Benjamin Babine, Abuja
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, has inaugurated two committees with the mandate of reviewing, collating, commissioning and communicating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects in local languages for Nigerians.
The Minister explained that committees, ‘Completed Projects Review Committee’ and ‘Committee on Media Engagement in Local Languages,’ are part of efforts to achieve President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision of a digital Economy.
The inauguration which took place on Tuesday in Abuja saw the appointments of Ayuba Shuaibu, Executive Secretary, Universal Service Provision Fund, and Dr. Usman Gambo Abdullahi, Director, Information Technology Infrastructure Solutions at the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) as the chairpersons of the committees.
The membership of the committees were drawn from all of the five agencies supervised by the Ministry: Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), NITDA, Galaxy Backbone, Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT) and Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST).
In his speech, Pantami stated that while the Ministry and agencies had successfully complemented a number of projects across the geopolitical zones in the country, the existence of these projects have not been sufficiently communicated to the public in local languages.
He said: “There has not been so much awareness creation on the presence of these projects among Nigerians who are the ultimate beneficiaries.”
The Minister stressed that the responsibility of the Ministerial Committee on Completed Projects Review and Commissioning is to collate all the laudable projects and organise a virtual commissioning in order to bring them to the consciousness of Nigerians.
About the Committee on Media Engagement in Nigerian Languages, Pantami said the committee will work to ensure awareness creation about the projects, their locations and benefits to Nigerians using local languages such as Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba and Fulfude spoken in the zone where the projects are sited.
The Minister went on to task the committees to work in synergy of purpose towards delivering the national assignments. He added that he and the agency heads would provide necessary support to the committees towards delivering on the mandate.
Others present at the inauguration were the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta; Kasifu Abdullah, Director General, NITDA; and Dr. Abimbola Alale, Managing Director, NIGCOMSAT.