I've searched as far as I could to get a named association on programming/software development in Nigeria, and have not yet come across one.
Actually, this came into me when my boss asked me of conferences/workshops, strictly software development/engineering, that I can attend just like others in other sections of the organization.
Please friends, if there is any let's shout it out. If there is none, I think we can start something.
We need this to setup standards in this priceless field of ours. Let's come together and show the nation how important we are. We cant be talking about ICT without programming. Now, where is the programming and the programmers in this developing nation of ours.
Please, replies to this topic will help us.

Americans and Indians are not better,

There is software developer group of Nigeria (SDG), Nigeria computer society (NCS) but to be sincere these are expensive and have their requirements are high. May be we can start ours for young and professional developers. Don't you think so?

@Paule I am of the school of thought that if you're not given the opportunity to express urself, create one. You're right. Let's create a group of ours, hunh?

good idea. i'm with you guys

Thanks for the support on the idea of having an association in Nigeria to create practical standard in software development in Nigeria (and I mean strictly on Software Development).

Yes we can start! Please I'll like us to start putting ideas together on how to go about this.

Introducing myself:
Name: Mustapha I. Abdullahi
Location: ICT Centre, Federal University of Technology Minna
Designation: Programmer (VB,JAVA,PHP/MySQL, actually does not matter)
email: danlamiit@yahoo.com
Mobile: 07038795117

Thanks for your cooperation to move Nigeria forward.

Mustapha being the lead, we will follow

Americans and Indians are not better,

and who said they are?  Aren't they human like you?  No need to go there. It stinks to high heavens (at least to me) of envy.

What are the goals of our association?  How much will (or will'nt) it cost? What kind of structure do you want for the association?  Will it dictate pay?  Is it more like a user group where ppl gather on a regular basis for the purpose of learning?  I think if you start by brainstorming on the above among others, you stand a better chance of getting others enticed. 

I for one am not in favor of any association, at least in the way Nigerians see associations (salary-fixing, power-grabbing, etc) but am in favor of more like a user group where we meet on a regular basis for the purpose of information diseemination on latest trends and learning.

yawa-ti-de, thank you very much for your marvelous contribution. We will work on those points you mentioned, leaving room for more ideas.
Once again, thank you very much. Surely, we are making a headway.

I hoped to instigate this, starting with real-time chat on irc, where we could discuss our views , nobody seems to pay attention.

With a lot of areas that need automation and programming that will make life easier, make businesses more efficient, government more transparent and money for the developers or programmers I find it hard to understand why we would rather expend energy on association than walk the talk.

Programmers cannot continue to talk about what they can do, they should start doing so that Nigerians and the world can see the many good things that they have done or are doing.

With a massive population, untapped market and many business processes begging for attention we cannot afford to engage in an association that may most likely be used to fight for contracts, seek power or play politics.

Things will evolve on its own, for now, let us get to work and deliver useful applications to those that need them.

Afam, have you spent time to evaluate the impact of your profession on your immediate society? How many people know what you do and respect you for doing it? When you were growing up as a programmer/software developer, was there any scenario whereby someone underrated your work for foreign ones?
Actually, we are at work and part of the work is every good step taken to standardize the work. With this development of forming an Association of programmers in Nigeria (without any mission of fighting for contracts, seeking power or playing politics) those massive population, untapped market and many business processes begging for attention (as you stated) will be known to people interested in the field, and they will see it as industrial challenge thereby increasing the productivity of the nation as a whole.
And note; "even if things evolve on its own", sometimes, facilitation is inevitable.
Thank you very much for your contribution.

not a bad idea

Afam - i actually agree with you that we really need to start something.

on my own side i belive since the internet has made the world a global village then we should begin with a virtual Association of Programmers that is to have an online forum where we can meet regularly and discuss issues about us.

i personally have that thought in mind to start a forum like this in Abuja which we already began since last november and present we have about 15 members all PHP and ASPx programmers here in abuja.

we even went ahead sometime ago to see the DG NITDA for recognition which they offer us warm reception and encourage us.

i move the motion to start this Associate with immediate alacriti!

