The ICT sector and economic growth

There has been a dramatic rise in the adoption of Information Communications Technology (ICT) by individuals, businesses and governments in Nigeria in the past few years. And the impact has been tremendous. Indeed, ICT has facilitated cross-industry linkages, efficiency and productivity, making the banking, oil and gas, and manufacturing industries in the country so heavily reliant on ICT for growth.

Using technology, the Lagos State government, for instance, has positioned itself to deliver better government services to its 18-20 million population.

A top official of Lagos State Financial Systems Management Bureau made this point clear when he told BusinessDay that with ICT, “we have automated our books and this has helped boost our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). We are able to track our employees.”

This, no doubt, is a good development as technology has been recognised as the bedrock of any thriving economy. For Nigeria in particular, experts say ICT is a veritable platform to aid the diversification of the economy in the face of fallen oil prices, devaluation of the naira and other prevalent economic realities.

Interestingly, the ICT sector now contributes 10.5 percent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which, in monetary terms, is $50 billion, out of the total GDP of $509 billion, according to the Ministry of Communications Technology. With the right environment and better skills sets, the sector has the potential to do more.

However, this very important growing sector of the Nigerian economy is bogged by an unprecedented shortage of skilled professionals required to support massive infrastructure deployment. Industry observers are of the view that the current skills gap could hinder the sector’s contribution to economic growth. It could also severely hamper ICT’s overall contribution to the productivity of other critical sectors.

These skills shortages are seen to be more acute in the fields of software development and programming, computer security and systems network architecture, where companies are struggling to fill yawning gaps. There are also shortages in skills around systems support operations, business analytics, web and mobile app development.

According to the National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan (2013-2043), Nigeria’s ICT industry requires about 300,000 skilled professionals over the next five years if the country intends to meet its lofty infrastructural development aspirations.

But poor training in universities and other institutions of higher learning, lack of exposure to high-tech equipment, outdated curriculum, low awareness of latest ICT trends, and the slowness of the youth to pursue industry training and certifications are preventing the realisation of this dream as they have been found to be responsible for this skills gap.

We commend some local and foreign companies that have been playing critical roles in bridging this skills gap – including Etisalat Nigeria, Oracle Corporation, Computer Warehouse Group (CWG) plc, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, among others.

In 2013, Etisalat Nigeria instituted a Masters in Telecommunications Engineering at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria to contribute to local manpower development. The idea behind this, according to Matthew Willsher, chief executive officer, Etisalat Nigeria, was “to provide Nigeria with a more sustainable option of developing the telecoms industry using home-grown graduates from this programme”.

Only last year, Oracle Corporation started an initiative to increase the skills capacity of IT practitioners in Nigeria in order to address technology skills shortage.

However, more needs to be done as in spite of these efforts, the ICT skills gap in Nigeria keeps widening by the day, according to industry experts. We therefore call on other ICT companies as well as other concerned organisations to invest in the training and retraining of ICT specialists in order to bridge these identified skills gaps. We believe that if this is done, it will be a win-win for everyone.

We cannot agree less with Austin Okere, group chief executive officer, CWG, that given the unprecedented pace of innovation in ICT, “the skills gap will exist if training and re-training are not periodic. The gap will continue to widen if we don’t try to catch up with the innovation”.