Benue State government is to establish an International Food Basket Market in Makurdi, Governor Samuel Ortom has stated.

He announced this today at the Benue Peoples House Makurdi during a courtesy call on him by members of the National Association of Yam Farmers, Processors and Marketers.

Governor Ortom said government had began negotiations with members of the community at Agan in Makurdi local government area for acquisition of about 500 hectares of land for establishment of the market which would have state of the art facilities.

Governor Ortom urged the agriculture commissioner with his Trade and Investment counterpart to liaise with the Association’s President to look into requests and proposals they had brought for consideration.

The Governor pledged his administration’s readiness to support the association to carry out its activities, saying he was impressed by the National president’s struggles over the years to succeed despite challenges.

Earlier, the President, National Association of Yam Farmers, Processors and Marketers, Professor Simon Irtwange, solicited support that could help to establish yam confectionary products as empowerment strategy for Benue women and youths.

Professor Irtwange called on the state government to support private sector investment in production of cartons for yam export packaging as there was no such facility in North Central Nigeria.

He also appealed for the optimisation of the Zaki Biam International Yam Market in addition to other logistics support to facilitate activities and programmes of the Association.

By Jimin Geoffrey

The Lagos State Government has disclosed its intention to empower more than 5,000 Coconut Value Chain entrepreneurs through its Coconut Renewal Initiatives such as Eko Coconut Bread Initiative, Coconut Processing Inputs and Training/Capacity Building of Youths and Women, as part of planned activities to mark the Year 2020 World Coconut Day celebration in the State on Wednesday, 2nd September 2020.

The State Acting Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms. Abisola Olusanya, who disclosed this today at Ikeja, noted that these activities are part of the efforts of the State Government to arouse interest in Coconut and increase public awareness on the socio-economic importance of its value chain.

She added that there are a lot of untapped economic potentials in the Coconut industry which need to be exploited, hence the need for the State Government to create awareness about the produce.

Olusanya opined that the State would take advantage of this year’s celebration with the theme ‘Coconut in the 21st Century Economy’, to showcase the many potentials available in the Coconut value chain and how to essentially tap from its wealth.

According to her, “It is of utmost importance to sustain the awareness on the development of the Coconut value chain as it remains one of the Agricultural crops capable of ameliorating the long-term effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the economy”.

“We will be distributing improved Coconut seedlings to the representatives of Coconut growers, presentation of Certificates to participants at the just concluded Arts and Crafts training (Waste to Wealth Initiative) and exhibition of Coconut products ranging from edible to non-edibles”, she stated.

The Acting Commissioner further disclosed that a symposium by a plant geneticist and a retired Director with the Nigeria Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR), Dr. Joshua Olusesan Odewale, will be held to further bring awareness to the potentials that have not been fully tapped in the Agriculture sub-sector.

In her words “We will use this year’s World Coconut Day to create a robust relationship among Coconut Value Chain actors, Service Providers and Institutions in an effort to make them contribute significantly to the process of Making Lagos a 21st Century Economy”.

“It is important to sustain awareness on the development of the Coconut value chain especially as it is one of the Agricultural crops capable of ameliorating the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy and food production”, Olusanya noted.

She revealed that the event, which will hold at the Farm Service Centre, Oko-Oba, Agege, will be in accordance with the physical distancing rules of the State Government.

LASG

ForAGreaterLagos

Local cloud infrastructure provider, Routed, has announced that it now offers Container Service Extension (CSE) within VMware Cloud Director, bringing Kubernetes as a Service (KaaS) to South Africa for the first time. Andrew Cruise, managing director of Routed, says that through these new extensions, cloud providers enable customers with seamless container-deployment, while enjoying a new revenue stream.

“We are proud of this achievement, which is another first in South Africa. VMware’s VMware Cloud Director is already a leading cloud service-delivery platform, which helps manage cloud-service businesses. Extensions such as Kubernetes enable cloud providers to broaden their services offered such as cloud migration, data protection, hybrid connectivity and even turnkey container services. It also makes the hosting choice irrelevant for the end user, bringing it into the foreground for the cloud provider.”

“This also means that the focus moves away from what the infrastructure can provide, rather placing more importance on value adds such as Platform as a Service, uptime guarantees, network interoperability, and competitive pricing,” says Cruise.

