Overview of the New Nigerian IT Policy: Infrastructure and Human Capital Imperatives

Information Technology & Global Competitiveness: Challenges & Opportunities for Developing Countries – The Role of Government Policy Makers
Overview of the New Nigerian IT Policy: Infrastructure and Human Capital Imperatives;
@
“ADIPENG 2009”
21st - 23rd APRIL 2009
Consultancy Support Services Limited
http://consultancysupportservices.googlepages.com
info@consultancyss.com
The Penthouse (6th Floor) Ogun State House Plot 74 Ralph Shodeinde Street
Central Business District Abuja FCT Nigeria 90001.
GPO 10027 Garki Abuja FCT

Clarifications

 NO New Nigerian IT Policy
 There is a 2009 draft Nigerian IT Policy
 Yet to be held to stakeholder scrutiny
 Well entrenched divergent views will not be fully satisfied in this type of process, thus we can, must and will make/ take decisions in what we perceive as being in the best long-term interest of the collective
 The public review will be an opportunity for all the contending issues to be aired further
 NITDA and a representative committee
 Yet to be formally presented to Government
 Everything is subject to change
 Still a long way from approval & adoption

Policy Considerations

 Knowledge based on ubiquitously available and accurate information is the key to our survival advancement and salvation
 Information Technology infrastructure and finance are extremely important
 But human experience demonstrates that it is thinking based on true knowledge that positively develops individuals societies and mankind as a whole
 Economies grow as a part of this

IT Policy Focus Areas

• IT Policy Focus Areas
• Human Capital Development
• IT Education
• IT Training
• Infrastructure
• Software
• Services
• Hardware
• Telecommunications
• Governance
• Legislation
• Security
• Awareness
• Stakeholders’ consultation
• Public Awareness
• Inter Governmental Relations
• Environmental Issues
• Policy Administration
• Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E)
• National IT Initiatives
• Financing
• Research, Development & Innovation
• Standards
• Research
• Innovation
• Nurturing Local Content
• Societal Impact
• Implementation Framework
• NITDA

Human Capital

• IT Policy Focus Areas
• Human Capital Development
• IT Education
• IT Training
 Nigeria is experiencing a severe shortage of IT skills and personnel necessary for taking advantage of new and emerging technologies in the Information Society
 This frustrates the actualization of our national vision and development agenda

IT Education

 Government shall facilitate the building of a critical mass of national IT proficiency and competencies, strategic IT skills and the requisite entrepreneurship skills to sustain national development
 Objectives
 Integrate IT into education
 Promote the culture of life long learning
 Strengthen entrepreneurship and leadership instruction at all levels of education
 Strategies
 Restructure the teaching/ learning environment, and education management and administration to be IT driven
 Train and retool teachers/ facilitators at all levels to enhance competence
 Review the curricula to reflect emerging paradigms and national goals

IT Training

 Government shall make sure that human capacity will continuously be developed to ensure adequate understanding of the technical issues and availability of IT skill sets and expertise
 Objectives
 Demystify IT
 Facilitate the inclusion of IT for the transformation of education and training at all levels
 Strengthen the capabilities of disadvantaged groups
 Leverage IT to develop and protect national and community identity, language, culture and character
 Strategies
 Establish IT parks and fund research in software, services development and content
 Identify and encourage the acquisition of strategic IT skills needed for global competitiveness
 Encourage private sector participation in IT for education and training through fiscal incentives.

Infrastructure

• IT Policy Focus Areas
• Infrastructure
• Software
• Services
• Hardware
• Telecommunications
• Globalisation compels Nigeria to enhance the development of its National Information Infrastructure to respond effectively to new challenges
• While there has been an astronomical growth in mobile telephony and increasing computer penetration, software development and critical broadband connectivity are very low

Software

 Government shall ensure that indigenous software development is made a priority area
 Objectives
 Ensure that indigenous Software meet international standards
 Build a strong interface between the industry and academia
 Create an enabling environment for the sustainable growth of the Nigerian software industry
 Facilitate the aggregation of software companies to work collaboratively
 Strategies
 Ensure international certification of indigenous software companies
 Government should provide major software projects as platform for indigenous software industry to acquire appropriate experience which will empower them to compete globally
 Promote the patronage of indigenous software products and services by government and private sector

Services

 Government shall ensure that local value added and IT enabled services that maximise our natural advantages are fully exploited
 Objectives
 Make Nigeria a preferred outsourcing destination
 Facilitate growth of IT enabled services that harness the potential of youth, women and disadvantaged groups
 Foster economic self-reliance through IT and IT enabled services
 Strategies
 Establish a guarantee scheme that will build confidence for local offshore outsourcing services
 Facilitate access to low cost internet capacity to enable local outsource services to be globally competitive
 Identify and train a broad and representative cadre of youth, women and disadvantaged who over the next five years will take active part in the IT sector

Hardware

 Government shall ensure patronage of locally based IT equipment manufacturers, producers, assemblers, installers and other value added service providers
 Objectives
 Promote the local design and manufacture of IT hardware and tools
 Establish appropriate standards for efficient and cost-effective technical and technological solutions
 Strategies
 Encourage the local design and manufacture of IT hardware that conform with global standards
 Promote the diffusion of IT knowledge for optimal use of hardware and tools
 Ensure the development and publication of standards and user satisfaction reports as well as other hardware related documents
 Facilitate low cost, individual ownership of computers for every Nigerian student from secondary to university level and access to pupils in other rungs of educational system
Telecommunications
 Government shall facilitate the design, development and deployment of efficient National Information Infrastructure
 Objectives
 To ensure the provision of robust, interoperable Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and resources
 Promote the local design and manufacture of Telecommunication systems
 Facilitate the collaboration of operating Telecommunication companies in a competitive environment
 Keep all local Internet traffic local
 Strategies

 Ensure the development of pervasive, reliable and affordable National Information Infrastructure

 Facilitate digital inclusion of un-served and underserved communities
 Encourage private sector participation in the deployment of network infrastructure through the award of subsidies and tax incentives
 Identify and declare specific information infrastructure as critical information infrastructure

Governance

• IT Policy Focus Areas
• Governance
• Legislation
• Security
• Awareness
• Stakeholders’ consultation
• Public Awareness
• Inter Governmental Relations
• Environmental Issues
• Policy Administration
• Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E)
• National IT Initiatives
• Government is conversant with the imperatives of legislation, security, awareness, environmental issues and policy administration to effectively deliver on the objectives of this policy

