‘Omatek Power Solution is Key to Economic Devt, Says NITDA

Director General of NITDA, Prof. Cleopas Angaye

By Emma Okonji

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has said that Omatek’s 24-hour alternate power solution for Nigerian schools will further boost economic development in the country.

Director General of NITDA, Prof. Cleopas Angaye , made this known recently, during the commissioning of Omatek’s e-learning and 24-hour alternative power solution for Nigerian schools at the company’s newly constructed factory in Lagos.

He noted that one of the major challenges the federal government had been in the area of deployment and development of power that would drive ICT development, adding that it was the reason why government embarked on major reforms in the power sector.

Angaye, after inspection and commissioning of the power system, said the agency was ready to partner with Omatek to deploy some of the solutions to its projects across the country.

Angaye said the e-learning initiative would provide the breeding ground for the eventual increase in Information Technology (IT) potential of the Nigerian youths while promoting more awareness with easy access to valuable resources. “It is therefore worthwhile for Omatek to have taken such great challenge and the initiative has become a major platform for learning and research where teachers and students can interact

effectively without physical contact thereby breaking the barriers of time and distance,” Angaye said.

While expressing his delight that the initiative was coming from Omatek, one of government’s accredited indigenous original equipment manufacturers, he said the company’s intervention was appropriate, particularly at a time Nigerian government is encouraging local content in ICT development.

Group Managing Director of Omatek Ventures, Mrs. Florence Seriki, said the development of the lightning solution was as a result of painstaking research whose outcome would enable individual homes, small businesses, large corporations as well as schools cut their energy consumption by 90 per cent while still maintaining an efficient alternative power solution.

She said the company was already working with Vitafoam to develop an insulating system for a new cooling system that would ensure that Nigerians get the best cooling system soon. She said the initiative, which is still at research and development stage, would get the company to the next level of its growth and development.

Chairman of Omatek, Timothy Farinre, said because of the giant strides the company was making to boost ICT development, the Ghanaian government, six years ago invited Omatek to set up a factory in that country. “Four years ago, we have set up one of the best factories in Ghana providing hundreds of employment opportunities for young and promising IT graduates.”

President of Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Mr. Sunny Nwosu, noted that one of the problems the country had been facing was development of policies which are capable of destroying worthy initiatives in the country. According to him, patriotism should be the first thing that would encourage manufacturers to improve on quality and capacity.

Managing Director of Teledom Group, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, advised Nigerians, especially in the ICT sector, to purge selves of colonial mentality which had made many Nigerian to get fascinated by international products from foreign computer manufacturers.

Ekuwem noted that there was no reason why Nigerians should not embrace local products like Omatek because the components of all the PCs including those of the foreign companies were sourced from the same location in the world. “My advice is that Omatek should not compete with its distributors and channel partners in the course of discharging their duties so that they can also grow and contribute meaningfully to the development of the Nigerian economy.