…Takes campaign to Owerri
By Dele Ogbodo
The National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) has charged the Nigerian Professionals in the fields of Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Presidential Executive Order NO5 (E05) to ensure their relevance in sustainable economic development of the country.
Speaking at a one day presentation of an Indigenous Software for the establishment of Database of Nigerian Professionals (DNP) in line with the Presidential Executive Order N0.5 directive held at Owerri, the Imo State capital recently, the acting Director General of NOTAP, Dr. Idoreyin Imiyoho, said that the presentation of the app for collection of database of Nigerian professionals was to ensure that the Nigerian Professionals from the South-East Zone take advantage of the initiative.
Imiyoho, said that the Executive Order NO.5 was signed by the former President, Mohammdu Buhari on 2nd February, 2018 to set the nation on the path of viable and sustainable economic development with rapid transformation using the instruments and platforms of Science, Engineering and Technology.
She stated that the order is to ensure that all procuring authorities give preference to Nigerian companies and firms in award of contracts, in line with the public procurement act 2007. The Order also prevents the Ministry of Interior from issuing expatriate visas to foreigners who intend to come to Nigeria to undertake jobs that Nigerians have the competencies and capacities to undertake.
According to her, the President in addition, directed Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to engage indigenous professionals in the planning, design and execution of national security projects. She noted that the act also stipulates that where expertise is lacking, procuring entities will give preference to foreign companies and firms with demonstrable and verifiable plans for indigenous skills development prior to the award of such contracts.
The acting DG further stated that the development of such robust and interactive platform had become necessary to avail Nigerian professionals both at home and in Diaspora the opportunity of registering their profiles without physically visiting the Office.
In statement signed by Mr. Raymond Onyenezi Ogbu, on behalf of the Head, Public Relations and Protocol Unit (NOTAP), Mr. Solompn Nshem, quoted the Acting DG as saying that in line with the local content initiative of the then administration, the platform was developed by an indigenous Information Technology (IT) company, Cagewox Dot Net limited, adding that the platform is designed to capture, store, analyze and provide search and reporting capacities on the profiles and competencies of Nigerian professionals in Science, Engineering and Technology related fields.
She informed the participants that the national launching of the software was held in FCT, Abuja on May 9th 2022 and subsequently in Lagos on May 17th, 2022 for South-West geopolitical Zone and in Kano for the North-West geopolitical Zone in 2023 and now in Owerri for South-East geopolitical Zone to ensure that all Nigerian professionals take advantage of this brilliant initiative.
She decried the enormous amount of foreign currency spent to procure foreign technologies into the country especially software, noting that it became necessary to encourage the development and utilization of indigenous capacities by engaging an indigenous software Company called Cagewox Dot Net limited for the development of the app.
In her paper titled “Executive Order NO.5, NOTAP’s Role and the Journey so Far”, the Director Technology Acquisition and Research Coordination, (TARC) department of NOTAP, Mrs. Caroline Ani-Osuagwu said that as a regulatory agency, NOTAP would have approached some highly reputable foreign software companies to develop the application but decided to engage an indigenous software developer to fast-track local content in the development of Nigerian ICT ecosystem.
She said that the Office had engaged in inter-agency interactions/liaison through courtesy visits and workshops to sensitize Stakeholders on the importance of the Executive Order N05 to the sustainable economic development of the country. She added that NOTAP had so far registered over 2,500 professionals since the national launching of the software.
She revealed that the app is a self-service platform for professionals both at home and in the diaspora to sign-up from anywhere they reside and create profile accounts on the portal using any device. The portal according to her also provides an interface that allows professionals to activate their accounts especially professionals who were created from the backend via upload as well as legacy professional’s data migrated into the system.
Four technical papers were presented at the one-day programme which was well attended by Stakeholders from the South-East Zone of the country.