Legislation

 Government recognizes the need for a legal framework to ensure that the development of IT and the conduct of such activities in the country are focused to meeting the national vision
 Objectives
 Bring about the enabling environment to realising the national vision
 Guarantee the legal protection and rights of citizens (individual or corporate)
 Assure that the national interest is not at any time compromised
 Strategies
 Enact electronic transaction law, cybercrime law and other appropriate laws, review evidence act and other existing ones as are necessary from time to time.
 Harmonize national legal approaches, international legal coordination and enforcement in cyberspace

Security

 Government appreciates that one of its prime responsibilities is to provide comprehensive security, while ensuring the privacy and freedom, as well as responsibilities of individuals within Nigeria’s jurisdiction
 Objectives
 Enhance national security
 Protect citizen’s rights and privacy while ensuring their freedom and enhancing their sense of responsibility
 Engender information assurance
 Strategies
 Develop, apply and enforce requisite mechanisms and measures to secure the IT environment
 Seek the amendment of the requisite existing laws to ensure that they cater to the exigencies of IT and cyberspace
 Establish and implement a national framework for cyber security and information assurance
 Educate citizens of their rights and responsibilities
 Define responsibilities for adhering to good computer security practices, so as to protect IT resources

Awareness

 Stakeholders’ consultation
 Government will engage in regular multi-stakeholder consultations to engender broad based consensus on IT issues such as the promotion of IT advocacy
 Public Awareness
 Government will encourage and foster comprehensive awareness campaigns and promotions for citizens to adopt IT as a way of life
 Inter Governmental Relations
 Recognizing that we exist in a multi-governmental environment comprising of International, National, State and Local Governments, Government will explore, encourage and promote collaborative relationships in the implementation of this Policy
 Objectives
 Ensure active participation of citizens as receivers, processors and providers of information that is reflective of the diversity of social groups within the community
 Ensure that IT development is driven local imperatives
 Enhance local cultural forms, promote indigenous creativity in IT related arts and music, and enable exchanges among communities
 To foster a culture of IT literacy
 Strategies
 Design, evolve and apply appropriate multi-stakeholder processes in facilitating the implementation of all facets of this Policy
 Foster virtual fora and community-based IT facilities to strengthen accessibility to information and interaction among Nigerians
 Establish national IT awareness machinery at all levels and tiers of government

Environmental Issues

 Government will promote the use of environmentally friendly and sustainable IT strategies that are cognisant of our culture and circumstance
 Objectives
 Foster a sustainable, safe and healthy IT environment.
 Leverage our culture and values for global social and economic advantage
 Strategies
 Develop, apply and enforce requisite mechanisms and measures for power saving, radiation mitigation, recycling and appropriate IT waste disposal
 Encourage "community based computing" initiatives as the building blocks for the successful implementation of IT (internet) based educational programmes including adult awareness and literacy

Policy Administration

 Government recognises that women and youth are the largest component of potential IT users and will make sure that they secure equitable access to IT opportunities
 Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E)
 Government shall continuously monitor, evaluate and review the implementation of this Policy
 National IT Initiatives

 Government shall continue to facilitate the evolution, development and deployment of National IT Initiatives based on standards set by NITDA

 Objectives
 Ensure the efficient, timely and effective administration of the IT policy
 Ensure the participation of women, youth and disadvantaged groups in IT Policy formulation and implementation at all levels
 Strategy
 Evolve multi-stakeholder machinery, including setting and enforcing of standards and providing oversight for the implementation of this Policy
 Encourage institutional capacity building for sectoral IT policy development and implementation
 Encourage sectoral IT Policies are engendered, youth oriented and accommodate the needs of disadvantaged groups so as to guarantee that opportunities are equitably manifest

2009 draft IT Policy: Matters Arising

• 2009 draft IT Policy:
• Matters Arising
• Limitations in the IT Policy Development Process
• The Role of Government Policy Makers
• The Role of Rest of Us
• Information Technology & Global Competitiveness
• Our Prayer to Mr. President

Limitations in the IT Policy Development Process

 Many “differences” are more matters of emphasis and ordering, than of fundamentals
 To that extent, there is strength in our diversity
 At the end of the day we will all converge because we are doing what we consider the best for our nation and for those who come after us
 It is advantageous to consider divergent view points, and elicit reactions, early, so that we make corrections promptly, instead of waiting to get such reactions when the policy is publically unveiled
 We should not be cowed by unfair assertions’ based on faulty assumptions or temporary misunderstandings, we should try to let them pass because life is far too short and the underlying issues too important for us to lose our focus
The Role of Government Policy Makers
 Focus on the goal of building:
 A just and prosperous information society
 How?
 Anticipating, identifying and meeting the IT requirements for information sufficiency, operational efficiency and effectiveness for sustainable national development
 Ensure the IT Policy is implemented and administered in:
 Sound, Fair and equitable manner
 Proactive, Constructive & style demonstrable of good leadership
 Efficient, well thought through & managed environment
 Just and NOT corrupt way
 Prudently find ways for Nigeria to expand access to, and utilization of, IT and related knowledge technologies without most of the required funds disappearing into ever-expanding, mutating and multiplying bureaucracies

The Role of Rest of Us

 Put the flesh on the policy by leveraging it to build
 Practice what preach & desire:
 Patience & reasonableness
 Equity & Justice
 Honour & mutual respect
 Dignity, decorum & esteem
 “If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people” ......... ancient Chinese proverb

Information Technology & Global Competitiveness

 Challenge
 Educate our people and leverage on global tools such as Information Communication Technologies to foster the requisite education for all people at all levels regardless of background, age, sex, physical and mental characteristics, creed, tribe, religion, status, income or any other social divide
 Opportunity
 Our competition is no longer local but global, and our core limiting factors are ourselves, our education and the opportunities we create

Our Prayer to Mr. President

 We humbly pray that you and your administration consider, endorse and adopt the suggestions contained in 2009 IT policy draft
 A "servant leader" will be considered successful if the people can be empowered with knowledge to sustainably improve themselves, those around them, their own material circumstances and prepare better for the future of those yet unborn and the environment they will live within

Thank you for your attention
Abdul-Hakeem Ajijola

ICT Security issues: Challenges, Impact and Solutions for Cyber-Crime & Cyber-Security.

ICT Security issues: Challenges, Impact and Solutions for Cyber-Crime & Cyber-Security.
@
“ADIPENG 2009”
21st - 23rd APRIL, 2009
Consultancy Support Services (CS2) Limited,
http://consultancysupportservices.googlepages.com
info@consultancyss.com
The Penthouse (6th Floor), Ogun State House, Plot 74, Ralph Shodeinde Street,
Central Business District, Abuja FCT, Nigeria 90001.
GPO 10027, Garki, Abuja FCT,

What is ICT/ Cyber Security?

