2009 World Telecoms and Information Society Day: Whither Nigeria? By Bankole Olubamise

Monday May 17th is International Telecommunications and Information Society Day (WTISD). The World Telecommunication and Information Society Day is a merger of the World Telecommunication Day which has been celebrated annually on 17 May since 1969, marking the founding of ITU and the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865. It was instituted by the Plenipotentiary Conference in Malaga-Torremolinos in 1973 and the World Information Society Day. In November 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society called upon the UN General Assembly to declare 17 May as World Information Society Day to focus on the importance of ICT and the wide range of issues related to the Information Society raised by WSIS. The General Assembly adopted a resolution (A/RES/60/252) in March 2006 stipulating that World Information Society Day shall be celebrated every year on 17 May.
In November 2006, the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Antalya, Turkey, decided to celebrate both events on 17 May as World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. The updated Resolution 68 invites Member States and Sector Members to celebrate the day annually by organizing appropriate national programmes with a view to:
stimulating reflection and exchanges of ideas on the theme adopted by the Council
debating the various aspects of the theme with all partners in society
formulating a report reflecting national discussions on the issues underlying the theme, to be fed back to ITU and the rest of its membership
For 2009, the theme is Protecting children in cyberspace. The theme of this year’s WTISD aims at ensuring that children can safely access the Internet and its valuable resources without fear of falling prey to unscrupulous predators in cyberspace.
The big question is what is Nigeria doing strategically to protect children in cyberspace?
We have made a lot of progress in telecommunication, though still a lot to be done, but in accessing the Internet, harnessing its benefits and protecting users, Nigeria is still far behind. Most cybercafés where majority of Nigerians access the Internet remains uncontrolled. Most yahoo-yahoo boyz use the cybercafés as their turf to commit the numerous frauds that Nigeria has become branded with. Cybercafé owners are more interested in the financial gains that accrue to them rather than prevent the use of their facilities for such demeaning crimes against their fatherland. Nationalism is not a very profitable venture fore cybercafé owners.
The worst danger that is growing now is the lax ways that cybercafé owners run their business whilst children are there. I recently visited a café in Lagos where they were showing the entertainment channel E! at 2pm in the afternoon with at least 3 children who accompany their parents watching. I was shocked that nobody including the parents could either stop the café from showing that channel with lewd picture while children and young adults were there and why show such a channel like that at such a time in a public place which is what a café is anyway?
A major challenge for regulatory authorities (am not sure café’s have one) is to promote safe surfing in the Nigerian cyberspace. Those of us who have travelled out of Nigeria to Europe and America can readily attest to what unbridled freedom have turned those societies into. We must immediately begin a national process of promoting children access to safe surfing. Our regulatory agencies must come out of their shells with a policy statement. The Cybercrime bill sitting in the national assembly for almost 5 years must be passed without further delay. It is a shame that a nation that is victim of negative branding through yahoo-yahoo has not taken any positive step to criminalize the act and regulate the use of the internet. This is a campaign the Nigeria Internet Group (NIG) should advocate upon. NITDA and NCC should collaborate to see the cybercrime bill out of the National parliament in record time.

Now many schools and homes are gaining access to the Internet through great programmes like Schoolnet and most of the Mobile telecommunications companys’ Internet Access programme. In fact most new generation phones are internet ready. As these service providers and products are bringing Internet closer to the user, especially children, we must ensure that children are protected from Internet predators. In the UK there is the Paedophile Register to track convicted paedophiles (child sex predators). The Nigerian Police must develop a similar programme and policy directive to protect our children. In fact the ITU makes an urgent call for proactive policies to protect children “During this year’s WTISD, ITU calls upon all stakeholders (policy makers, regulators, operators and industry) to promote the adoption of policies and strategies that will protect children in cyberspace and promote their safe access to online resources. This will not only lead to the building of a more inclusive information society, but will also enable Member States to meet their obligations towards protecting and realizing the rights of children as laid out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by UN General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989.”

Why must we protect Children’s access to cyberspace? Cyberspace is the future of the world. Bill Gates said whoever comes late to the Internet revolution, will be the developing country of the future. I am afraid if we do not take advantage of the benefits the cyberspace offers our vision to be a top 20 economy in 2020 may never materialize. It is also important because we are the digital age and as globalization deepens the global digital divide, only a globally competitive workforce can produce the necessary capacity to engage the emergent knowledge economy and leapfrog the digital divide, which is invariably deepening poverty
This millennium is the millennium of the ‘information society,’ where the economy is ‘knowledge-based’ and the main driving technology is Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The technology has changed the way we lead our lives from the way we work, the way we learn, to the way we live at an unprecedented speed. Nothing has influenced human civilization as Information and Communication Technology in modern times. Information and communication technology is changing almost all aspects of human activities. Information and Communication Technology has affected all aspects of modern society such as communications, trade, business, culture, education, services, entertainment, research, information and knowledge. Today information and communication technologies are unfolding new dimensions. They have been instrumental in bringing new industrial revolution based on information and knowledge.

With the rise of information and communication revolution, a paradigm shift is taking place in the course of human development. Globalization is taking place. Geographical boundaries are vanishing. Knowledge and information are creating new economic superpowers.
The material development of a country is not judged by what natural resources a country possesses but by the quality of the human resource it has. It is the brainpower that brings prosperity to a country. Efforts should, therefore, be directed towards developing such brainpower. Development of human resource should be viewed from this angle. Education is a key factor in human resource development. This is why Nigeria needs a National Strategic document to drive this development. We cannot get to the top 20 in 2020 without a national Development Strategy that is built on ICT. It is simply not possible. In fact, ICT tools are our best chances of getting near the top 30 economies of the world.

The key resource for developing the information and knowledge economy in any nation is human resource. The Federal Government of Nigeria realizing that the 21st century being a knowledge age and driven by knowledge economy built on innovations and deployment of ICTs is committed to transforming the Nigerian economy into a globally competitive economy by investing in human resource development. It acknowledges that: the extent to which she will benefit from the advances and the opportunities of the emerging information age will depend on how she is capable of developing and harnessing its human resources to initiate, support and maintain its socio-economic development towards an information and knowledge economy. Hpowever, dreams are not enout, we must act fast to produce the human resource that will lead us into the future. When last did the Police recruit computer experts as policemen and women to help them fight cybercrime and prevent predators at cybercafés. There is need for a very concerted effort to change the current trajectory of things. The Cyberspace is developing on a daily basis, we need the right kind of policies and people to implement these policies. The National Strategic Plan document has been ready for months yet there is little movement on the implementation side. Its time to act to protect our future as well as take the future.

The Cyberspace is for the good, the bad and the ugly. Which one will Nigeria allow to dominate?

Bankole Olubamise is an ICT Consultant and Executive Director of Development Information Network, DevNet, 386, Murtala Muhammed Way, Yaba, Lagos, bolubamise@yahoo.com.