The NICTIP Initiative: A Sustainable Transformational Agenda in Nigeria.

The proper planning and implementation of a feasible national integration strategy is the first step in building a nation.

Governments over the years often employ political access as a national integration index to unite the diverse ethnic nationalities constituting her nation.

According to Dr. Abdullahi Adamu; “There are other indices of national integration without which access to political power would be meaningless in the long run. Our access to economic opportunities is as important as our access to political power. Political access is vertical and therefore admits only such number as can be accommodated at the top of the ladder at any point in time. On the other hand, economic access is horizontal and, therefore, has more room for more people than political access”. [1]

Inspired by the ideology above, the NICTIP Initiative is a workable economic development model for all the Nigerian States, including the FCT. It is also a handbook for potential investors to maximize economic access as a national integration index in fostering a sustainable transformational agenda in Nigeria.

Both indices are dependent on each other; the status of the political access directly affects the economic access and vice versa.

Political access entails the implementation of policies and programmes that synchronize the diverse ethnic groups in the nation by ensuring the participation of all the ethnic nationalities, while economic access entails the establishment of investments, businesses and industries with well-representation of higher ratio of all the diverse ethnic groups in a country as participants in order build a multicultural society with peaceful coexistence.
So far, the use of policies and programmes such as; federal character policy, establishment of Unity schools, creation of NYSC, sports, education systems, and others have been unable to integrate the diverse ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.

In the recognition of the strength in our diversity in Nigeria, it is high time we adopted economic access as a tool to unite the diverse ethnic groups by establishing ICT industrial parks in all the Nigerian States with participants/workers from different ethnical backgrounds being posted to serve in the geo-political zones other than theirs.

The proper planning and effective implementation of this capital project will foster a sense of national consciousness among the diverse ethnic groups in Nigeria. The aftermath is national unity and respect for racial differences, encouraged inter-ethnic marriage, and tolerance of other ethnic groups that can ultimately foster the revitalization of the rapidly degrading value system in Nigeria.

If there is unity, there will be peace, and if peace exists, there will be progress and the aftermath will be a sustainable transformational agenda in all the Nigerian States. The NICTIP initiative is therefore a workable transformational model for the Nigerian Government, by practically exploiting economic access as the national integration index as recommended in this written work.

I hereby present to you, The NICTIP Initiative – The establishment of a National ICT Industrial Park in each Nigerian State. My goal is to have Nigeria as a true “giant” of Africa in terms of a self-reliant economy.

Conclusively, there is an urgent need for a transportation revolution in Nigeria, in order to foster the phenomenon of urbanization of various communities targeted for micro-industrialization and modern manufacturing technology in an attempt to create a pathway for a sustainable transformational agenda.

This investor’s handbook contains the action plans that will help facilitate the all-round transformation of Nigeria from its current state to a developed nation.
It addresses the workable model of some tested solutions that worked for the Asian Tigers in actualizing an industrial revolution via a sustainable economic growth.

By Jawolusi Oluwaseun Solomon - #PediakAuthor
(The Representative of Ekiti State at the Labour Room National Development TV Programme Organized by the Nigeria Rebirth Project).

Source: www.nictip.com