GSM, ingredient of a free society

REMMY NWEKE reports that advent of Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications is stimulating a free society in Nigeria.

Unknown to many Nigerians, especially the adolescents, the freedom they now enjoy, courtesy of the liberalization of the telecommunications sector, did not come easy.

While some paid with their lives, some incurred economic misfortunes to get to this point, which to some Nigerians actually began with the annulment of the 1993 general presidential election, hitherto adjudged as the freest and fairest elections, before 2011 elections in over 50 years of nationhood of the Nigerian people.

Today, it is easier for a stranded car-owner at the other side of Lagos to call his or her mechanic to come to the rescue, then follow-up with the mechanic until he or she gets to the spot where the attention is required.

Also, today, it is no longer news that several people’s lives have been saved since the coming of mobile communications in Nigeria in 2001. A case in point that quickly comes to mind was that of a widow, Mrs. Elebele Ihuoma who suddenly took ill at about 11pm, penultimate Friday. Her confused eldest daughter returned from work and saw her mother laying motionless, but breathing.

All she could remember was to buzz her mum’s closest friend around their vicinity, Mrs. ‘Tonia Domson, who resides within the same Oshodi suburb of Lagos and within a distance of about 800 meters away. It follows that Mrs. Domson swiftly drove down to Mrs. Elebele’s house in the family car and put up a call to her family doctor before rushing her friend to the doctor’s nearby clinic to ensure prompt attention; where the medical doctor on-call informed them after due examination that Mrs. Elebele had suffered a stroke. Now, to the glory of God she has fully recovered and the rest is better imagined than experienced if that call was not made by the daughter.

As a result of the liberalisation in Nigeria, citizens now air their views unbarred on how they are governed and should be governed on prints via SMS to the editor, call-in during television and radio programmes to express themselves. Just as it could not be forgotten in a hurry that recently President Goodluck Jonathan reversed his ban on Nigeria national football team from foreign matches, which he alluded to interactions he had with Nigerians through the media and mostly on his Facebook account.

Today, to save time, customers now call hair salon operators to know if they have chance to attend to them or should book for another date instead of getting to the salon and be told that the Barber or stylist has just left to no particular location.

Before now, many Nigerians residing in the urban areas rarely go home except for festivals such as Christmas, Easter, Sallah and New Yam. Nowadays, it has become literally a ‘sin’ not to get in touch with the family, especially where one’s parents are still living, customarily at the rural areas; if one is in the city for one or two weeks.

All these have changed with the coming of GSM for local parlance and liberalisation of the telecommunications market for the experts and investors. In fact, most Nigerians think that GSM or the availability of mobile telephony is all about giving dividends as real freedom to the populace of Nigeria, following the return of democracy in 1999. Critically examining this, one would discover that it’s not far from the truth. Nigerians have not had it so good in over 40 years and now they could call and talk as long as they want to anyone, anywhere via their mobile handsets.

Thus, encouraging one to ask what is liberalisation and democracy as well as how both could affect the level of freedom enjoyed in a given society like Nigeria.

Online encyclopedia, the wikipedia.org, described democracy as a form of government in which all citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal and more or less direct participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law. This definition encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that allow the free and equal practice of political self-determination.

While there is no specific universally accepted definition of ‘democracy’, equality and freedom have both been identified as important characteristics.

And for ‘liberalisation’ it was described in general term as referring to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy, therefore, giving more powers to the people.

Most often, the term is used to refer to economic liberalization, especially trade liberalization or capital market liberalization.

However, in slight comparison between the two; liberalisation and democracy – A school of thought had pointed out recently that there is a distinct difference between liberalization and democratization, which are often thought to be the same concept.

So, liberalization, they argued could take place without democratization, and deals with a combination of policy and social change specialized to a certain issue such as the liberalization of government-held property for private purchase. Whereas yet another school of thought professed democratization as being more politically specialized that could arise from a liberalization, but works in a broader level of government.

There is no gain saying that mobile phone usage and adaptation in Nigeria have become a ritual to an extent that one industry observer once described GSM as General Street Madness (GSM), due to the fact that people who own GSM phones are often seen talking and laughing on the street all alone.

To some it has become status symbol as disclosed by Yemisi, a system administrator recently that the ‘unfortunate trend’ is that, even her office cleaner’s mobile phone, of course, a Blackberry and is costlier than her phone, simply because one has to literally belong to the rave of the moment.

