ICT in Nigeria/Africa - The risks and issues

I am carrying my placard today, for how Nigeria and the rest of Africa can harness the fantastic use of ICT and the Internet and also address all the “eSafety” issues associated with this technology. The promotion of this fantastic technology, as a driver for the development of Nigeria and Africa, comes with a lot of responsibility and needs to be addressed as part of its promotion.

I read with a lot of admiration, Gbenga Sesan , singing the song of ICT and its vital place in the development of Africa, an emerging continent, rich with milk and honey etc. I am very impressed, infact, I believe he is preaching the right sermon, but I also concerned about the minorities in Africa, especially Nigeria who use the Internet inappropriately, for fraud aka 149, locally known as “yahoo yahoo boys”. 10 years after the wide use of the Internet, with 60-80% of the West European population, connected to the Internet at home, school and work place, the West is beginning to address the “eSafety”, “ safe use of Internet and all related technologies”, “child protection” etc. - they are called different thing.s A minority are using the Internet for inappropriate things e.g. cyberbullying, Identity fraud, credit card frauds, child grooming, child porn etc. These issue has even become more increasingly important in the last 3years, with the promise of Internet on mobiles actually happening. Take for example Vodaphone’s latest slogan “Internet is now mobile”, O2’s iphone and all the latest sophisticated handset with high speed internet access. It is a lot more difficult for children and young people to be supervised and the risks are a lot more difficult to manage by adults, parents and carers.

As Africa is always catching up on all emerging technologies, what is Africa doing about inappropriate use of the Internet? Fortunately, we are not seeing the issues mentioned above, because of cultural difference, but Fraud, 419 and yahoo yahoo” is very prevalent in Africa, especially Nigeria. Unfortunately, these have very serious consequences on our reputation, western perception of doing business in Nigeria and with Nigerians, which is met with very serious caution.This is not doing us any favours. Foreign investment is adversely affected with the mistrust of Nigerians and doing business in Nigeria. Experts say that it is costing Nigeria millions in dollars in foreign investment. I read with a lot of dismay when I open my yahoo inbox, to find a lot of scams from Nigerians, asking for bank accounts for some “ ex-dictator’s loot”. This is just one of many things these fraudsters are dishonestly take money off people; they are also using chatrooms, children adoption, recruitment etc. I was at work one day when one of my colleagues received an email, referring to the CV she posted on monsterjobs, with a potential job offer in Nigeria, asking her to pay £2k to obtain work permit in Nigeria for a £200k a year job. Imagine that. With no job interview. We can no longer sit on the fence and say it is the west’s fault for falling for these scams. How can you not fall for a job offer? a promise of a child up for adoption? Or even a lonely heart in a chatroom looking for a soul mate?

How do we learn from the West, on inappropriate use of the Internet? I recently read, with a lot of joy the massive increase in the number of mobile phone subscribers in Nigeria, about 35M active subscribers but I am also very worried about the emergence of sophisticated handsets that make internet browsing easy on mobiles. If we can not control “yahoo yahoo boys” and 419 in Internet cafes, how do we plan to address accessible Internet on mobile? An average Nigerian living in Nigeria carries at least 3 mobile phones at any point in time.

I am not a doomsayer so I have a few things in mind, to help address these issues. Experience in the West has shown that eSafety is a wholistic approach; it affects everyone and should be taken seriously in a sphere of the society. It starts with the Government. The government needs to commission research looking at how This technology is being used by all and how consumers, children and young people can be protected from the risk of the using the Internet, namely contact (grooming, bullying etc), content (adult content) commerce (advertising, privacy etc.). Policies, regulations and acts needs to be put in place, to ensure that ISP, service providers, Internet and mobile operators can operate within the confines of esafety when developing propositions. Self regulation is also effective, let the operators fund, setup and agree code of conducts on how these risks and issues are addressed. Let them commit to development of tools and resources for the consumers, so that they can protect themselves and their family. Let “eSafety” be central to their entire proposition and an integral part of their services and offers. In the Uk and the rest of Europe, there are plans to integrate eSafety in the school curriculum and lesson plans are being created by NGO, education and corporate bodies for trainee teachers and teachers, to equip them with the necessary skills to educate children in the classrooms. The parents and carers are not left out of this. There is a drive for operators and service providers to effectively communicate to this group the risks and issues associated with using their services and more importantly, how to protect themselves and their families.

P.S: What the heck is wrong with Nigeria and company registration? I am trying to register a consulting company in Nigeria and I have been told I need to have a postgraduate degree, because “consulting is a specialist area”. I was gobsmacked at the rubbishness (Is this a word?) of the whole thing. You can register any company in the UK in 5mins on the frecking Internet, without even any GCSE grades.

To make the 75th anniversary of the BBC, a number of articles are being published on the theme" Freedom of speech" and Wole Soyinka's article of on.