Dear Dr Isa Pantami: there is a message for you

A few days ago, I made a statement here that you are one Buhari’s Minister who would make meaningful IMPACT within the limited span of this current administration.

I am today not surprised to learn that you requested for FEC’s approval to rename your ministry to the Ministry of Communications & Digital Economy, to align with the global best practice.

One other thing I would like to see fully implemented in Nigeria’s public service, is the complete implementation of appropriate nomenclatures for Computer & IT officers Cadre in the public service.

Currently, anyone who studied Computer or Information Technology is lumped into the “ICT Officer” Cadre. This practice does not give room for professionalism.

Someone can study Computer Science or Information Technology but develops his core competencies (in a specific area of computing), e.g. Cybersecurity, Network Administration, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Web Development & Administration, Cloud Computing, Database Administration, etc.

The global best practice is to assign the individual a nomenclature according to his core competencies. This way, the individual can explore the possibility of expanding his knowledge or skill through Continuing Professional Development (CPD) or targeted Certification training.

In this context, I will like to see something like:

~ Senior IT Engr (Cybersecurity)

~ Senior IT Engr (Network Administration)

~ Senior IT Officer (Cloud)

~ Senior IT Engr (Computer Maintenance)

~ Senior Software Developer or Engr.

This is the only way we can have specialists in our public service sector.

We cannot continue to use Fortran programming language in this age of Python.