Stories by Chris Alu
An ICT expect, Mr Muyiwa Akintunde has stressed the need for Nigerians to secure its information environment in order to attract more investments into the ICT sector.
He gave the charge at a capacity building workshop for the media, organized by NITDA in Abuja with the theme: “challenges of reporting information communication technology in a digital age”.
According to him, Nigeria needs to improve the state of ICT and subsequently enable the citizens to reap more benefits offered by ICT so as to compete favourably with citizens of other nations in economic spheres and other fields of human endeavors.
Akintunde maintained that security of information assets is critical to building confidence in the current network available across the world.
Speaking on the challenges of ICT in Nigeria, he decried low communications quality as well as insufficient ICT penetration considering the size and population of the country. “Broadband density is particularly low as there is a great gulf between broadband and voice telephony penetration. Nigeria is however moving gradually beyond voice telephony”, he said. The experts also mentioned the cost as one of the existing barriers, adding that lack of awareness and access excludes many from the digital environments.
He said “in a country where poverty still works the streets ICT remains a stranger. Computing and telecommunications resources are un affordable to the majority”.
Akintunde said information security is still an area of concern especially cyber crime, hacking, ATM fraud and general identity thefts are on the increase in the country.