For some people it has been about using technology to find their old friends and like the group chief executive officer, Teledom Group, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, once said that telecommunications is like a water tap, which when opened would discharge water based on the kind of pipe – big or small - used to lay it. This means that the more the telecommunications industry is opened up, the more freedom it enables people to communicate. Ekuwem also noted that Communications in this sense could come through voice call, data; internet, World Wide Web (www), knowledge-base among other useful means it could be put to.

Therefore, it could be apt to state that democracy has brought Nigerians the necessary freedom they desire as a society, mostly since the advent of GSM in the country.

Like another industry observer argued, Nigeria gained true independence on May 29, 1999; that is, the day Military through former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, retired, handed over government to a democratically elected government led by former General Olusegun Obasanjo; who invariably capitalised on the freedom of democracy to liberalise the telecommunications sector.

Now, with over 90 million Nigerians talking, the freedom embedded in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and capsulated in GSM manifested during the just concluded 2011 general elections; as results were exchanged from various monitoring groups, data pulling became an alias for Nigerian youths and youths at heart and use of social media like Facebook and Twitter to name a few, through mobile phones.

It has now dawn on many Nigerians that democracy pays, after all, they are enjoying the freedom spurred by GSM technology, at least, chatting these days with one’s parents and family from various parts of the world has permeated the Nigerian society to what a rural woman once described as ‘oyibo gossip’ – English gossip, for sake of using mobile phones at ease, to chat with family members in faraway lands like China, India and Europe.

Talking is known to engender a free mind and free mind begets free society which paves the way for dialogue and investment in addition to flourishing of businesses, especially in the small, medium enterprise (SMEs). At least, at the last count, Nigeria had over 50,000 commercial call centre operators, tagged ‘umbrella people,’ with Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in billions of Dollars and employment created for Nigerians, thereby collapsing the ‘Berlin walls’ of doing business in Nigeria to a greater extent.

For Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu, president of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), despite the over 90m subscriber base currently recorded, there is still room for over 50 million potential telecom consumers in Nigeria. Pointing out that in the next decade, 50 million telecommunications users are expected to be connected on broadband internet access.

He also noted that the emphasis hitherto placed on ‘number of connected lines in Nigeria will be shifted to emphasis to ‘number of users’ of telecommunications services to reflect the true development requirement of empowering Nigerians with telecommunications.

Although there are still lots of infrastructure to be fixed, such as electricity power supply, good road network and security, Nigerian state deserves a path on the back and Nigerians for evolution into the rapidly emerging ‘free’ society accompanied with several reforms at all fronts. In fact, it has made the investment climate second to none on the continent of Africa and earned Nigeria the fastest growing telecom market in Africa, and second to China, globally.

Apart from the fact that talking in a given society eases tensions, it also aligns to one of the GSM operators marketing catchphrase ... ‘Now Nigerians are talking’ in other words things are looking up.

Who says that GSM telephony is not a democracy dividend!

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MDG’s deadline: Nigeria needs joint action committee – ITAN boss

Just four years to 2015 deadline for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the president of Information Technology Industry Association of Nigeria (ITAN), Dr. Jimson Olufuye, has said that Nigeria needs a committee on joint action plans to accelerate its goals.

Speaking at the recently concluded Information Technology (IT) Assembly which held at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, organized by the Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN), Dr. Olufuye said there must be a joint effort to achieve MDGs.

In a presentation entitled ‘Mobilizing IT Professionals for WSIS and MDGs 2015; and V20 2020 Goals Realization,’ he said that all stakeholders have common and specific roles to play to ensure that the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), MDG and Vision 20-2020 goals are achieved in Nigeria.

He outlined roles to be played by stakeholders into two bold categories, namely for organisations and IT professionals.

Olufuye prescribed an action plan for organisations such as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), National IT Development Agency (NITDA), Nigeria MDG Office and Galaxy Backbone plc, saying they must evolve a joint action plan committee to synchronize workable strategies that would deliver projects for the realization of these goals.

He also said some of projects capable of aiding this initiative to include broadband access for all, increased mobility cum internet applications for e-Government, e-Health and e-Learning, stressing that building of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry standards for IT-based Business process outsourcing (BPO) companies.

