By Dele Ogbodo
The Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami, has said Nigeria must embrace Open Data Initiative (ODI) to be able to grow and become globally competitive.
According to him, for Nigeria to become integral part of the ongoing digital and data revolution, there is need to embrace open data initiative and improve data literacy of its citizenry, especially now that data is the single most important driver of innovation in the 21st century.
The Minister made the disclosure at the South-south zone of the Nigerian open data conference, which held in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital.
Pantami, who spoke through the Permanent Secretary was also represented by the Director of Planning Research and Statistics of the Ministry, Mrs. Nonye Nwachukwu, noted that it is imperative for Nigeria to key into the trend to become relevant in the global community.
‘‘Data in the 21st century is the single most Important driver of innovation, competiveness and growth, therefore, for Nigeria to become integral part of data revolution there is the need to embrace Open Data Initiative and improve data literacy of its citizenry, Data is only valuable when it is being used to solve a problem or create opportunities for people.” he added.
According to the minister, the initiative involves putting online of non-sensitive government information such as agricultural prices, vehicle registration, data online as a national resource in machine readable, reusable and accessible formats for economic growth and the advancement of transparency and accountability in the delivery of services.
Mrs. Uwa Suleiman, Spokesperson for the Minister, in a statement made available to press quoted Pantami, as underscoring the theme of the conference, adding that it was designed to build capacity of the supply side of the open data initiative and to share information on its action plan.
He further explained that the essence of the forum, was to enable stakeholders brainstorm on the review and validation of open data policy document for approval by Federal Executive Council (FEC).
The ministry according to the Minister, had since begun the process of implementing the open data initiative in 2012, in line with the prescripts of the extant National ICT policy, and since then considerable progress has been recorded.
To implement the initiative, Pantami noted that MDAs have an important role to play, including development and operation of data web pages to interface with central data.gov.ng portal and continuous digitization and uploading of high priority data sets in accordance with format that will be agreed by the conference.
The ministry had conducted the conference in the South-east at Enugu and North-west at Kano, where stakeholders enriched the document contributions.