By Aaron Ukodie
Public and private sector experts and top security officials converged on Lagos Tuesday to brainstorm on a roadmap for the use of mobile big data for economic development and social engineering, and how to turn the resource for commercial benefit.
The army, air force, navy, police, state security, and Ministries and government agencies such as Galaxy Backbone, Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency, the Nigerian Population Commission, the Ministry of Interior all had representatives. Mobile Network Operators also had representatives at the two-day event, which ends today.
The two-day discussions, which have the theme: Developing A Roadmap for the Use of Mobile Big Data for Official Statistics in Nigeria is being coordinated by the Ministry of Communications.
The meeting is a follow to the 2017 report of the 5th National Council on Communication Technology (NCCT), which specifically considered how to harness ICT as the main tool for economic recovery and growth.
It also follows the inauguration of the National Technical Working Group (TWG) on May 8, 2019 by the Ministry of Communication, after its approval at the 2017 NCCT meeting that took place in Katsina.
The 2017 report pushes for the Nigerian government to recognize the immense potentials of the use of mobile positioning data for official statistics and to support the development of national frameworks and platforms for the adoption of the economic recovery and growth plan (ERGP) of the federal government.
The discussants are also looking at a possible policy framework for mobile big data collation, aggregation, analytics and the possibility of a centralized housing and management of mobile data.
Four sub-groups, which were constituted at the May 2019 inauguration are tackling various aspects of the workshop theme and their conclusions would form the basis for developing a roadmap for the implementation of mobile big data projects in Nigeria.
The four groups include those of policy and regulation, capacity building and sensitization, data applicability and technical and commercial models; and discussions are also centered on data privacy and protection of personalized data.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Communication, Mr Musa Istifanus, who declared the discussions open on Tuesday, also expressed hope that issues such as data, partnership models between licensed mobile network operators ( MNO) and government, development of a pool of data science skill sets and the use of new methodologies for statistics and data analytics by public institutions and businesses would addressed.
Istifanus said the change and development that Nigeria yearns for in the 21st century is data dependent and “we need open access to data across government ministries and parastatals to achieve integration in the society”.
Programme facilitator, Bernard Ewah of Positium who gave lead presentations on Mobile Big Data Analytics-Building Nigeria’s Data Economy and Mobile Phone Projects Use Cases made passionate argument for the importance of mobile data analytics for national development and social engineering.
He said, it was time Nigeria takes its rightful place in the comity of nations who are making strides in the use of mobile big data analytics for national development, adding that “Data is key to human development and endeavor… and all data generated consciously or unconsciously is useful for human development”.
Ewah, citing cases of impact of mobile big data analytics Estonia and ongoing studies by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Kenya and Ghana warned of the danger of lack of use of mobile big data analytics to national life and security.
There is a global movement around the use of mobile big data for development, and small African countries are taking the lead ahead of Nigeria, according to Ewah.
The meeting is expected to come up, on Wednesday, with far-reaching decisions that would be forwarded to the federal government to aid it in formulating a final policy on mobile big data analytics and the establishment of a National Mobile Big Data Analytics, which the Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, at the Communication Ministry, Dr M. N Nwachukwu said had been approved by the federal government.