 Protecting electronic/ ICT based information by preventing, detecting, and responding to attacks
 Communication (email, cell-phones)
 Entertainment (digital cable, mp3s)
 Transportation (car engine systems, airplane navigation)
 Shopping (online stores, credit cards)
 Medicine (equipment, medical records)
 Education (E-Learning, Research, Virtual Library, School Administration)
 How much of your personal information is stored either on your own computer or on someone else's system?
 Transcripts
 Medical Records
 Bank Account
 How much of your daily life relies on computers?
 Phone, SMS, email....
 How are emails transmitted?
 What you say in a chat room or page is permanent!
 Our reliance on computers is ever increasing!

Challenges

 “When trouble is sensed well in advance it can easily be remedied; if you wait for it to show itself, any medicine would be too late because the disease would have become incurable.” Nichollo Machiavelli
 “There’s a &#$%# intruder in my system!”

Where?: Considerations

 Cyberspace is an environment that does not exist in the normal physical sense, but exists as a bio-electronic ecosystem where people, systems along with abstract concepts interact with each other
 Usually underpinned by an electronic infrastructure
 Cyberspace is not borderless
 The borders are seamless to the end user
 Every country has its own cyberspace which is defined by its national infrastructure
 Perpetrators of cyber-crime carry out their activities in an apparently seamless environment, while law enforcement is constrained by issues of jurisdiction
 Collaborative Technology Research, Development and Innovation in line with the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Global Cyber security Agenda www.itu.int/cybersecurity/gca
 Collaboration on Education and Outreach/ Human Resource Capacity building with entities such as the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) www.issa.org Abuja is crucial

What are the risks?

 Viruses erasing your information
 someone breaking into your system, reading and/ or altering files
 someone using your computer to attack others
 someone stealing your personal/ health/ financial information and making unauthorized purchases or facilitating other unauthorized activities
 There is no guarantee that even with the best precautions some of these things won't happen to you, but there are steps you can take to minimize the chances

Who?: Cyber-criminal Profile

 Dishonest or disgruntled insiders
 Employees
 Ex-employees
 Contractors
 Temporary workers who want to sell your trade secrets, commit financial fraud, just destroy your data or networks, for revenge
 Hackers
 Those who break in simply to explore and vandalize
 Youthful Hackers
 Precociousness, curiosity and persistence
 Habitual lying, cheating, stealing and exaggerating
 Juvenile idealism: “power to the people,” “if it feels good, do it”
 Hyperactivity
 Drug and alcohol abuse
 Crackers
 Those who break in to steal or destroy information
 Professional spies and saboteurs
 The most elusive, who work for rival governments and competing corporations
 They are paid and are very adept
 They can bring down your company, your government, or crash your stock market
 They are rarely caught

Types of Cyber-Crime

 Hacking
 Intrusion (often illegally) into a computer system without the intrusion into a computer system without the permission of the computer owner/ user
 Denial of Service (DOS) attack
 The criminal, uses “botnets” to flood the bandwidth of the victim’s network, fills his “e” network or fills his e-mail box with spam mail/ traffic depriving him of the services he is entitled to access or provide
 Virus Dissemination
 Malicious software that attaches itself to other software e.g. virus, worms (Conflicter), Trojan Horse, Time bomb & Logic Bomb

Software Piracy

 Theft of software through the illegal copying of genuine programs, the counterfeiting of genuine programs or the counterfeiting and distribution of products intended to pass for the original
 End user copying
 Hard disk loading
 Counterfeiting
 Illegal downloads from the Internet

Pornography

 First consistently successful e-commerce product
 Deceptive marketing tactics and mouse trapping technologies
 Pornographers encourage customers to access their websites
 Anybody including children can log on to the Internet and access websites with pornographic contents with a click of a mouse
 IRC Crime: Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers have chat rooms in which people from anywhere can chat with each other:
 Hackers use it for discussing their exploits/ sharing the techniques
 Criminals use it for meeting co-conspirators
 Pedophiles use chat rooms to lure small children

Credit Card Fraud: How ATM fraud is done

 Wallet sized smart cards are replacing cash: You type credit card number into webpage of the vendor for online transactions
 Online transaction: If electronic transactions are not secured the credit card numbers can be stolen by the hackers who can misuse this card by impersonating the credit card owner
 Making Purchases
 Taking Bank loans
 Withdrawing cash via Automated Teller Machines (ATM)
 Credit card skimmer: How the credit card skimmer is used
 Credit Card Writer on ATM machine to read your credit card
 The micro camera at the side can view the KEYPAD and also the monitor to send wireless picture up to 200 meters

Types of Cyber Crime

 Net Extortion
 Copying the company’s confidential data in order to blackmail and extort from the victim firm
 Phishing
 It is technique of pulling out confidential information from the bank/ financial institutional account holders by deceptive means
 Spoofing
 Getting one computer on a network to pretend to have the identity of another computer, usually one with special access privileges, so as to obtain access to the other computers on the network
 Cyber-Stalking
 The Criminal follows the victim by sending emails, entering the chat rooms frequently e.g. in order to harass a woman her telephone number is given to others as if she wants to befriend males
 Cyber Defamation
 The Criminal sends emails containing defamatory matters to all concerned of the victim or post the defamatory matters on a website
 Threatening
 The Criminal sends threatening email or comes in contact with victim in chat rooms
 Recently, fake terrorist threats were made to several USA firms requiring payments to numbered accounts to stop the false threat
 Salami Attack
 Criminal inserts a program that deducts N250 per month from the account of all the customers of a Bank and transfers it to other accounts
 Generally, account holders will NOT approach the bank for such small amount but criminal gains huge amount
 Sale of Narcotics
 Sale & Purchase through net
 There are websites which offer sale and shipment of contrabands drugs

Nigerian 419 Scam e-mail

 The Internet Crime Complaint Center, in her 2008 report released recently, rated Nigeria as the country most involved in internet crime in Africa and the third in the world.
 Nigeria is said to have perpetrated 7.5% of the complaints received by the centre in 2008.
 The country was singled out of all the countries in the world to tag an internet fraud type called ‘Nigeria letter fraud'.
 ‘Nigeria letter fraud' is said to be responsible for 5.2% of the total reported internet fraud loss recorded in 2008 and $1,650 as the average loss per complainant.
 This scam starts with a bulk mailing or bulk faxing of identical letters to businessmen, professionals, and other persons
 This scam is often referred to as the 4-1-9 scam, after section 4-1-9 of the Nigerian Penal Code which relates to fraudulent schemes
 South Africa and Ghana came sixth and seventh in the world respectively