As a follow-up to the above, he urged CPN to review national IT curricular to ensure that it’s well positioned by engaging global service excellence firm that could help develop eSkills framework to make certain that the products of primary and tertiary institutions in the country are prepared for the industry for a robust digital ecosystem to evolve.

Olufuye further said that every organisation should evolve its IT Policy and eStrategy for a digital Nigeria by 2015.

In addition, he said, software companies or organisations should build local contents by finding ways of localizing contents for local use and for export.

“Therefore, adherence to software engineering standards around Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI), Process Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) and so, should be desirable,” he said, stressing that CPN, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), ITAN and NITDA could help software companies to enhance their processes through exposure to the agile framework.

Nigeria, he also said, must deepen her engagement with the likes of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCSTD), World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) and many other international bodies for her advantage.

Internally, Olufuye canvassed for intra-national and cross agency handshakes between NCC and NITDA; ITAN, Association of Telecom Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), ISPON, CPN, National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) and Galaxy, should flourish.

The ITAN boss went on to prescribe some action plans for IT professionals in the country, saying particularly they should note some specific interventions capabilities for them to bring to bear towards the realization of the WSIS, MDG and V2020 goals.

He made suggestions that these interest groups should engage on eStrategies framework development, underlining the fact that a professional organisation does not have its eStrategies framework for ICT project implementation in place, professionals in such a group can quickly start one.

“Once developed, there must be ownership to drive it and nobody else will drive your vision for you unless it’s not your vision,” he declared.

According to him, promotion of social networking platform for every professional could enriched with the WSIS space by being a part of the social networking ecosystem viz-a-viz facebook, twitter, linkedln, blogs, voice and video content sharing to name a few.

Professionals, he said, should build their own web 2.0 platform to enable them spearhead the creation of the organisation’s on-line interaction platforms to open exchange of ideas and for inputs from the wider community.

Building of capacities, he said, should target knowledge enhancement programmes and organise mentorship programmes that impact know-how to others particularly the disadvantaged in the community such as women, girls and the physically challenged.

He enjoined IT professionals to be good cyber agents for cyber security, noting that the increasing use of the Internet resources will build confidence on the use of the Internet and provide reliability of its associated resources.

“This is important to promote the vast advantages of the Internet to economic development and social cohesion than the disadvantages of its associated crimes which such presence can readily mitigate,” he said.

Further, these interest groups should create outsourcing opportunities in various offices, beginning by identifying non-core processes that could be outsourced, which would in turn create more jobs to enhance digital dividends and reduce poverty.

Creation of projects through open, transparent, and multi-stakeholder approach to attract funding should be encouraged in the ICT sector, disclosing that there are a number of granting oganisations that would readily fund impacting intervention projects such as NITDA Fund (NITDEF), Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), Economic Community for West Africa States (ECOWAS), European Union (EU) among others.

He further urged for the use more open standard tools to promote collaborative work in software localization and access to information and knowledge.

Remmy Nweke
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New Horizons, NDE empower 10,000 graduates on IT

Information Technology (IT) training centre, New Horizons is partnering the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) to launch Skills for Employment and Enterprise (SEE), which offered estimated 10,000 graduates jobs.

The managing director, New Horizons, Mr. Tim Akano, told newsmen during a chat in Lagos, recently, that this process would tackle the problem of graduate unemployment in Nigeria.

“Over 10,000 unemployed graduates were empowered at the launching of SEE programmes, which also served as the 4th national job Fair organised by New Horizons Nigeria,” he said.

This year, he said, was unique in several dimensions, noting that one of such was that the National Directorate of Employment decided back the job fair with its federal might.

Secondly, he said, the event witnessed foreign speakers from America and thirdly, the event took place in two cities, namely the National Stadium, Lagos and Ibadan with unprecedented number of participants.

Also, he said, the launching of SEE has become imperative in Nigeria against the background of the wide skill gaps that exist today between the industry requirement and what the university graduates have.

Feedback from various employers, Akano said, have shown that today’s university graduates do not posses readymade skills that would make them hit the ground running from their first day in the office.

“This is why the Graduate Trainee programme which used to take one year in most multinationals in the past now takes three years,” he said.

Additionally, he attributed this to why some multinationals now prefer to hire Asians to do jobs which Nigerians could do even better with additional training.

