'borrowing' their development formula spent about 60 years building their respective countries to get to the level they are today.

And that is why skeptics of the Nigerian dream still do not want to believe that a process that took the likes of China, India and Korea 60 years of unquantifiable commitment, dedication, passion and patriotism will take Nigeria 12 to 13 years to accomplish.

Chinweizu who belongs to this school of thought went down memory lane recollecting how China laid the foundation of its success some decades of years ago. According to him, “China laid the foundations for what it has become today in the three decades (1949-1980) after the Maoists had fought and won a 30-year civil war (1919-1949) that gave them total political control of Mainland China. What did the Maoists achieve in the area of basic industries--which constitute the foundation for Industrialization?

“These basic industries are: (1) the power industry, (2) the metallurgical industry, (3) the machine tools industry, (4) the machine building industry, and (5) the chemicals and petrochemicals industry.”

On the area of power for instance, he noted that by the end of 1980, China had built 3,329 power plants each with a generating capacity of 500kw and more including small power stations below the 500kw class that numbered tens of thousands.

By 1980, the machine building plants in China covered nearly 100 trades such as machine tools, power generating equipment, transformers, metallurgical equipment, general machinery, motor vehicles, bearings, measuring and cutting tools, meters and instruments. They were able to manufacture 26,000 kinds of machinery and electrical appliances.

The country's machine building industry as at 1980 was able to supply complete sets of equipment for industry, transport and communications, agriculture, national defence and scientific research. Between 1959 and 1980 it had provided machinery and equipment for more than 3,000 large and medium-sized construction projects, including complete iron and steel complexes. But here was a country that in 1949, when it started, had only 95,000 machine tools out of which 41,000 belonged to machine-building plants.

Such is the character of a country that truly wants to aspire. Today, if there is anything that has become Nigeria's greatest impediment to meaningful development, it is poor power supply.

It is believed that over 80% of the country's communities still experience constant power failure in this 21st century when reliable electric power supply continues to be one of the most essential factors in running a successful economy all over the world.

It has become clear that Nigeria as a nation will forever struggle at the same very low standard, economically and socially if something serious is not done to correct this deficiency. Only reliable electric power supply will revive the country's economy and upgrade the living standard of the citizenry.

West Africa but the whole of the African continent. It remains the biggest economy in the West African sub-region. And given the country's considerable resource endowment and coastal location, there is potential for strong growth.

Yet Nigeria has realized very little of this potential. Previous efforts at planning and visioning were not sustained. The much-touted Vision 2010 has been in a state of suspended animation for as long as one can remember. The history of economic stagnation, declining welfare and social instability, has undermined development for most of the past 30 years.

In a convocation lecture he delivered recently at the Kogi State University, Ayingba, Professor Akin Oyebode of the University of Lagos succinctly captured what looks like the country's endless pursuit of shadows. According to him, “Nigeria is today at a crossroads.

After numerous false starts and inability to actualize the much-touted potentials of our great country, it seems we are once again set on a journey to nowhere, bereft of well-thought out fundamentals of Nigeria's political economy. “The goal this time around is touted as leapfrogging the country from the nadir of hopelessness and underdevelopment to the rarified

group of the most developed economies of the world, all within a spate of 12 years. Of course, there is nothing wrong in dreaming big, but there is everything wrong in seeking pies in the sky or a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

This forecast seems to be in line with the mission of a group of Nigerians under the aegis of Gemstone Generation drawn mostly from the private sector that has vowed to make Nigeria the most desirable country to live in come 2025.

However, the group believes it can only achieve this by ensuring that Nigerian professionals living abroad return home and help in nation building.

About 17million Nigerian immigrants are said to be legally residing outside the shores of the country.Of this number, about 2million live in the U.S.A. alone, out of which 15,000 are medical personnel and 150,000 are said to be IT professionals. India is a classical example of a country that has benefited a great deal from her professionals living in the Americas. Records have shown that over 20,000 Indian professionals returned to the country from abroad; out of this number, about 90% of them are IT professionals.

For instance, it was reported that more than 700 of the 2400 staff at the General Electric's research and development centre in India are young Indian professionals who left U.S.A. for their home. Yet, about 160 big companies from Europe and U.S.A. have set up research, design & development centres in India.

The key goal for Vision 20:2020 is to ensure that by the year 2020, Nigeria will be one of the 20 largest economies in the world able to consolidate its leadership role in Africa and establish itself as a significant player in the global economic and political arena.

telecommunication alone accounting for over 80% of this earning. Developments in the IT sector have shown that FDI in this sector will continue to rise as long as the country remains Africa's largest IT market.

