Nigeria’s smart city not visible without improved infrastructure, power, says ICT expert

Samanvay Shrivasta, the Manager Sales, Bio-Enable Technologies Private Ltd., an ICT company has urged the Federal Government to improve infrastructure and power to the actualise the smart city ambition.

This is coming after Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s Acting President said Tuesday that smart cities initiative was key to building smart connections, inspire, empower people and deliver innovation in public services.

However, Shrivasta gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Wednesday on sidelines of Smart City Summit organised by the Federal Ministry of Communication in Abuja.

At the two-day event themed “Leveraging on Technology Solution to Improve Efficiency of Cities“, Shrivasta said that Nigeria has the potential to excel and accomplish the vision of building smart cities, as such achievement would upgrade IT application in the country.

“There is no country in the world that has a smart city without an efficient and regular supply of power combined with robust infrastructure in place,’’ he said, highlighting the features of smart city to include, smart bin monitoring, handheld terminal solution for ticketing and fares, smart parking management, mobile app, environment monitoring system and variable messaging display.

Others include energy management system, public address system, and emergency box.

Rex Abitogun, the Lead Consultant Management Edge Ltd. said that it would take the political will for the country to develop smart cities in the country.

Describing the event as an excellent one that came at the right time, adding that it would serve as a benchmark to develop the national goals, he said that the outcome of the meeting would give guidelines for ICT usage as it applied to the smart city.

“The population of the nation is growing every day; we just have to key in into the process of collecting, analysing and application of data.

“The only thing that can be a challenge is the political will. If there is political will, power and infrastructure can easily be improved appropriately,” he said.

Abitogun urged all Nigerians to key into the ongoing initiative, adding that collective efforts could assist Nigeria to join the league of countries with smart cities by the next 15 years.

The Smart Cities Summit initiative Nigeria (SCSN) is driven by the Federal Ministry of Communications in partnership with Afritex Initiative, an ICT firm.

It is designed to bring city administrators, urban developers, and emerging innovations together to develop scalable, replicable and measurable solutions to enhance resilience of Nigerian cities.

The two-day summit brought together multi-stakeholders that will among others take a critical look at the preparedness, unique challenges and emerging solutions necessary for sustainable smart city initiative in Nigeria.

The stakeholders participating at the summit include Huawei Nigeria, Hwelett Packard, Galaxy Backbone, MainOne Nigeria, SmartCities Plc.

Others include National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigeria Communication Commission, UN-Habitats.