Anatomy of Nigerian 419 Scam e-mail

 My father left me $40 million in his will, but I have to bribe government officials to get it out
 The Nigerian National Petroleum Company has discovered oil, and we as officials of that company want an insider acquire the land, but we need an expatriate front man to purchase it first for us
 We just sold a “bunch” of crude oil in Nigeria, but we have to bribe the banker to get the proceeds out
 The Nigerian government overpaid on some contract, and they need a front man to get it out of the country before the government discovers its error

Nigeria 419 Scam: Life Cycle

Cyber Espionage

 “GhostNet”
 China allegedly strategically targeted 1,295 computers in 103 countries
 Perpetrators searched through the contents of those computers and other systems on the local network
 Perpetrators remotely activated cameras and recording devices: Recording meetings
 Several major “powers” are believed to have such Cyber Espionage Networks and some already have military “divisions” dedicated to cyber based warfare
 Economic espionage: Theft of secrets stored in digital files affects competitiveness
 Infrastructure attacks: Assault against Critical Infrastructure threaten whole populations
 The concept of protecting Nigeria’s “territorial integrity” must now include Nigeria’s cyber space

What is the Government Doing?

 Executive
 November 2004: Presidential Committee on Advance-fee fraud and allied Criminal activities in Cyberspace
 10 March 2005: President Obasanjo inaugurated an inter-agency body with private sector representation called the “Nigerian Cybercrime Working Group” (NCWG)
 A Directorate for Cyber Security now exists in the Presidency
 Judicial
 26 August 2005: Attorney General of the Federation inaugurated a committee to review the Evidence Act of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
 Make provisions for cyber-crimes
 Enable electronic evidence to be admissible in court
 Ongoing: Judicial Service Commission to drive a law reform program which includes empowering the judicial process to address cyber issues
 Legislative
 June 2006, Amendment to the Advanced Fee Fraud Amendment Act which now requires all Telco’s, ISP & Cyber café’s to register their IP & related details with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
 The Penalties for not complying are a fine of between N100,000 to 1 million ($769 to $7,692) and/ or up to 10 years imprisonment
 Implementation
 The EFCC as at July 2006 had raided 40 Cyber-café’s, seized 200 Computers as well as impounded 15 Server and Interrogated 5 ISP’s As at July 2006 5 people had been prosecuted with 2 convictions
 Nigeria has its first Cyber related convictions and are only the beginning but the process has started
 October 2008: fifty-eight (58) persons arraigned in connection with advance fee fraud (419-emails)

Non-State Actors?

 Multilateral
 ITU Cyber Security Work Program to Assist Developing Countries http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/cyb/cybersecurity/
 Initiatives
 Internet Safety, Security and Privacy Initiative for Nigeria (ISSPIN) Campaign http://www.pinigeria.org/isspin/
 Proactive not reactive
 Collaboration with Microsoft
 CERT
 Computer Emergency Response Team/ Computer Security Incident Response Team:
 Dedicated to providing support in responding to computer security incidents
 OIC-CERT: Evolution of Regional Cooperation in Cyber Security http://www.ansi.tn/oic-cert/index.html
 European Network and Information Security Agency, www.enisa.europa.eu
 Associations
 Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) Abuja https://www.issa.org/Chapters/Chapter-Directory.html?Latitude=9.066667&Longitude=7.483333

Impact

Why?: Impact

 Basis of New Economy: Data is the raw material which computers process into information
 Land, Labour & Capital have given way to knowledge and its Management as the critical factors of Power
 Loss, corruption or compromise of critical data, damage to information systems and/ or disruption to the operations of critical information infrastructure upon which modern societies rely
 Strong correlation between knowledge using ICT’s and Leadership & Power
 Finland/ Nokia, USA, Japan & Singapore
 Pervasive influence of MTV & CNN
 GSM: Telephone line capacity 0.5m to 14m in 5 years
 We must learn how to exploit the information environment, or be defeated via it

Why?: e-Government

 Electronic (e) Government is a fundamental transformation of Government and governance at a unprecedented scale
 What responsibility does a country have for its “sovereignty” in cyberspace?
 Is it more ”human” to bomb a military truck on a bridge with possible civilian casualties, than to cut a telephone wire that maybe transmitting life saving information?
 Does potential legislation on Cyber Security:
 protect Nigerians from unreasonable searches and seizures while fighting cyber crime
 lead to the creation of a “Frankenstein” laws
 The limits of the state to monitor its citizens cyber usage
 The limits of an employers ability to monitor its staff cyber usage

BAD PRESS

 Advertisement by a US firm in a Kenyan daily on 16 December 2003
 All Nigerians are tainted thus making it difficult for all of us to move and interact freely in a global business, academic, governmental environment

Solutions

 Individual
 Collective

Passwords: Your password is your signature

 Don't use passwords that are based on personal information that can be easily accessed or guessed
 Don't use words that can be found in any dictionary of any language
 Develop a mnemonic for remembering complex passwords
 Use both lowercase & capital letters
 Use a combination of letters, numbers, & special characters
 Use different passwords on different systems
 Cyber-Security Challenges Impact Solutions cScis@2009

Individual Course of Action: Computer Ethics http://www.tekmom.com/tencommand/index.html

 Never use a computer to harm other people
 Never interfere with other people's computer work
 Never snoop around in other people's computer files
 Never use a computer to steal
 Never use a computer to bear false witness
 Never copy or use proprietary software resources without authorization or proper compensation
 Never use other people's computer resources without authorization or proper compensation
 Never appropriate other people's intellectual output http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/WorldCodes/10.Commandments.html
 Always think about the consequences of the program you are writing or the system you are designing
 Always use a computer in ways that ensure consideration and respect for your fellow humans

Career Opportunities in Cyber-Security: Micro, Small & Medium Scale Cyber-Security Enterprises

 Cyber Security Consulting
 Cyber Security Solutions Implementation
 Cyber Security Capacity Building & Training
 Cyber Security Software publishing
 Cyber Security Equipment, Standards, Testing & Encryption Systems
 Cyber Security Associations/ Professional body
 Computer/ Cyber Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT)/
 Computer/ Cyber Emergency Response Teams (CERT)
 Sectorial CERTs using Public Private Partnership (PPP) e.g. Finance, Oil & Gas, Telecoms & Power
 Virtual and Cyber Consortia
 Public Private Partnerships (PPP) & other business opportunities

MSME/ Domestic Business Prospects in Cyber-Security

 Relative to other cyber solutions sectors, cyber security solutions are at a very early stage of development compared to Word processing and operating systems
 Cost of entry is relatively low
 Opportunities exist for creative solutions
 Competition is relatively fluid == Not entrenched
 Large players while increasingly committed are still finding their feet.
 New technologies like mobile phone and VoIP are modifying the landscape thus providing opportunities for start-ups
 The business entry costs are lower with potentially higher margins than the mature cyber sectors
 The windows of opportunity are closing
 We can still influence cyber security standards before they are too firmly set

