 |
| Mrs. Omobola Johnson Nigeria's Minister of Communications Technology |
By Emma Okonji
DigitalSense Africa Media has been commended for its role in keeping Nigerians informed on latest development about internet governance through its yearly conferences.
The Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson and the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Eugene Juwah, gave the commendation during the 2014 edition of the Nigeria DigitalSENSE forum held in Lagos recently.
It was hailed for consistency in hosting the annual Internet Governance for Development (IG4D) and the Nigeria IPv6 Roundtable conference.
Johnson, who was represented by the Assistant Director, Computer Services at the ministry, Olufeko Olufemi, hailed DigitalSENSE Africa for the role it has played over the years in promoting internet governance and in creating awareness on the need for Nigerians to switch from IPv4 to IPv6, based on international recommendation.
She urged other bodies to emulate DigitalSENSE Africa and also encouraged industry stakeholders’ support for such a forum since government. According to her, the ministry alone cannot do the job of public awareness for Internet Governance.
The 2014 event was presided over by the Head, Computer Sciences, University of Lagos, Prof. Charles Uwadia.
Also speaking, Juwah, who was represented by the Deputy Director, Projects at NCC, Mr. Bashir Idris, commended the organisers for providing the relevant platform to address very topical issues such as the theme of this year’s forum, which is 'Internet Governance, eBusiness and Open Access in Nigeria.'
“We believe these are healthy for the quest to create the needed awareness among the stakeholders and beneficiaries of the potentials that abound in the industry,” Juwah said.
NCC, he added, has plans to be present and visible at the international level of discussions on all issues surrounding the ICT industry, stressing that the reason for this is to ensure that NCC impacts on discussions and decisions on global trends and regulations that evolve in the dynamic ICT space.
“This is why we are now paying more attention and participating in the activities of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which is the global regulator of the telecom industry,” he said.
The Internet Governance Forum, he emphasised, was particularly of interest to NCC, which have currently raised a team in the Commission that is taking part on all the Internet Governance Forum discussions taking place around Africa and beyond.
“The reason is to ensure that our interest as a nation is fully represented at these discussions and to also ensure that we have first-hand knowledge of how best to exploit the potentials that abound on the Internet. It is yet to be seen if the world would gravitate to accept common laws regarding access and use of the Internet,” he said.
Welcoming participants earlier to 2014 edition of the event, the Executive Director, Operations at DigitalSENSE Africa, Mrs. Nkemdilim Nweke, said the platform was created and nurtured to date as a think-tank platform where Nigerian internet stakeholders converge annually to raise and address germane issues concerning the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector with particular reference to Computing, Internet Governance-related issues towards helping to further advance Nigeria in the ever-rapidly advancing phenomenon of global ICT.
This year’s forum offers Internet Service Providers (ISPs), telecom operators, value added service providers as well as all other stakeholders, the enabling ground to articulate a stand on Internet governance issues.
Nweke reminded all young internet users to always be mindful of what they post on the internet because everything posted on the net is traceable to the author.
"Therefore, you are passionately advised to mind the stuff you post and the language with which such materials are posted on the internet for global consumption,” she said, stressing that it is important because the result of what people send or share online for global consumption remains their permanent signature and model of image which will definitely rub off on such individual in all future contacts.
No comments:
Post a Comment