Dave Funnell, VMware Senior Manager: Cloud Provider Business, says: “Kubernetes are the building blocks of the digitally-driven business environment today. The work Routed has done to provide KaaS within VMware Cloud Director is significant as it enables local organizations to use the cloud in more disruptive ways. The agility delivered through these containers when combined with the elasticity of VMware Cloud Director will not only deliver increased operational efficiency but offer unique monetisation opportunities.”

Cruise says that IT teams are becoming increasingly DevOps-led, which has resulted in a need to deploy applications and services faster, driving sweeping automation in the infrastructure stack: “Kubernetes, although a fantastic tool for orchestrating dozens of microservices, still require expertise and effort when it comes to scheduling, network configuration, and updates. Thankfully, VMware works closely with cloud providers to not only enable customers with an enterprise-ready managed Kubernetes stack, but also make it available within familiar virtual datacenter constructs that customers love about their cloud providers.”

Our paths first crossed eyeball-to-eyeball on November 30, 2016 and it is now 33 months after that inaugural meeting. It was a meeting where Isa Ali Ibrahim would reel out the blueprint of how his public service should be assessed. How well has this man, more commonly known as Pantami, justified his appointment as the Director General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to qualify for an upgrade as the Minister of Communications?

Is it another reward for cronyism or another pedestal for a ‘flavoured’ trajectory to the government house in Gombe State, which some pundits believe is the ultimate goal of Pantami in 2023? There is no denying the obvious of how Pantami made himself very popular on Twitter. He creamed off great following by popularising Islamic messages even in the midst of also riding on the crest of gaining traction with his mandate as DG NITDA.
Besides, no one is in doubt that Pantami also strategically positioned himself as a close consociate of President Muhammadu Buhari’s family. For this singular public perception, not a few industry colleagues seemed wary of him, while some others thought of him as a favoured link-bridge into the inner recesses of the President’s mind. So his nomination and subsequent approval as a Minister in the cabinet of President could be a chirp of the conspiracy theory about his influence in the national government of the day.
Before I delve into the various highs and lows of Pantami’s stewardship as the DG NITDA, let me whet your appetite with the piece I did on him in 2016. And the public is welcome to jointly access him based on this article which placed him in the public spotlight. The article is aptly titled “Pantami: Quest To Remove NITDA From Cesspit Of Sleaze” Enjoy it……
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is under a ‘siege’ as the new Director General, Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), picks up the gauntlet to clean the Augean Stables. In this report Olubayo Abiodun captures the inner mind of Pantami’s new direction for NITDA

Director-General, NITDA, Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami

LIKE the sea billows roll, there is a roaring storm that is tearing down at all and sundry in NITDA. A new ‘Sheriff’ at the IT Infrastructure agency, Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), is bearing his fangs at those who have turned the agency to a contract awarding institution.
The date was Wednesday, 30 November, as he held the microphone at the 8th edition of West Africa Convergence Conference (WACC 2016), organised by Knowhow Media and Market Intelligence International Limited, at the Ikeja Sheraton Hotel, his mien and simplistic dress belied the explosive expletives thrown at certain patrons and actors in NITDA who had otherwise derailed the IT infrastructure agency from its core focus of regulating IT infrastructure deployment in Nigeria.

Pantami had a justification for the hot leads fired at the NITDA contractors and actors. No sooner had he resumed at NITDA, he was besieged with countless numbers of proposals beautifully crafted to ensure various cuts from the budget of the IT Infrastructure development agency. But for the new ‘Sheriff’ at NITDA, it is no longer business as usual.
NITDA is not a contract awarding agency. This Ph.D. holder and until lately a Professor of Computer Information System at the Islamic University of Madinah was miffed that an otherwise IT infrastructure agency had become the ‘honey pot’ of sort for some contractors. To him every contract must support the core mandate of NITDA.

He did not hide the fact that the job at hand is enormous and daunting. To successfully prosecute this mandate, Pantami said that he would seek the support of all stakeholders to be able to achieve positive return of NITDA to its core mandate of regulating IT infrastructure deployment in Nigeria. He has offered an Olive branch to the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP). In his mind, NITDA ought to have a desk at BPP which will serve as the clearing house for IT infrastructure procurements.

