" ITREALMS: Exposed! 12 fictitious ‘stakeholders organisation’ supporting NITDA controversial bill - ITREALMS

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Monday, May 22, 2023

Exposed! 12 fictitious ‘stakeholders organisation’ supporting NITDA controversial bill - ITREALMS

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Some 12 fictitious stakeholders’ organisations out of the 17 purportedly supporting the controversial Senate Bill for the repeal and enacting of 2023 National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA Act) also known as Senate Bill (SB-1082), are non-existence and not registered even with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), ITREALMS can authoritatively reveal.
Exposed! 12 fictitious ‘stakeholders organisation’ supporting NITDA controversial bill - ITREALMS
ITREALMS also exclusively gathered that these 12 supporting organisations were mischievously conscripted and used to mislead Nigerians and particularly the National Assembly with the notion that the bill has sufficient stakeholders’ endorsement.

Equally, ITREALMS investigations revealed that the Senate Committee on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Cyber Security, led by Senator Yakubu Oseni and made up of Senator Abdulfatai Buhari as vice chairman, Senator Emmanuel Orker-Jev, Senator Francis Ezenwa Onyewuchi, Senator Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia and Senator Jika Dauda Haliru as members, had falsefully submitted to the National Assembly leadership for the third reading and passage, claiming that 17 organisations submitted memoranda in support of the Bill while 14 opposed.

ITREALMS equally unraveled that some six registered stakeholders group were supporting NITDA bill 2023, namely, the Transparency Advocacy for Development Initiative, Beyond Boundaries Legacy Leadership Initiative, Global Integrity Crusade Network, Mothers and Marginalised Advocacy Centre, NorthEast ICT Developemnt Initiative and Youths Against Disaster Initiative.

ITREALMS affirmed in the factcheck that the 14 opposing stakeholders’ organisations including the National Security Adviser (NSA), Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN), Google, Meta (Facebook), Knowledge House, Crimson Partners, Babalakin and Co, Tech Hive, Paradigm Initiative, Nigerian Institute of ICT Engineers, American Business Council, Policy Implementation Assisted Forum, and ICT Derivatives Ltd (Ayoola Babatunde Oke, Esq).

Consequently, the Senate Committee used that 17-stakeholders organisation argument in attempt to justify its request to the Senate to proceed with the third reading and passage of the controversial bill, which has attracted various stakeholder and professional condemnation in Nigeria over the weekend.

Close examination of the purported list of 17 supporting organisations in the Senate Committee on ICT and Cyber Security’s report, ITREALMS affirmed that three (3) organisations' names were repeated, to mark up the number even as nine (9) were faceless and unregistered.

A factcheck by ITREALMS showed that for instance that Schola IT Central does not exist or dully registered with Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), and thus not found or in existence as at the time of filing this report.

Other non-existence and not found within the CAC database as required by law as registered, includes Transparency Advocacy for Development Initiative; Sustainable Initiative for Nurturing Growth (SING); Network of Advocates for Digital Reporting (NADIR); Heroic Discovery and Community Development Centre; Arewa Media for Sustainable Development; Digital African Youth Initiative; Youth and Civil Society Coalition Development (YCSCD) and Shetima Kyari Ali Tech and Identity Solutions Lab Limited.

The three on the Senate list repeated on the 17-stakeholder list were SING Nigeria, Network of Advocates for Digital Reporting and IT Central.

Therefore, factcheck revealed to ITREALMS that 12 of the total number of CSOs and stakeholders who submitted memoranda were fictitious as far as CAC database is concerned.

But further checks by ITREALMS informed that "Shetima Kyari Ali Tech and Identity Solutions Lab Limited" may not be in existence as claimed or even in CAC database, yet there exist "Tech and Identity Solutions Lab Limited."

Additional factcheck revealed that Shetima Ali is the co-founder and serves as the Frontend Developer at "Tech and Identity Solutions Lab Limited."

Additionally, ITREALMS gathered that Shetima Ali is involved with Kaduna-based IT Central Limited which focuses on "Empowering the next generation, building tomorrow’s tech, IT Services and IT Consulting for 1 year and 10 months as at the time of filing this report, while his engagement with Tech and Identity Solutions Lab as co-founder was from January 2021 till present.

In other words, there is a registered company with CAC with RC - 1956169 known as Tech & Identity Solutions Lab Ltd, not "Shetima Kyari Ali Tech & Identity Solutions Lab Ltd" whereas the company is located at Sani Rimi Tsiwa Road, Medium Density Street, Kabama Layout, Sabon Gari, Kaduna State, it was registered on July 27, 2022.

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Furthermore, ITREALMS investigations revealed that in the case of Tech and Identity Solutions Lab Ltd, there were key persons with significant controlling shares, namely Bappa Ibrahim and Ali Shetima Kyari; both are residents of Kaduna with direct holding shares of 50% each in the company.

The obvious atrocious listing if ever, ITREALMS gathered from forensic experts anonymously that it cannot but be deliberate and intended to mislead the Nigerian public, stakeholders and especially the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to give impression of unobjective support to the controversial NITDA Bill 2023.

ITREALMS recalled that during the reading of the bill for the first time on Tuesday, December 13, 2022 only the vice chairman Buhari and member Jika Haliru were absent.

The Senate at its sitting on Wednesday, December 14, 2022 considered and read for the second time a bill for an Act to Repeal the National IT Development Agency Act No. 28, 2007 and enact the NITDA Act to provide the administration, implementation and regulation of IT systems and practices as well as digital economy in Nigeria and for related matters, 2023 (SB 1082) and refer same to the Committee on ICT and Cyber security to report within four weeks.


They also advised the opposing 14 stakeholders that submitted memoranda to stand firm and speak out at this time to ensure that this outgoing General Muhammadu Buhari outgoing administration does not bequeath to the sector more hardship than ever before.

Remmy Nweke/DoP

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