Introducing My Self!

Name: Aliyu A. Umar
Location: Abuja
Occupation: Webmaster/Presenter.
Platform: Windows/Linux (open source).

Email: info_handyx01@yahoo.com
website: www.handyxinfotech.net, www.handyxinfotech.net/blog, www.handyxinfotech.net/chat

you are all welcome to join us if you reside in Abuja.

Good idea guys.

I'm with you.

For the java programmers, u cud also be part of our JUG on w w w.naijadukes.net.

The starting point to this is first asking how good Nigerian Programmers collab with themselves. This is a starting point. Even after brainstorming on all the wonderful ideas, once there can't be a good team or partnership or communion, the whole thing is [b]NEVE[/b]R going to work out.

Can we collab

Its all about being competent in the field and providing technical means to build the society with at least some levels of training for those that doesn't have the opportunity to embark on the field but have so much interest in it.In Yankee, everybody is using computer not because they want to use it but because the can afford it.

As regards to this, i believe in a forum where programmers can exchange ideas and even take up self-imposed projects to develop useful programs that are applicable in any of our industries  and can then be advertised and marketed in nigeria.
This coupled with the forum  will indicate that the forum is productive with tangible potentials as against mere high-sounding talk like any other threads or forums.Then you will see more programmers getting interested.
And before you know it-RECOGNITION  and then things like standards and policies will follow.
A saying goes that a good market sells itself and as such i will like to invite all programmers to this thread with suggestions on how to effectively get this off the ground.i suggest an FTP site as a means of storing proposals and maybe this thread for related discussions.
I will like to say that we all can  (those of us domiciled both foreign and domestic)

hackney:

As regards to this, i believe in a forum where programmers can exchange ideas and even take up self-imposed projects to develop useful programs that are applicable in any of our industries  and can then be advertised and marketed in nigeria.
This coupled with the forum  will indicate that the forum is productive with tangible potentials as against mere high-sounding talk like any other threads or forums.Then you will see more programmers getting interested.
And before you know it-RECOGNITION  and then things like standards and policies will follow.
A saying goes that a good market sells itself and as such i will like to invite all programmers to this thread with suggestions on how to effectively get this off the ground.i suggest an FTP site as a means of storing proposals and maybe this thread for related discussions.
I will like to say that we all can  (those of us domiciled both foreign and domestic)

Good ideas.

I'm interested in building applications for the following sectors:

1. Law enforcement agents (Communication, forensics database, criminal profiling, etc.)
2. Power (distribution and generation; maybe transmission)
3. Health Services (electronic medical records improves the efficiency of hospital work flows)
4. Student records (national)

Domain experts in these fields could work on how we can apply software in these areas. Yes, these products exist already, however, it is not a straight-forward exercise buying some off-the-shelf product and trying to deploy it in any of the above fields. Yes, nobody is interested in reinventing the wheel, but we need to start thinking of how to assist relevant sectors of our society in adopting electronic means of doing business.

In Nigeria, the banking sector seems to the only sector that has (recently) come to embrace the large-scale use of software, and there has been some gains. One goal may be to expand the use of software in more sectors of our society.

ya,i am in support of it.lets start

this isnt a bad idea.count me in n feel free to contact me for any help if needed.

  Name: Frank Osita Obionu
  location: Abuja/Kaduna
  Designation: Programmer/webmaster (VB.net,C#,PHP,ASP)
  Specialisation: Biometrics
  email: osites2k2@yahoo.com
  cell num: 08037012991

cheers 

Hi guys,
Im also with you U ohhh! This is a very good development.

