By Omobayo Azeez
Isa Pantami, minister of communication and digital economy has inaugurated two inter-agency committees with the mandate to review, collate, commission and communicate in local languages ICT projects implemented for Nigerians under President Muhammadu Buhari.
The two ministerial committees, which are Completed Projects Review Committee and Committee on Media Engagement in Local Languages are chaired by Ayuba Shuaibu, executive secretary, Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) and Usman Gambo Abdullahi, director, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) respectively.
Members of the committees are drawn from all the five agencies supervised by the ministry including the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), NITDA, Galaxy Backbone, Nigerian Communication Satellite (NIGCOMSAT) and Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST).
Pantami stated that while the ministry and the agencies had successfully complemented a number of projects across the geo-political zones in the country which have great benefits to Nigerians, the existence of these projects have not been sufficiently communicated to the public in local languages.
While inaugurating the committee on Tuesday in Abuja, Pantami stressed that there has not been so much awareness creation on the presence of these projects among Nigerians who are the ultimate beneficiaries.
In concrete terms, the minister said the responsibility of the Ministerial Committee on Completed Projects Review and Commissioning is to collate all the laudable projects and then organise a virtual commissioning in order to bring them to the consciousness of Nigerians.
On the responsibility of the Ministerial Committee 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.
Pantami further tasked the committee members to work with a sense of synergy and purpose towards delivering the national assignments within the timelines set.
He added that he and the heads of agency would provide necessary interventions and supports to the committees towards delivering on their terms of reference whenever needed.
Present at the inauguration were Umar Danbatta, the executive vice chairman of NCC; Kasifu Abdullah, director General, NITDA; and Abimbola Alale, managing director, NIGCOMSAT.