Before now, he said that the relevant sections of NITDA Act had been violently violated by those who smartly bypass NITDA because there was no proper checks and balances in policing the procurement procedures.
At the top of his head, Pantami had studied the relevant legislations that established the agency and the various bylaws existing to give NITDA its operating muscle. Beyond looking at the legislations, Pantami also has something cooking in his mind. He wants to draw up a strategic framework that would enhance the return of NITDA to its core mandate. And in doing this, he has engaged his predecessors among other stakeholders in dialogues in order to appreciate the landmines strewn around his pathways in the organisation.

According to him, the focus of his regime is to take NITDA out of the cesspits of corruption which had bedeviled the agency. Though, he did not dwell on the content of the Audit Report which uncovered sleaze in NITDA, it is also not clear if heads will roll on account of the report. It is also not clear if former officials and current staff in the agency will be guest of the anti-graft Commission at any time. Already, the new helmsman has his hands full with petitions. Rather than dwell on that, Pantami seems to prefer to direct his energy at revamping NITDA to focus more on its core mandate and allowing the anti-graft Commission and other agencies of government to deal with the other issues.

IT REGULATION

“If I am to talk on IT Regulation, particularly since I am here to represent NITDA, I will give more emphasis to the responsibility of NITDA when it comes to IT Regulation. What I have been saying actually, even during discussions with my Management staff, NITDA has responsibility over IT Regulation in Nigeria. So in this situation, we can have regulatory body over Communications Technology because you have Information Technology and you have Communications Technology Our colleague in the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) are the regulatory body over Communications Technology but NITDA is the regulatory body over Information Technology.

“So our sole responsibility as encapsulated in our mandate is to regulate IT in Nigeria. And this is something that has been neglected. Why? Because the scope of our mandate; the mandate is very wide. It is difficult for you to pursue all at once. There must be strategic plan, you must get your priority and preference right so that you determine what you need to place emphasis on. Because of this what I want you to understand first and foremost is that NITDA is the regulatory body for IT in Nigeria and this is clearly stated in NITDA Act 2007.
“If you look at Section 6 subsection 1, 2, 3 and 4 Roman Numerals 1, 2, 3 and 4,Section 6, Number 1 clearly stated that NITDA has the responsibility of developing framework, guidelines and standards for IT deployment and maintenance in Nigeria. Section 6, subsection 2 clearly stated that NITDA has a responsibility of advising government for example advising the private and public sectors on IT deployment and maintenance. So NITDA is the regulatory body of IT and it is also the sole adviser of public and private sectors when it comes to IT. You can say that NITDA is the advisory body of IT deployment, IT maintenance and IT innovation in Nigeria. So based on the mandate, whoever wants to deploy any IT facilities in the private or public sectors should approach NITDA seeking for advice on how to deploy.
“But when it comes to public sector or MDAs, NITDA is also the clearing house for IT deployment for all MDAs. This is according to the circular of the Federal Government which was released on April 18, 2006 from the Office of the Secretary to the Federal Government. That circular emphasizes strongly that any MDA that intends to deploy IT gadgets in Nigeria must approach NITDA seeking for clearance Certificate of Compliance. That is what the circular says. Meaning that NITDA is the clearing house for IT deployment in MDAs in Nigeria. So this is another indication that NITDA is the regulatory body of IT, where? In Nigeria.
“Still on IT Regulation, if you look at Section 17, Roman Numeral 1 also states that any Ministry, Department or Agency that deploys IT without seeking for clearance from NITDA commits an offense. Section 17, subsection 2, clearly stated that that person for example the executive officer, or any other officer as the case may be, should be fined or be imprisoned for 1 year and if repeats the same mistake, he should be imprisoned for three years. And these are some of our mandate that have been neglected and many people are not aware of this. And which is very important. “IT Regulation is very important. You cannot develop your capacity without Regulation. You cannot promote, develop and integrate your local content without regulation.
Capital Flight.

