembly, would hold in Abuja in July.

According to him, this year’s conference has been planned to place IT at the heart of government’s development programmes for the country.

He noted that globally IT had become one of the major means through which countries achieve economic and military might, stressing that this situation, has made many countries to adopt various means of possessing expertise in IT and have also developed various products for global use, insisting that Nigeria must tow the same line.

He also said CPN had observed that the current development effort of government lacked IT element, submitting that this was a major lapse that must be redressed.
“Nigeria must prioritize IT in the quest for national development. We have examined government’s seven-point an agenda and have seen that it lacks IT component. We want to appeal to government to change this as no nation can put information technology aside and hope to develop. Such a nation is in trouble,” Shehu declared.

As said by him, CPN is to confer with government to find ways of incorporating IT into the nation’s current vision of making Nigeria one of the 20 leading economies in the world by the year 2020.

On IT Assembly, Shehu said the council intends to continue to build on achievements of the past by repositioning the computing profession and placing it in the position that it deserves.

In addition, he said, the industry must have standards and that a situation whereby some people simply jump into the industry and begins to practice without following government-approved methods must be stopped.

The registrar, further said, a necessary point to begin is in IT education which, he noted, is not yet at the point it should be despite the fact that the country now had an IT curriculum for use in schools.

“It is time for us to walk what we talk. We must correct the current situation whereby public schools cannot effectively deliver IT education even though we have agreed that IT education should be compulsory,” he said.

Mr. Shehu equally said that this year’s assembly would also focus on how the country could harness the expected increase in bandwidth for national development.

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