SEE project, he said, would empower the Nigerian graduates not only in Information Technology skills like Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, IT-Security among others, but also with skills in personal branding, customer service, executive etiquette, selling skill, communication and leadership and entrepreneurship.

This, he said, would take an average of three months and upon completion, graduates would be assisted with job placement as Industrial attaché in banks, telecoms, manufacturing and other companies.

“It is our expectation that those who excel as industrial attaché will be readily absorbed by the organisations. Secondly, for those who would like to be wealth creators, the skills acquired during the three months SEE programme would have prepared them to start a small scale business in Information Technology as a consultant to major organisations,” he said.

Remmy Nweke
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Phase3 Telecom enters pact with French INEO Energie

Phase3 Telecom has entered into a pact with French INEO Energie Du Export for the expansion of communications network coverage from Benin Republic to Togo.

Affirming this on return from the signing ceremony which took place last week in Paris, France, the Chief Executive Officer, Phase3 Telecom, Mr. Stanley Jegede said he endorsed the relevant lines for his firm, while Managing Director INEO Energie DU Export, Mr. Gaetan Texier, signed on behalf of his company.

He described this development as a fulfillment of his company’s expansion plan for the sub-region through its West Africa One transmission network to cover all countries in the zone.

Jegede explained that West Africa One network is an aerial optic fibre transmission system, which tends to run from Nigeria to different countries in West Africa providing physical telecommunications infrastructure link across countries.

He also said that the network has been heavily supported by the West Africa Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (WATRA), described it as a massive boost towards its programme of providing affordable and reliable telecommunications link in the West Africa sub-region.

Jegede said the decision to award the contract to INEO Energie Du Export was based on the track record of the firm in the area of optic fibre installation.

“INEO Energie is the global leader when it comes to installation of power line infrastructure. We went through a very tedious process before We eventually settling for them. We are quite happy to have chosen them to help fulfill our efforts of providing the West Africa region with a robust telecommunications infrastructure that is second to none,” he said.

Jegede emphasised that the firm would continue to provide very high quality optic fibre connection running on electricity power transmission lines and will offer subscribers the latest technologies in the industry.

“We have already showed the benefits of aerial optic fibre in Nigeria and its effectiveness in helping to ensure high quality communications services to customers. This is the sort of experience that we want to take across all of West Africa,” he said.

Jegede, whose firm runs the region’s only aerial optic fiber network, added that given that Nigeria and indeed the West African region was still a developing, road construction and building of other infrastructure would be very frequent, leading to underground cables often being cut.

As said by him, this situation highlights the need for a network that would not easily be affected by such developments, stressing that this is where the Phase3 aerial optic fiber network comes in especially as electricity power transmission networks often have dedicated routes by law.

Jegede further said that with this would afford many operators to embrace aerial optic fiber use, as it provides a huge relief for them whenever the underground optic fibers fail.

“In Nigeria today all the operators including those that have their own transmission networks have embraced Phase3’s aerial optic services especially after they have seen the advantages that it offers them. We believe that even for those that may already have excess capacity, aerial optic fibre provides a very reliable backup and alternative,” he said.

Emphasising that this is in addition to the fact that there are certain areas of coverage of the Phase3 aerial optic fibre system which other terrestrial network are not designed to reach currently due to the countries road and highway network.

Remmy Nweke
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Evans redefines Corporate Social Responsibility

The chief executive officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Steven Evans has redefined the meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), saying that it entails a wholesome relationship with stakeholders and creating value through all products and services to benefit all in the society.

Speaking at the recently held BusinessDay Annual Giving Conference in Lagos, Mr. Evans who dwelt on ‘Etisalat CSR: Enhancing Sustainability through Innovation,’ enumerated some benefits of CSR to include improved standard of living, increased global competitiveness, security, innovation and skills development among others.

He also highlighted the company’s CSR achievements despite its being a recent entrant into the Nigerian telecommunications industry, saying “Our CSR activities are designed to positively impact the various socio-economic levels with unique schemes ranging from education to health and environment.”

He told participants at the event with the theme ‘Giving Back: Investing in our Community for Sustainable Development’ noted that Etisalat’s organisations expansive CSR activities despite its ‘being young in Nigeria’, involved into support for the Lagos State government’s drive to improve the educational sector through Etisalat’s Adopt-a-School initiative by adopting three secondary schools in Lagos State.