What Can Institutions Do? Establish and Organization dedicated to providing support in responding to computer security incidents

 CERT
 Computer Emergency Response Team
 CSIRT
 Computer Security Incident Response Team

CERT Services

 Reactive Services
 Alerts and Warnings
 Incident Handling
 Incident analysis
 Incident response support
 Incident response coordination
 Incident response on site
 Vulnerability Handling
 Vulnerability analysis
 Vulnerability response
 Vulnerability response coordination

 Proactive Services
 Announcements
 Technology Watch
 Security Audits or Assessments
 Configuration and Maintenance of Security
 Development of Security Tools
 Intrusion Detection Services
 Security-Related Information Dissemination

 Artefact Handling
 Artefact analysis
 Artefact response
 Artefact response coordination

 Security Quality Management Risk Analysis
 Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
 Security Consulting
 Awareness Building
 Education/Training
 Product Evaluation or Certification

Why a CERT?

 Dedicated IT security team helps an organization to mitigate and prevent major incidents and helps to protect its valuable assets
 Centralized coordination for IT security issues within the organization (Point of Contact, PoC)
 Centralized and specialized handling of and response to IT incidents
 Expertise at hand to support and assist the users to quickly recover from security incidents
 Empower the Security Establishment to build 21st Century Cyber Warfare capabilities
 Defend National Cyber Asset's: Command, Control, Coordination, Communications & other

Modern equipment

 Dealing with legal issues and preserving evidence in the event of a lawsuit.
 Stimulating cooperation within the constituency on IT security (awareness building)
 Keeping track of developments in the security field

CERT: Where to begin

 Executive Champion
 National, State, Sectoral and/ or institutional Chief Executive
 Policy Development
 Within the context of Regulators powers
 Implementation framework
 Open a CERT window
 Collaborate with stakeholders
 Set the standards
 CERT domiciled with supervisor/ regulator

Where?: Establish an in-house Institutional CERT

 Create requisite awareness among staff of the Institution
 Build domestic and global collaborative frameworks
 Supply and install requisite equipment
 Build-up requisite human resources capacities - global certifications
 Provide appropriate ongoing services to the Institutions in-house-CERT

Where?: Establish Sectoral CERTs

 Develop & implement CERT Policy
 Institution
 CS2
 Stakeholders
 CERTs in specific Institutions
 Specific Institution
 CS2
 Sub-Institutions
 Sub-Sector CERTs
 Apex/ Supervisory/ Regulatory Institution
 CS2
 Stakeholders
 National CERTs
 Global CERTs

When?: Be Safe Be Smart Today

 Cyber-security starts with you protecting yourself
 The first to secure, understand and apply information wins

Thank you for your attention
Abdul-Hakeem Ajijola

AhA Parent Teachers Association (PTA) Chairman’s Goodwill Message

Parent Teachers Association (PTA) Chairman’s Goodwill Message

Assalamu Alaiykum Waramatullahi Wabarakatu,

We ask Allah SWT to bless the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh), his family, companions and Ummah till the end of time. We thank Allah SWT for life as well as his mercies and bounties, we beseech him for forgiveness and endeavour to seek his pleasure and avoid his wrath.

Alhamdulillah, we have lived life and seen our children grow. Our school, Great Heights Academy (GHA) has been a blessing to us and our children. We are grateful to the management and staff of GHA and we ask that Allah reward them all abundantly.

GHA is more than an excellent school; it is a family in the spirit of Islam guided by the values Allah SWT has sent to us through his messenger (pbuh). I would therefore encourage you to give of yourself to GHA particularly in terms of time, concern, effort and money. An investment in your children is an investment in yourself, and one that Allah SWT encourages.

Protecting our children, building their characters and empowering them with knowledge are not for parents alone or the school alone. They are collaborative efforts that require all of us, school, parents, brothers and sisters in Islam to make inputs. This is the spirit of Islam and opportunity that GHA affords all of us.

Some matters that require our attention:

1 GHA has some specific needs, namely:

a. Purchase of outdoor toys: The GHA PTA has made arrangements to acquire these toys on behalf of the parents, teachers and children of GHA. Insha Allah, the already ordered toys will soon arrive and be installed. More contributions will always be welcome.

b. Grassing of football field and part of the playground: The school made earlier efforts to do this, but it has had mixed success. We need those parents who have insight on these matters to offer us their expertise and advice as well as resources. Parents who may be in a position to contribute financially are strongly encouraged to do so.

c. Library Shelves and books: Alhamdulillah the management of GHA has successfully procured a few impressive shelves. However, they need more assistance and I encourage you to contribute, Fisabilillah, please contribute as best you can!

d. Information Communication Technology (ICT): While there is a functional computer lab, we however need to consider the value concept of laptops for each teacher and child by considering the possibility of an affordable computer purchase scheme for teachers and children. We look forward to your thoughts and contributions to actualise this scheme.

2 Alhamdulillah, GHA has an excellent reputation and it is a model that other schools of many kinds look up to and are following. That said we, pupils, teachers and parents need to build bridges and links with other schools, our community, the media and the general society by being good ambassadors of GHA and Islam. I encourage all of us to facilitate, positive relationships at all levels.

3 I encourage you to support our children in preparation for future Qur’an recitation, mathematics and other competitions by spending time with them as they practice at home and by attending such competitions in person. In addition, please consider endowing prizes.

4 The PTA needs you to attend its meetings and contribute to the ongoing discourse on ways to compliment the efforts of GHA in the education of our children. The PTA leadership will endeavour to make our general meetings good learning experiences, keep them focused and as brief as practically possible.

Once again, we ask Allah SWT to bless the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) and grant him the exalted place he has promised him, his family and companions. We thank Allah SWT for his guidance, his mercies and his bounties; we beg Allah SWT to forgive us for our shortcomings, cover up our weakness and dignify us. We continue to thank Allah, endeavour to seek his pleasure and avoid his wrath. We pray for the souls of our parents, colleagues, teachers and children who are no more with us, and we pray for the soul of the founder of GHA, Alhaji Abdullahi Jika and his family, may Allah SWT grant them, and ourselves, Aljannah Firdousi.

