TECH DIGEST – It does not need too much echoing to recognize how much the surge in social media participation has been since the ascendance of Dr Isa Ali Pantami unto the headship of NITDA and ultimately to become the current Minister of Communications and Digital Economy. The increased interest and surge is as a result of increased broadband penetration as well as increased government participation on these emergent technologies and applications, in fact the honorable minister himself is personally active on these platforms which made people increased interest through engaging him most times for good and a little times for bad and mischief but that’s what you get from serving humanity. What’s most important is that the job is being done.

However, in a developing country like Nigeria, while you’re developing the emergent technology sector which has resulted in the influx of many more people into the virtual social space, you would have to recognize the resultant negative effect especially as relates to the fact that education and awareness wise, the country’s citizenry cannot be said to have attained a maximal critical thinking stage. It is the understanding of this fact that makes Dr Pantami to make capacity building, mentorship and awareness critical pillars of his digital transformation. The idea is to have an all round technological as well as usage development so it can be geared towards national development.

The major way the digital agenda deploys all of these strategies is through engagement, it’s our most important tool, that’s why as much as Dr Pantami has engaged Nigerians enough to get them to embrace the digital technology as a tool for the advancement of democracy, free speech and progressive ideas, he equally knew at some point that the tech giants needed to be engaged about our peculiarities especially as relates to the majority’s ability to assimilate and process every class of information. This is the area we are at the moment and it seems to be going well to the extent that the resultant delivery will be a functional social media that’s aligned towards national development.

It is the foregoing and more than has made some of us to insist that the Digital Agenda is the most ideal formation for the 2023 where Dr Pantami must be utilized for a presidential cadre position. He has all it takes to partner with his colleague to ensure the consolidation of the solutions to the nations problems. The problems which are mostly misunderstood due to their being twisted by mischief makers to hoodwink the innocent lots whose level of understanding is pretty low to discern properly.

If you take the increased participation of the people of the Northern Nigeria into the virtual social space and their level of increased engagement, you will understand what I mean by Dr Pantami’s understanding of the major problem to be awareness and education. There has been increased voices speaking up from the northern Nigeria on national issues, thanks to his mentorship qualities. He has demonstrated rare mentorship skill by empowering able youths to take up critical national positions as in the case of Kashifu Inuwa, the current DG of NITDA.

The level of engagement down south has been very impressive and has resulted in the springing up of industries that are manufacturing chips and SIM cards for usage in Nigeria and the African continent, the states governments have been encouraged to develop their digital roadmaps to align with the national one and you know the southern states are more tech savvy than their northern counterparts even though the honorable minister is trying to ensure the expansion of the broadband penetration to ensure overall national digital development.

As 2023 approaches, it is our firm belief that the Digital Agenda is more than ideal and well placed to take over the nation with a view to being fully armed with what’s needed for consolidation of national progress.

Hashim Suleiman
oneheartnaija@yahoo.com

The post National Prosperity: Digital Agenda for Ideal Social Media Gains appeared first on Tech Digest News.

TECH DIGEST – The recent events of the country have showcased clearly how the digital age is a pretty difficult one to manage. Many thanks to the very much information that is out there and can be assessed by a simple sign up. This has also indicated how much challenging the task before President Buhari has been and how his successor must be a proven digital savvy individual in order that there can be a transition between war against indiscipline and corruption and a need to get the buy-in of the young Nigerians and their quick and digital expectations. This I’m sure resonates with what any reasonable youths wants to see going forward.
It has not been a secret especially for those who follow up with me that I had since thrown up the #DigitalAgenda23, a cause which presents Dr Isa Ali Pantami, the current Minister of Communications and Digital Economy as being worthy of piloting the affairs of the nation by being Buhari’s successor or at least being a Vice to a southern candidate should the argument for rotational presidency become fruitful.
In today’s piece however, I am highlighting his technical competence at looking the part with regards to the needed ideology for the kind of leadership required to solve the much problems that have been clearly understood now and that President Muhammadu Buhari is trying to solve by first allowing a democratic identification of them and initiating many policies that would attempt to solve them but this surely requires someone who would consolidate on them and that person has to be digitally inclined thus our initiation of the #DigitalAgenda23.

For every society that truly wishes to progress, there has to be deliberate effort at employing visionary and critical thinking in the analysis of issues and the possible way forward and this has to be employed devoid of emotions and sentiments. For some of us who have always had interest in the public space for over 6 years now, we can say categorically that we understood the current happenings of the country to be related to the young people’s hunger of seeing one of theirs attain leadership status so there can be familiar conversations. What some of them don’t understand however is that nations go through processes of evolution and those processes have to always be appreciated too. President Buhari is the nexus between those stages and we do understand that now is the time for a digital political ideology even though that also has to be done with caution because power is usually negotiated for and not to be snatched.

Furthermore, even before the current protests and agitations, some of us have known and identified the need for a digital transition but found it hard to find an icon that could champion such until the coming of Dr Isa Ali Pantami as DG, NITDA when we noticed that a man had emerged who looked the part owing to his age, education, moral uprightness and digital awareness. We put him under the radar and observed him until he vindicated us by working hard enough to merit a ministerial position where he on assumption to duty immediately hit the ground running as is typical with the expectation of a digital mind. He immediately reengineered the ministry to conform to the expectations of a society that truly requires transformation into a 21st century one. At this point we birthed the #DigitalAgenda23 and it was high time every right-thinking Nigerian young person keys into it and equally flies with it.

At the last count, Dr Pantami had commissioned over 500 digital economy projects around the country in about 4 years and appeared more than willing to do much more. Again, there had been about 68,000 individuals who had been trained to acquire digital skills. The man then capped up all these with his willingness to identify young visionaries and catapult them to stardom as in the case of the cerebral 40 year old Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi whom succeeded Dr. Pantami as the DG of NITDA. You can clearly see how he is willing to create and expand a sort of dynasty of young men who he will not stop at ensuring they achieve much more technically and politically. While Dr Pantami has merited the leadership of the National Digital Agenda come 2023, the expectation is for his dynasty members to look to see to their emergence in different leadership cadres be it legislature or State executives.

Finally, I am using this medium to congratulate the Nigerian youths who now appear hungry for leadership and incidentally have one of them who has distinguished himself for the task and this leaves the only hurdle to be a proper mobilization of the youth constituency with a view to accepting the leadership of Dr Pantami as the driver of such movement. The agenda is however subject to engagements and conversations going forward and we are very much open to it. We shall soon open the conversation up and we encourage every youth who regard themselves as fit and worthy of leadership to present themselves so we can all form a formidable team for the actualization of a progressive digital Nigeria through #DigitalAgenda23.

Hashim Suleiman can be reached via oneheartnaija@yahoo.com

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