By organizing a career counseling programme, he said, employees of Etisalat volunteer their time to counsel students of secondary schools on which career path to pursue.

In the area of health, he mentioned the Fight Malaria initiative in which insecticide treated mosquito nets were distributed to boarding schools as a preventive measure against malaria.

“This initiative was supported by a dedicated drama series designed to educate listeners on symptoms and prevention of malaria and get them actively involved in the fight against it,” he said.

Additionally, he said, Etisalat partnered Lagos Business School CSR centre to provide a research centre that aims to create, disseminate and apply CSR knowledge.

Pointing out that the company’s CSR initiatives have been tailored to be sustainable, applying innovative means, which further acknowledges the efforts of the private sector in Nigeria.

“Businesses are doing CSR, following the same principles but delivering it in varying ways and achieving results,” he said.

Equally speaking at the event, the chief executive officer, T.Y. Danjuma Foundation, Ms. Thelma Ekiyor, explained the difference between charitable giving and Corporate Social Responsibility.

CSR, she said, has its main features as accountability, sustainability and credibility, stressing that CSR should not position itself as replacing the government but should be complementary.

Ekiyor enjoined companies to engage in collective sharing of ideas so as to avoid duplication of initiatives but instead have a collective purse to be able to achieve significant change.

In his remarks, the chief executive officer and publisher, BusinessDay, Mr. Frank Aigbogun expressed appreciation to speakers for honouring BusinessDay’s invitation by being present at the event, stressing that the level of commitments displayed makes the BusinessDay annual giving conference worthwhile.

Remmy Nweke
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ACCA commences online examination in Nigeria

The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), the global body for professional accountants, would soon introduce online examinations, in partnership with Summit Consulting Group.

The partnership would boost delivery of all ACCA examinations online through an innovative eAssessment programme.

The Summit Consulting Group is a leader in the computer-based testing industry with a core focus on innovative technology solutions.

The terms of the agreement stipulate that technology would henceforth be deployed to enhance assessment of accountants who possess ACCA qualification.

ACCA’s migration to the e-examination platform will be beneficial to employers and students around the world who choose ACCA qualifications for their professional training because the online delivery platform gives them greater choice and access.

Chief executive officer, ACCA, Ms Helen Brand, said that this development confirms “ACCA was founded on distinct core values – one of which is innovation. As a global professional accountancy body, we have a proud tradition of leading the way in new developments, particularly those that create greater opportunity to access a highly-regarded international professional accountancy qualification.”

The on-demand examination platform, she said, enables the global accountancy body to adopt, which was borne out of extensive discussions with employers and students who preferred flexibility in the timing of ACCA exams, currently held twice a year.

“This new development with Summit is the next step in our journey. As we develop our new eAssessment model, ACCA will be able to test students’ knowledge and skills in a way which more accurately reflects real-life workplace scenarios and activities,” she said, adding that employers have informed that this is what they want for the future.

She also noted that feedback has shown that employers and students want greater flexibility and options globally-recognised qualifications could offer, pointed that the world of work is changing and becoming increasingly online.

“We are therefore now working towards new ways of developing professional skills which will meet the needs of employers in the online world. ACCA is innovating to develop and support the eProfessional and Summit’s technology and expertise will enable ACCA to assess work-ready professional accountants with the skills needed in this increasingly on-line world,” Brand said.

President, Summit Consulting Group, Mr. John Sotiros said his team has long been a leader in providing innovative solutions to the testing marketplace.

“We are very excited to be partnering with ACCA, the leading global body for professional accountants. The coupling of our innovative technology with ACCA’s global presence will redefine the way computer based testing is done. Our industry will be a tremendous beneficiary of these efforts now and well into the future,” he said.

Country Manager, ACCA Nigeria, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Ademola, pointed out that the on-line examination process would be beneficial for Nigerians who aspire to obtain ACCA qualification.

“ACCA’s decision to migrate to the on-line examination platform is in line with the body’s resolve to be innovative and ensure flexibility for those willing to attain ACCA membership status, without lowering the standard in terms of attaining the highly sought ACCA qualification at all levels. The Nigerian office is open to entertain enquiries so as to ensure that Nigerians, willing to take ACCA exams would fully understand the flexibilities and advantages of the on-line examination,” she said.

Remmy Nweke
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