We must always continue to thank Allah for the joy of the children he has blessed us with and we seek his guidance in their upbringing and maintenance of our family, our own lives, our community and the Ummah. Amin

We must always continue to thank Allah for the joy of the children he has blessed us with and we seek his guidance in their upbringing and maintenance of our family, our own lives, our community and the Ummah. Amin

Abdul-Hakeem B. D. Ajijola (AhA)

Managing Current Global Challenges: IT Strategies and Tools; Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT)

Managing Current Global Challenges: IT Strategies and Tools

Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT)

Presentation at the

2009 International Conference of the Nigerian Computer Society

June 21 to 24, 2009

Abuja, Nigeria

by:

Abdul-Hakeem B D Ajijola

April 09

Table of Contents

Background 2

Introduction 2

Types of Cyber-Crime 3

Cyber-criminal Profile 7

What is CERT? 7

Why CERTs 8

CERT Services 9

How to Start a CERT 9

Suggested Objectives of a Sectoral CERT 11

Membership of the Sectoral CERT 12

The Sectoral-CERT Administrative Structure 13

Points of Contact (POC) 14

Sectoral-CERT Activities 14

CERT Costs 15

Potential CERT Income Streams 16

Background

Cyberspace is an environment that does not exist in the normal physical sense, but exists as a bio-electronic ecosystem where people, systems along with abstract concepts interact with each other, which are usually underpinned by an electronic infrastructure. Cyberspace is not borderless; however, the borders are seamless to the end user. However, every country has its own cyberspace which is defined by its national infrastructure. Thus, perpetrators of cyber-crime carry out their activities in an apparently seamless environment, while law enforcement is constrained by issues of jurisdiction.

1 The recent allegations by the Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies which "accuse" China of building a cyber-spy network tagged "GhostNet" that strategically targeted 1,295 computers in 103 countries. China has denied any involvement. The perpetrators were allegedly able to search through the contents of the breached computers and other systems on the local network as well as remotely activate cameras and recording devices so that victims meetings were recorded http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090330.SPY30/TPStory/National/?pageRequested=all. Similar "accusations" in the past allege that agents of certain countries were logging millions of text messages sent by Chinese Skype users. Such logs enabled the perpetrators to search for improperly configured servers and sort through victims directories.

2 Several major "powers" are believed to have such Cyber Espionage Networks and some already have military "divisions" dedicated to cyber based warfare. Closely related to this is "economic espionage" which consists of the theft of secrets stored in digital files for competitive advantage. The possibility of cyber attached against critical infrastructure such as telecommunications, banking and Oil and gas establishments threatens all of us. The concept of protecting Nigeria's "territorial integrity" must now include Nigeria's cyber space.

3 There is therefore a need to design and implement innovative mechanisms to collectively protect the interdependent individuals, organisations, sectors and nations from cyber-malfeasance. This paper provides a solution path for consideration through the creating and maintenance of entities dedicated to providing support in responding to computer security incidents called Computer Emergency Response Team (CERTs) which in some countries/ jurisdictions are called Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs).

Introduction

1 Many computer systems around the world, in government, private or other organisations as well as those belonging to individuals are interconnected through public telecommunications infrastructure including the Internet. Interconnected, and often interdependent, Information Technology (IT) systems are potentially susceptible to an increasing variety of cyber attacks and related threats.

2 These attacks can result, and have in some cases resulted, in the loss, corruption or compromise of critical data, damage to information systems and/ or disruption to the operations of critical information infrastructure upon which modern societies rely. The increasing world-wide connectivity provides all shades of people, and organisations, with access to the world-wide-web and its resources regardless their location and time.

3 The tools that facilitate hacking/ breaking into computers and associated systems are getting easier and simpler to use while becoming increasingly available to a wider audience. The global nature of the infrastructure, the ever increasing power, prevalence and simplified ease of use of such tools, enables hacking activists and extremists to quickly, effectively and inexpensively mobilise across international borders.

4 The low capital required to effectively engage in destructive hacking activities means that literally anyone or organisation located almost anywhere can at anytime indulge in destructive hacking, cyber-crime or cyber terrorism against any country, institution, group or individual.

5 Cyber threats are continuously evolving; increasing in sophistication and destructive capacity while the activity is increasing infiltrated by organised criminal groups for pecuniary gain and in some cases alleged foreign government involvement for geo-political advantage. Static responses are inadequate and thus the need to establish entities dedicated to preventing, detecting and mitigating cyber threats.

Types of Cyber-Crime

There are many types and variations of cyber-crime ranging from the mundane to sublime, youthful exuberance, malfeasance for pecuniary gain to espionage. The following, though not exhaustive provides insight to the type of cyber crime. They include:

1 Hacking:

Intrusion (often illegally) into a computer system without the intrusion into a computer system without the permission of the computer owner/ user

2 Denial of Service (DOS) attack: The criminal, uses "botnets" to flood the bandwidth of the victim's network, fills his "e" network or fills his e-mail box with spam mail/ traffic depriving him of the services he is entitled to access or provide. "Botnets" are small programs that take over your system causing to become a "zombie." When triggered, your system in conjunction with millions of other "zombie" systems simultaneously demand services from a targeted system, thus overloading and crashing it, thereby denying legitimate uses access to the targeted systems services, the "Denial of Service."

3 Virus Dissemination: Malicious software that attaches itself to other software e.g. virus, worms, Trojan Horse, Time bomb and Logic Bombs which cause a range of damage depending on the authors purpose.

4 Theft of software: This is done through the illegal copying of genuine programs, counterfeiting of genuine programs or otherwise the counterfeiting and distribution of products intended to pass for the original. Methods used include:

a. End user copying;

b. Hard disk loading;

c. Counterfeiting;

d. Illegal downloads from the Internet.

5 Pornography: Ironically, pornography is one of the first consistently successful e-commerce products. It's often used deceptively as a marketing tactic and many sites displaying pornography have mouse trapping technologies that track the clicks and gestures used by the "victims" mouse. Pornographers tend not to discriminate and encourage everyone to access their websites. This includes children who can log on to the Internet and access websites with pornographic contents at click of a mouse. While many consider that it is the prerogative of the average adult user to access sites of their choice, such access also assists Paedophiles worldwide who share child sexual abuse photographs and methods via the Internet. Pornography contributes to the moral decadence seen in many modern societies.

6 IRC Crime: Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers have chat rooms in which people from anywhere can chat with each other. They are in-of-themselves benign, however:

a. Hackers use it for discussing their exploits/ sharing the techniques;

b. Criminals use it for meeting co-conspirators;

c. Paedophiles use chat rooms to lure small children.

