Nigeria Content Online

For a few days last week, some of our country’s
most engaged, cutting edge – mostly young – technology entrepreneurs,
advocates and innovators were gathered in one location in Lagos’s
Victoria Island for what some would call a long overdue meeting of
minds. Themed G-Nigeria, about a thousand – organisers say – young
Nigerians bent over laptops and whatever new technology you can lay
your hands on these days, sharing ideas and resources about ideas,
trends and possibilities.

Of course, Nigeria didn’t need Google to open our
eyes to the abundance of human resources available when it comes to
technology, or more specifically Information Technology. We are
surrounded by men and women who have been able to manipulate these
various technologies as they have emerged – whether for good of society
or simply to deprive unsuspecting foreigners of hard earned money.

In the past few years, thanks to the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission as well as a slew of public spirited
initiatives, both the incidence and prominence of those kinds of
activities have been on the decline. Instead, Nigerians have been
developing applications, applying software or finding ways of
integrating the different technologies into trends and lifestyles. New
Media companies, web development and management firms, and online
portals have flourished over the past half a decade. The fact that most
of the activity around the media, entertainment and fashion is driven
by technology is testament to this.

The tragedy has been that most of this growth has
happened in spite of lack of support or, at the least, vision. Many of
these entrepreneurs and innovators have found themselves working alone,
without any kind of private or public sector driven institutional
support.

Many Nigerian corporate organisations, even those
who pretend to a bias for technology or to being globally competitive
in terms of cutting edge technology, have been unable to provide any
kind of strategic support to drive expansion or build capacity. As
always, not a lot of them have been ready to take a risk on an emerging
industry or emerging entrepreneurs.

It is also a necessary, even if fruitless,
exercise to point a finger at a government that has many times
acknowledged, verbally, the potential and possibilities of this
catchment, but has yet to – despite a ministry dedicated to this at the
federal level and many copycat agencies and arms at the state levels –
evolve policy that will take advantage of this passion, channel it and
ensure sustenance.

For a country that needs to channel all its
potential in order to be competitive in a world that is now largely
driven by and towards technology, this is a tragedy by itself.

Organisations like Google have managed to make the
point that there is a critical mass of driven and equipped Nigerians –
young and old – with the capacity to drive our economy upwards with
technology. The good news is that these young people can take credit
for having led where their supposed leaders failed to. Nigerians
followed and eventually the leaders had to. Well, at least, they
finally caught up.

Over the next year or so, our country is on the
edge of technological explosion, bolstered by everything from
investments by multinationals like Google to the much-awaited Main-One
cable. These will boost capacity such as the nation has yet to see.

It’s now time for the authorities to take the
responsibility. Nigeria can be a technology hub, not just leading
within the continent, but also competing properly on the global stage.
There’s no longer any excuse to lag behind.