President of the Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN), Dr. Adenikan Osofisan once warned that Information Technology is a critical sector that needs to be fully explored for the realization of Vision 20:2020 objective.

“We have a substantial contribution to make and this contribution is to grow this profession maximally, so it can impact positively on the economy, thereby facilitating the realization of the vision.” Unfortunately, government appears to be paying deaf ears to this. In the key indicative parametres listed for development

towards the actualization of the Vision 20:2020 project, for instance, government was silent in the area of IT.

This has therefore, raised concerns among stakeholders in the IT sector of the economy about government's genuine intention or otherwise in actualizing the dream of becoming one of the 20 leading economies in the world by 2020.

Government had listed areas like policy formulation, macro economy, infrastructure, education, health, agriculture and manufacturing as important indicators for focus and development. The conspicuous omission of IT in the list has continued to confound Nigerian IT experts.

Yet, even the World Bank believes Nigeria's quest to becoming a member of the global 20 leading economies in 2020 can only become a reality if a solid ICT platform is built especially putting into consideration that Nigeria has already become a regional powerhouse in all areas that can drive ICT.

Union comes from ICT and 25% of GDP growth is achieved through ICT, underlined the importance of ICT in the development of Nigeria. “Now, Vision 20:2020 is an extremely ambitious vision that requires a tremendous level of growth to realize and if you look at other countries and where they are coming from, it immediately becomes clear that ICT must be a very important part of realizing this vision for Nigeria”, he said.

The National ICT4D plan is targeted at using ICT to achieve the government's Seven Point Agenda and Vision 20:2020, thereby deploying ICT to achieve Nigeria's Millennial Development Goals, NEPAD development initiatives and the World Summit on Information Society's (WSIS) plan of action.

defining power in the modern world. For this reason, it has been argued further that no modern economy can thrive without an integral information technology and telecommunications infrastructure.

This argument is hinged on the premise that ICTs provide the veritable platform for development across economies. Malaysian based Global Knowledge Partnership recently reviewed the question of whether the ICTs are a fast track to making poverty history or are they increasing existing inequalities leading to exclusion of entire peoples and populations from the new information society being built?

Leading experts examined the potential and actual role of ICTs in meeting major development challenges such as fighting poverty, promoting gender equality, fostering participation in political processes, increasing transparency and aid effectiveness. They however, concluded that ICTs can be a unique and powerful platform for promoting sustainable human development.

investing in any country. Nigeria's IT oracle and avowed advocate of local content growth, Chris Uwaje contends that the character of a nation is determined by the architecture (in form and content) of her information structure and systems coordinates arguing strongly that building core technology and skilled capacities of Intellectual Capital is strategically imperative if Nigeria must compete globally.

According to him, “Information Technology has unarguably become the answer to resolving the colossal conflict of poverty in our nation.

And no amount of foreign aids and so-called transfer of technology are capable of delivering a functional and sustainable solution. Technology is the process of ensuring that development is properly organized, executed and sustained through motivated creativity and innovation.”

Uwaje suggested that constructive IT deployment and diffusion is the panacea to a significant reduction in the various levels of poverty in the country while insisting that the origin of the overt poverty enveloping the country today and prevalent in her citizens' everyday life activity, is directly rooted in the “Thinking Poverty” of governance and leadership and indeed of followership within the context of technology vision, processes and implementation standards.

The resultant effect is that it has helped to build the frustration chambers and the prison for reducing creative generations”, Uwaje noted.

The software expert maintains that Nigeria needs to rethink and restructure her future, within the context of Information Technology and Globalization else she may become one of the pathetic victims of the 21st century Digital colonies or Digital Slaves discovered by IT and later visited by digital disaster.

Uwaje warned thus: “To exclude Digital Disaster as an essential parameter for national planning and indeed as one of the inevitable major national catastrophes of the global IT evolution cycle is indeed a great fallacy. It will happen. Question is, who will be hurt, what will be the volume and value of damages and how long will it take to actualize Disaster Recovery?”

President of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo believes nothing can be achieved unless the country's economy is driven to a large extent by ICT.

He notes that there is no alternative tothis as ICT plays a major role on the progress of any economy.

be productive. It will lead to rapid transformation on our industries. We cannot talk about industrialization without talking about infrastructure.”

Adebayo argues that the world today is a virtual village on account of the strength of ICT as this provides the vehicle for running commerce. He contends that all the talk about building a knowledge based economy.