Change is finally here! President Muhammadu Buhari has been sworn in, and expectations are high that this nation shall experience a new lease of life. A great deal has already been said and written about the expectations of Nigerians; and it is both understandable and justifiable that Nigerians should have great expectations of this government. One, Nigerians had endured hard and long the failed promises of previous leaders, and they presently suffer a huge deficit of dividends of democracy. Two, this government made great promises, and it is just right that it be held accountable for the promises it made, especially since those promises were not made under duress.

However, there is a promise the Buhari administration did not make (at least not expressly), which we the citizens should force upon the government. As part of inauguration proceedings, a dinner was held in Abuja on May 29, which was attended by dignitaries from home and abroad. During his dinner speech, President Buhari spoke of how technology helped him to ultimately realize his ambition. He explained that he still believes he was rigged out in his first three attempts at the Presidential ballot. He then went on to attribute the success of his fourth attempt to one change – the introduction of technology to the electioneering process. President Buhari said on May 29 that it was the introduction of PVCs and card readers that made it difficult for people to sit in the comfort of their sitting rooms and write election results, thus scuttling the will of the people as they had done before.

The results of the 2015 Presidential election actually lend credence to President Buhari’s assertion. The figures were a clear departure from the past, and cases of parties disputing the credibility of results were much fewer. As a result of the introduction of technology, electoral fraud (especially impersonation, ballot snatching and multiple thumbprinting) became very difficult in many parts of the nation. Politicians who used to buy voters’ cards found out suddenly that those cards were useless. The need to match card, face and fingerprint made impersonation more difficult. Despite a few hiccups here and there, the consensus remains that the introduction of technology significantly lowered electoral fraud in our last general elections.

It is not only in the electoral process that the deployment of appropriate technology has given us a breath of fresh air. Another quick example of where technology is helping to sanitize the nation is the financial sector. The deployment of technology has helped to significantly lower fraudulent activities in our financial sector. Now, sms alerts allow you to know on time when fraudsters are trying to take money out of your account. GPRS technology allows security agencies to track the fraudsters. There was a time in the past when a fraudulent customer would take a loan from a bank, default, and hop to another bank to repeat the same process. Now, the banks are cooperating, and with the aid of technology, a bank can promptly identify a customer who has defaulted in other banks and thus prevent such a person from perpetuating his evil act in an unsuspecting bank. The introduction of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) is another step forward in the process of using technology to enhance security of depositors’ funds in the banking sector. What about the comfort we now enjoy with the use of ATM machines and online platforms for financial transactions. Now, we are spared the harrowing experience of having to queue up for long hours in banking halls and shopping malls; thanks to the adoption of technology.

Let us come to power supply. Before the advent of pre-paid meters, PHCN officials had a field day defrauding Nigerians and their parent body (the PHCN). Nigerians paid for electricity that they did not use, yet the monies did not enter PHCN coffers. The power supply institution emaciated while its foot soldiers became corpulent. However, the pre-paid technology took the wind off their sails. With the pre-paid technology, Nigerians could use what they paid for; and PHCN (as an institution) could also rest assured that Nigerians are paying for what they use. It was interesting to see that certain corrupt elements within the PHCN began sabotaging the distribution of pre-paid meters once they realized that it was affecting their “economy” adversely.

If President Buhari will make a good success of many of his laudable initiatives, he needs to give pride of place to the adoption of appropriate technology in his various areas of concern. The human factor weighs in too heavily on much of our national affairs, and that is why there is so much room for corruption. We need to reduce that by making as many as possible of our processes independent of the human factor. To do this, we need appropriate technology. Even though we seek to generate more employment, employees should be compelled to use technologies that enhance accountability and reduce the possibility of corrupt practices. For example, I understand that in some countries, the police do not physically pursue certain road traffic offenders. If you beat the traffic light or you overspeed, the police camera takes a snapshot of your vehicle. The camera is connected to a database, and the picture and/or details are logged onto the database automatically. It is in your interest that you promptly go and pay your fine. If you do not do so, by the time the renewal of your vehicle particulars (or your driver’s license) is due, the system would have added default interest to your fine. And nobody can help you lower the fine and the interest thereupon, because they are automatically generated. Contrast that to the manual policing that we do in Nigeria where all you need to do as a traffic offender is “settle”.

The fight against corruption will be well served if we reduce/eliminate scenarios where the “Nigerian” factor can be deployed to manipulate the outcomes of processes. The only way to do this is to adopt technologies that make our processes less vulnerable to human failings.

Mr President also spoke of what his government could quickly do to turn around the fortunes of Nigeria, especially to tackle youth unemployment. He identified agriculture and the extractive industries as two areas where impact can be generated quickly. While I do not know much about mining, I daresay that interventions in the agricultural sector would fall flat unless appropriate technologies are adopted. There are technologies for enhancing productivity, for reducing waste/loss, and for combating fraud that are specifically applicable to the Nigerian agricultural sector. Without finding out these and applying them, our interventions shall end up like the white elephant projects of yore.

A few years ago, there was a lot of noise about cassava. Farmers hurried to plant cassava, aiming to earn Dollars in the process. Many burnt their fingers. While the global demand for cassava has not declined, Nigeria could not harness the opportunity because our farmers did not gain access to appropriate technology that would enable them produce cassava products that the international market can accept (and at a profit to the farmer). Mr President has a cattle ranch; he would very likely be aware of how primitive our beef and dairy industries are (in fact, they are not an industry yet, in the strict sense of the word), which explains why our nation still imports milk products, and why certain embassies and high-brow hotels still import the beef they serve. To upgrade, and become a net exporter of milk and beef, we cannot just send more Fulani boys into the wilderness. We need appropriate technology to uplift our husbandry practices.

In a nutshell, in today’s world, you cannot merely work hard. Working smart has become more important than working hard. Technology enables us to work smart. If we embrace a model that simply requires us to work hard, without supplying us tools that enable us work smart as well, we cannot hope to catch up with nations that have gone ahead of us. And don’t forget; we are a nation in a hurry. To gain speed, we cannot ignore appropriate technology.

As an aside, I watched President Barrack Obama’s first and second inaugurations; so I felt a moral burden to watch the inauguration of President Buhari. One difference between the American inauguration and the Nigerian parallel made me uncomfortable as the event went on. Our security personnel at the Abuja inauguration were too clumsy, obtrusive and ubiquitous! Evidently lacking appropriate or sufficient surveillance and control technology, we had to resort to a “manual” mode, which at some points became utterly embarrassing. Did anyone notice dramatic incidents around the state box, and at few points on the perimeter of Eagle Square while the inauguration ceremony lasted? The drama at the gate of the hall for the gala night (right inside Aso Rock!) is a story for another day.

President Muhammadu Buhari would do well to take Nigeria out of “manual” mode. Of course, many corrupt government officials would resist that change, the same way they resisted the PVCs and the card readers. The manual mode feeds corrupt tendencies. However, the same way the PVCs and card readers whittled down the influence of corrupt politicians and enabled Muhammadu Buhari to realize his ambition, the deployment of technology would whittle down the power of corrupt elements in several spheres of our national life. INEC invested in technology, and President Buhari has testified to being a beneficiary – technology helped him to realize his ambition. President Buhari should take a cue from that and invest in appropriate technology in important spheres of our national life, so that the rest of us can realize our ambitions too.

Source: adebayokolade.com