Name:Hakeem Abdulkareem
Location: Abuja
Designation: Programmer
E-mail: hakeemval@yahoo.com
Mobile: 08032868387

guys i am so glad to know that people are responding to this plight.

like i say i am an advocate of revolution of software development industry in Nigeria. And i have vowed that i shall never look back.

i feel very happy to see that Osita my friend is here! quite sometime now, How is Bauchi

Osita is one of those people that i am very proud of. he is indeed a very good and reputable windows programmer no doubt.

may be you all dont know. i am the presenter of INFOTECH on 92.9 Kapital FM in Abuja. Yesterday, Monday, 09/03/09 on my program i talk about this same issue to show my contribution to this plight. and the response was overwhelming. i still look 4wd to initiating several project as time goes on and Mr. Hakeem i look forward to seeing u soon. i am in abuja too my no. 08051212163.

cheers

hey! im in with you guys.
even though im a newbie to oracle/ vb.net/ php and java programming.
olayinka
lagos
computer engineer/ programming newbie.
it is a beautiful idea.

pls i will lik u ppl 2 include me in the association,though am a starter.cary on am in support of ur move

Gentlemen,

Let me repeat what I have stated before.

If we have good programmers then they should develop software or applications (web or desktop based) that will solve real problems.

It is unfortunate that we talk more, argue more when we should be using the energy to develop applications that are useful and profitable.

If good projects begin to spring up here and there trust me the cow boys and magicians who claim to be programmers will fizzle out.

As at today there is a lot of confusion because there is an obvious disconnect between what people claim to know or do and what is obtainable.

Forgive me if I sound pessimistic on this but from about 6 years of web development I have seen people come and go and what is usually common with people like that is that they claim to know a lot even when you cannot tie a single reasonable project to their names.

Facebook didn't need an association to become successful, yahoo didn't neither did google or cnn.

Start developing useful programs. Even in the banking industry where the use of software is basically mature we see them pay a lot of money for some solutions that are badly planned or developed mostly by Indians even for basic tasks.

Mr. Afam,

i dont really agree with you on this issue. are u for or against.

we all know that the music industry did not get recognised by the effort of individual artist,
it was as a result of unity amongst the artist that they began to reap what they actually sweat for.

i believe our direction is the same here. our collective strenght is what will really make us stand tall at anytime. with all due respect i stand to be corrected that all major key player in the software industries are all young individuals with high level of logical thinking. if given a condusive and favourable environment we shall perform more that what whether india or malaysia is doing.

take for instance, nigerian artist had to fight piracy not by individual effort but by collective body effort.

i still look foreward to your response to this.

A. A. Umar
info_handyx01@yahoo.com
or chat with me live at www.handyxinfotech.net/chat

Software development is not music.

For the sake of argument let us assume they are the same, are you saying that the music industry developed because they formed an association and not because musicians started singing songs that Nigerians liked and were ready to pay for?

The musicians were easy to notice because people saw their works. Can you say the same thing when it comes to software development in Nigeria?

I am not a politician, I say things the way I see them and try to back them up with basic logic, facts and common sense.

Again I ask - Where are the software projects and web applications that have been developed by Nigerians that would warrant forming an association to protect or promote/project web developers?

Afam:

Software development is not music.

For the sake of argument let us assume they are the same, are you saying that the music industry developed because they formed an association and not because musicians started singing songs that Nigerians liked and were ready to pay for?

The musicians were easy to notice because people saw their works. Can you say the same thing when it comes to software development in Nigeria?

I am not a politician, I say things the way I see them and try to back them up with basic logic, facts and common sense.

Again I ask - Where are the software projects and web applications that have been developed by Nigerians that would warrant forming an association to protect or promote/project web developers?

  Association of programmers in Nigeria, just like NURTW abi ?  . 
I doubt if programmers will have such time to meet, in the midst of unreasonable deadlines here and there from clients except everything will be electronic/online
e-membership, e-meeting, e-election, e-money etc 

turn-up in support of the topic "Association of Programmers" is highly encouraging. I believe we will make it.
Thank God my[b] Oga Hakeemval[/b] has also shown up.
Many of us are ready and suggested that we should make everything online, which means a website. I suggest we contribute in cash or kind, by which you will be rewarded as such with the success of the great development.

Hi guys,
I think we can do this together.

let come together as one body

Guys, lets start sth and not keep talking