7 Credit Card Fraud: We are all aware that wallet sized smart cards are replacing cash: The user types credit card number into webpage of the vendor for online transactions.

a. Online transaction: If electronic transactions are not secured the credit card numbers can be stolen by the hackers who can misuse this card by impersonating the credit card owner

i. Making Purchases;

ii. Taking Bank loans;

iii. Withdrawing cash via Automated Teller Machines (ATM).

b. How ATM fraud is done. Perpetrators place traps in ATM machines to "capture" the victim's card. When the victim tries to insert his/ her card it gets caught in the trap. The perpetrator pretends to help but is trying to gain the "customers" Personal Identification Number (PIN), since his/ her trap has captured the victim's card. The perpetrator posing as "Good Samaritan" convinces the victim that he/ she can recover their card, if the victim presses his/ her PIN at the same time the "Good Samaritan" press "cancel" and "enter". After several attempts the victim is convinced his/ her card has been confiscated and both the victim and perpetrator leave. However, the perpetrator returns after a short while to recover the "confiscated" card from the perpetrator trap. Thus the perpetrator will have both the victim's card and PIN to extract funds from the victims account.

c. Alternatively, the perpetrator places a micro camera, at the side that can view the ATM keypad to monitor and wirelessly send images up to 200 meters away from the ATM.

8 Net Extortion: Copying the company's confidential data in order to blackmail and extort from the victim firm

9 Phishing: It is technique of pulling out confidential information from the bank/ financial institutional account holders by deceptive means

10 Spoofing: Getting one computer on a network to pretend to have the identity of another computer, usually one with special access privileges, so as to obtain access to the other computers on the network

11 Cyber-Stalking: The perpetrator follows the victim by sending emails, entering the chat rooms frequently e.g. in order to harass a woman her telephone number is given to others as if she wants to befriend males

12 Cyber Defamation: The Criminal sends emails containing defamatory matters to all concerned of the victim or post the defamatory matters on a website

13 Threatening: The Criminal sends threatening email or comes in contact with victim in chat rooms

14 Recently, fake terrorist threats were made to several USA firms requiring payments to numbered accounts to stop the false threat.

15 Salami Attack: Criminal inserts a program that deducts N250 per month from the account of all the customers of a Bank and transfers it to other accounts. Generally, many account holders will NOT approach the bank for such small amount but criminal gains huge amount

16 Sale of Narcotics: Sale & Purchase through net. There are websites which offer sale and shipment of contrabands drugs.

17 Nigerian 419 e-mail Scam: This scam is named after section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code which relates to advanced fee fraud schemes. Nigeria was singled out of all the countries in the world to tag an internet fraud type called 'Nigeria letter fraud'.

a. The Internet Crime Complaint Center, in her 2008 report released recently, rated Nigeria as the country most involved in internet crime in Africa and the third in the world.

i. Nigeria is said to have perpetrated 7.5% of the complaints received by the centre in 2008.

ii. 'Nigeria letter fraud' is said to be responsible for 5.2% of the total reported internet fraud loss recorded in 2008 and $1,650 as the average loss per complainant. Arguably not all 'Nigeria letter fraud' originates from, or involves, Nigeria or Nigerians.

iii. South Africa and Ghana came sixth and seventh in the world respectively

b. This scam starts with a bulk mailing or bulk faxing of identical letters to businessmen, professionals, and other persons

c. The format of the letters usually adheres to the following generic templates:

i. "My father left me $40 million in his will, but I have to bribe government officials to get it out …."

ii. "The Nigerian National Petroleum Company has discovered oil, and we as officials of that company want an insider acquire the land, but we need an expatriate front man to purchase it first for us …."

iii. "We just sold a "bunch" of crude oil in Nigeria, but we have to bribe the banker to get the proceeds out …."

iv. "The Nigerian government overpaid on some contract, and they need a front man to get it out of the country before the government discovers its error …."

d. The Nigeria 419 e-Scam Life Cycle diagram originally developed by Dr. Vesper Owei and Mr. Femi Oyesanaya) show the crime flow:

Figure 1: 419 e-Scam Life Cycle

11 Cyber Espionage: Recently, China was allegedly strategically targeted and accessed 1,295 computers in 103 countries in a project tagged "GhostNet." The perpetrators of this "political espionage" were able to search through the contents of the victim's computers and other systems on the victim's local network. It is further alleged that the perpetrators remotely activated cameras and recording devices thereby recording private meetings.

a. Economic espionage includes the theft of secrets stored in digital files and their effects on competitiveness;

b. Assault against Critical Infrastructure such as Banking, Oil and gas, and Telecommunications, threaten us all;

c. Protecting Nigeria's "territorial integrity" must now include Nigeria's cyber space.

Cyber-criminal Profile

There are no easy answers to why a particular individual, or group, embarks on the path of becoming criminals in cyber-space. However the following profiles can guide us to understand who such people are:

1 Dishonest or disgruntled insiders/ employees/ colleagues:

a. Current Employees/ colleagues.

b. Former employees/ colleagues.

c. Contractors such as those who have not been paid or otherwise perceive that they have been treated badly.

d. People who want to sell trade secrets or inside information, commit financial fraud, destroy data and/ or networks, for revenge, pecuniary interest or to show they can do it.

2 Hackers break into explore and, in some cases, vandalize systems. There are variations to this class of people:

a. "Youthful Hackers" are known for their precociousness, curiosity and persistence and in some cases habitual lying, cheating, stealing and exaggerating combined with juvenile idealism including "don't careism" and misguided considerations.

b. "Crackers" deliberately break in to systems to steal or destroy information.

c. "Ethical hackers" secure suitable qualifications and operate based on established fair guidelines with appropriate authorisations.

3 Professional spies and saboteurs: They are paid professionals who are very skilful at breaking into computers. They can damage reputations, eliminate income and/ or savings, sow chaos, bring down companies, economies and governments, and crash stock markets. The nation states of Estonia and Georgia have been victims of suspected state sponsored cyber-sabotage. Such professionals are rarely caught.

What is CERT?

1 A Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is an organisation dedicated to providing support in responding to computer security incidents. In some countries/ jurisdictions such teams are called Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs).

2 In many countries/ jurisdictions, CERTs are recognised as trusted intermediaries in coordinating responses among various cyber-security stakeholders, including:

a. Regulatory bodies, such as the supervisory body, NCC, NITDA, EFCC, Law enforcement and related agencies including the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS) itself.

b. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and associated organisations.

c. Counterpart International incident response teams.

d. National and various sub-National levels of Government.

e. The domestic and international private sector.

f. Civil Society and development partners.

g. The Media.

h. Individuals.