“If you look at the amount of money we spend annually on the importation of goods and services of ICT you will be amazed. It is approximately around US$2.6billion annually and this amount is projected to reach around US$147 billion in 2020. It is almost 6 times our current budget. And that is why we are putting more pressure on our local currency (The Naira). There is no strategy on developing our local content. We are focused on sourcing forex and importing something into our nation without cross-checking whether we have it in our nation locally or not. Because we are more addicted and inclined to anything foreign. That is the mentality that we have. And some of the goods that are being imported into our nation are not up to the standard of what is being produced at home, but we only admire other nations whatever they produce we patronise, but whatever is made in Nigeria, we neglect it. Without regulation, you cannot in any way promote our local content; you cannot in any way encourage and motivate people to patronize it. Look at our local industries all over, they are complaining about patronage. Why?
Lesson from India.

“We all admire the effort of India when it comes to software, but they started planning on how to strengthen their local content since around 1967. But today, because of their patronage in local content, and their expertise, India is generating around US$147million annually from software alone. And this local content creates 2.7million direct jobs annually in India. And the percentage of software export only in India is around 77 per cent of all the export they have in the ICT sector. So this is something that we should start preparing and strategizing ourselves towards, otherwise as long as we are not ready to develop our local content, then, for sure it will be difficult for us to strengthen our local currency. You can hardly see a nation where people look for foreign exchange (forex) day in day out like in Nigeria. This is why we are not producing anything and even if we produce, we are not patronizing, we only admire what is imported from outside without even looking at the quality.

Boosting Naira Value

“If we want to reduce this pressure on our local currency, to strengthen it, we have to give priority to what we have at home. We cannot look for anything abroad, except we don’t have any alternative available in our nation. But as long as we have an alternative here it is better for us to prefer what we need here, what we manufacture here and what we produce at home. That should be our priority. And we know that we have a local content policy and this local content policy that is the Office of Local Content deployment here in Nigeria, the office was established under NITDA Act of 2007. If you look at Section 7, Roman Numeral 3 clearly stated that NITDA is what you can call a semi legislator that government allows it to legislate, to advise, formulate laws on IT regulation and deployment in Nigeria.

Prince Bayo

More awards have come the way of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and its Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta in recognition of the critical role the Commission has been playing in keeping Nigerians and businesses connected since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

Two of the awards, ‘Human Rights Telecoms Defender’ for the EVC and ‘Human Rights Guard’ for the Commission, as a corporate entity, were presented by Wheel of Hope Human Rights Foundation (WHHRF), a frontline Nigerian Non-Governmental Organisation. The third award, ‘Icon of a Greater Nigeria’ was presented to the EVC by the Youth Coalition Against Corruption (YOCAC), a coalition of Nigerian youths from all walks of life.

Coincidentally, WHHRF and YOCAC adduced similar reasons for finding the EVC and Commission deserving of the recognitions.

Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Dr. Ikeckukwu Adinde, who received the awards on behalf of the EVC, appreciated the organisations for their gestures, noting that the three awards will serve as an encouragement to the Commission to continue to strengthen effective, fair and transparent regulation of the telecommunications industry.

“On behalf of the EVC and Chief Executive of NCC, we thank you for these recognitions. These latest awards will add to the long list of laurels in the NCC’s kitty. There are many initiatives by the Commission, to ensure increased connectivity, improved quality of service and consumer rights protection,” Adinde said while restating the NCC’s commitment to consumer-centric initiatives that promote digital inclusion and advance the digital economy vision of the government.

In his remarks, Chairman, WHHRF, Jide Abdulazeez, said the presentation of the two awards by the Foundation was in recognition of “the leading role the Commission has been playing in sustaining access to telecoms services throughout the period of the lockdown, following the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.”

He added that the role of NCC in making the 112 Emergency Number available to Nigerians to report COVID-19-related cases and other emergencies; as well as its efforts in consistently protecting the rights and privileges of telecoms consumers, through effective resolutions of service-related complains, are part of the reasons for finding the Commission worthy of the awards.

In the same vein, the National Coordinator, YOCAC, Dahiru Umaru, said, “the Icon of Greater Nigeria Award conferred on the EVC is in recognition of his leadership qualities and achievements which have engendered quality regulatory supervision of the telecoms industry by ensuring that telecom consumers are not unduly shortchanged, especially during the critical stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

According to him, the Commission has been contributing immensely to the growth of the Nigerian economy by ensuring robust telecom infrastructure, making it possible for Nigerians to leverage social media and other digital platforms to ventilate their views against corrupt practices in order to ensure good governance in the country.
Signed:

Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde