Zinox boss drums support for Omobola Johnson

Chairman of Zinox Technologies, Dr. Leo Stan Ekeh, has urged stakeholders in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to support the appointment of Mrs. Omobola Johnson as the first minister to head the newly created Ministry of Communication Technology.

Speaking at the commemoration of 10 years of ICT Revolution organized by the ICT publishers alliance in Lagos, last weekend, Dr. Ekeh said that Mrs. Johnson needs the necessary support and prayers that the ICT sector in the country could garner to make her work relatively easy.

Although Ekeh warned the new minister to be wary of sycophants which exist almost in every other sector, he advised her to ensure that she lives up to expectation of those she tend to represent, which is the larger ICT sector.

He expressed confidence in Mrs. Omobola Johnson’s ability to deliver on prospects of the stakeholders.

Ekeh whose paper was on ‘The Road to 20-2020,’ said that looking back a decade of ago, especially following the birth of Zinox Computers, the Nigeria’s first internationally certified branded computers, he felt gratitude to God and the patriotic Nigerians who created the enabling environment for an unprecedented launch and subsequently the success of the Zinox brand.

“My deep appreciation goes to the Federal Government under the former President Olusegun Obasanjo for initiating policies that liberalized communications and set Nigeria on the road to a knowledge economy,” he said.

According to him, the fact that the Federal Executive Council of 2011 was ably represented at the Zinox launch on October 9, 2011, underscored the importance the government placed on computer manufacturing.

“We drew strength from the presidential endorsement that followed a couple of weeks after the launch. I dare say that there is still plenty of need for the enforcement of that endorsement,” Ekeh declared.

Zinox chairman further expressed gratitude to the Nigerian ICT media for partnering with his firm to sensitize the governments and peoples of Nigeria to adopt the computer as a major tool for work and play.

“The media shared our aspirations to place a computer on every table at work or home,” he said, stressing that Nigerian ICT media went on to highlight Zinox concern that the security, governance, agriculture, energy, finance and overall development of this country would be best assured if built on a Nigerian technology,” he said.

The therefore, commended the organizes of the event under the aegis of ICT Publishers Alliances, describing the event as historic, looking at the progress Nigeria has made in ICT cutting across the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications, computing and internet.

Earlier in his welcome address, the chairman of the ICT Publishers Alliance, Mr. Aaron Ukodie of eWorld, said the platform was set out to celebrate a decade of GSM revolution, but as they went along making preparations, it was discovered that just as a revolution in telecommunication was set in motion in 2001, the Information Technology (IT) sector also began to witness a remarkable growth from 2011 when the IT Policy was enacted with the birth of the National IT Development Agency (NITDA) by the Obasanjo’s government.

“So there is no doubt there is also a revolution going on in computing and internet diffusion in the country,” he said, stressing that the ICT sector has improved remarkably since 2000.

Remmy Nweke
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