ICT Stakeholders Laud NITDA’s Open Data Initiative

Stakeholders in the Information and Communication Technology sector have lauded the open data initiative, a policy guideline being proposed by National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA) and have said that it is crucial to the socio economic development of the country.

The stakeholders, who met in Port Harcourt agreed that for the nation to develop in line with national planning, some important data must be made available and open for easy accessibility and usage.

The forum maintained that NITDA should come up with principles that would encourage openness of data and also established guiding principle to Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for best global practice in data collation and usage.

In his welcome address, Dr. Vincent Olatunji, NITDA’s acting director general, who was represented at the forum by the Head of Standards, Guidelines and Regulations, Barrister Lazarus Ikoti informed the stakeholders that lack of data in Nigeria is hindering the development in the country.

Citing the example of insurgency in the country, Olatunji stressed that lack of data has made it difficult for the country to actually know the number of Internally Displaced persons (IDPs) in the country.

He said the issue of open data has drawn so much interest in the international community and Nigeria as a country cannot afford to lag behind.

While acknowledging the role of standard, guideline and regulations to the success of harnessing the benefit of ICT, Dr Olatunji stated that the Agency would begin enforcement of most of the guidelines the Agency has published in the past.‎