Why CERTs

Land, Labour & Capital have given way to knowledge and it's Management as the critical factors of leadership and power and they form the basis of the modern economy. Data is the raw material which computers process into information. The loss, corruption or compromise of critical data, damage to information systems and/ or disruption to the operations of critical information infrastructure upon which all modern societies rely can cripple the modern economy. There is a strong correlation between knowledge advantage using ICT's and securing leadership and power. Economic powerhouses such as the USA, Japan and Singapore as well as successful firms such as Microsoft, Nokia all leverage information to their advantage. We must appreciate the pervasive influence of ICT media, such as Music Television (MTV) and Cable News Network (CNN), on how we dress, interact and view our environment as well as how the world views us. In the 21^st century we must learn how to leverage information, or be made irrelevant and marginalised by it. As we have found from the challenges our economy, industries and government have recently encountered, if we are not globally competitive then we are not competitive.

All organizations that use computers and related ICT devices can potentially come under cyber-attack. These cyber-attacks can emanate from within and outside the organisations cyber infrastructure. Individual users as well as organisations must understand and embark on a range of protective strategies depending on the nature of the perceived threats. Individuals need trusted cyber protection entities to turn to for advice, assistance and care. Organisations have similar needs; some depending on their size and the importance of the data they hold may choose to set-up an in-house CERT, or join a sectoral CERT, dedicated to providing support in responding to computer security incidents. CERTs are expected to provide:

1 Dedicated IT security team helps an organization to mitigate and prevent major incidents and helps to protect its valuable assets.

2 Centralized coordination for IT security issues within the organization and a trusted Point of Contact (PoC).

3 Centralized and specialized handling of and response to IT incidents.

4 Expertise at hand to support and assist the users to quickly recover from security incidents.

5 Empower the Security Establishment to build 21st Century Cyber Warfare capabilities.

6 Defence of National Cyber Asset's: Command, Control, Coordination, Communications & other Modern equipment.

7 A mechanism of dealing with legal issues and preserving evidence in the event of a lawsuit.

8 Stimulating cooperation within the CERTs constituency on IT security (awareness building).

9 Keeping track of developments in the cyber-security field.

10 The formation of CERTs is necessary to counter the ever increasing menace of destructive hacking activities and related cyber malfeasance.

CERT Services

CERT services can be offered for free, or for a fee, and depend on the CERTs operational goals, situation and circumstances. These services include, but are not limited to:

1 Reactive Services after an incident has occurred, after it has received an alert from a sister CERT:

a. Alerts and Warnings

b. Incident Handling

c. Incident analysis

e. Incident response support

f. Incident response coordination

g. Incident response on site

h. Vulnerability Handling

i. Vulnerability analysis

j. Vulnerability response

k. Vulnerability response coordination

2 Proactive Services before an incident occurs:

a. Announcements of impending incidents

b. Technology Watch

c. Security Audits or Assessments

d. Configuration and Maintenance of Security

e. Development of Security Tools

f. Intrusion Detection Services

g. Security-Related Information Dissemination

3 Artefact Handling which include the resulting evidence and trails left by cyber incidents. The processes include:

a. Artefact analysis.

b. Artefact response.

c. Artefact response coordination.

4 Security Quality Management Risk Analysis of stakeholder activities, equipment, procedures, processes vis-a-vis readiness to, and meeting of, cyber security standards:

a. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery.

b. Security Consulting.

c. Awareness Building.

d. Education/ Training.

e. Product Evaluation or Certification.

How to Start a CERT

The following outline the general steps required to facilitate the development and implementation of a CERT:

1 Executive Champion/ Executive Sponsor: Executives, management, and/ or policy makers at the highest levels of Nation, organisation, regulator of grouping must consider championing the cause of Cyber Security within, between and among our various sectors and subsectors as well as facilitating the requisite interaction with associated Institutions and their domestic and International partners and associates.

a. The scope of the Executive Champion's commitments may include:

i. Leading a Project and Steering Committee Team:

* Steering Committee members drawn from the respective departments / units (unit heads)

* Executive Sponsor (a senior officer who will head the project and steering committee)

* Supervise the selection of the Project Manager. The could be a member of staff or could be a third party consultant with cognate experience in similar jobs

ii. Ensuring that other Key End Users provide requisite support.

b Executive Champion's organization usually stands to gain most from the successful implementation of the CERT. To achieve the desired goals the executive sponsor will need to:

i. Articulate the business case and/ or suggest a strategic direction

ii. Understand and highlight and quantify the benefits

iii. Justify the CERT and its attendant costs

iv. Ensure executive "buy-in."

v. Ensure that requisite funding is made available as and when required.

vi. Be the leading "Change Agent."

vii. Delegate as necessary to ensure continuity.

c Steering Committee: The Steering Committee responsibilities shall include:

i. Conduct regular project progress reviews

ii. Ratify the decisions of the Project Management team

iii. Ensure that the deadlines and budget constraints are met

2 Policy Development: Early approval of funding of the process for the development of a national, sectoral or organisation CERT/ CSIRT policy with the context of convening bodies powers as Government, regulator or organisation and in the best national interest. This process will develop the requisite policy, regulations and implementation framework for the proposed CERT window in the shortest timeframe.

3 Open a CERT window: Collaborate with consultants and stake holders to open an appropriately regulated CERT window, and set the standards for minimum acceptable CERT capabilities, for national or sectoral Institutions or departments within the ambit of the conveners operations, regulatory and monitoring framework.

4 Establish an in-house CERT: All organisations including government and sectoral regulators need to commission an appropriate in-house Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and/ or Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs). This implementation phase will include:

a. The supply and installation of requisite equipment;

b. Building domestic and global collaborative frameworks;

c. Creating requisite awareness among staff;

d. Build-up requisite human resources capacities including ensuring that key ICT and CERT secure the necessary global certifications;

e. Provide appropriate ongoing services to the in-house-CERT.

f. Depending on the organisation the in-house CERT may have 3-5 members and must be kept as functionally compact as practicable.

5 Establish sectoral CERT: Government and regulators must practice what they preach by establishing in-house CERTs prior to establishing sectoral CERTs.

a. The Government and/ or regulator and their staff will work with relevant stakeholders to develop and implement an appropriate Sectoral Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and/ or Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs) and spur the development of sub-sectorial CERTs/ CSIRTs as well help the institutions they regulate to establish in-house CERTs/ CSIRTs.

b. We recommend interested regulators initiate the establishment of a Task Force in cooperation with local stakeholders, other countries with CERTS such as USA, UK, Malaysia, Pakistan, Australia countries to establish their sectoral CERT.

Suggested Objectives of a Sectoral CERT

The following is based on experience with the 11 national OIC CERT based in Malaysia. The purpose of Sectoral CERT is to encourage and support the smooth collaboration and cooperation between CERTs in the Sector that a supervisory body regulates and other stakeholder CERTs as required. The objectives include:

1 Strengthen Relationships: Strengthen Relationship amongst CERTs and other stakeholders in the supervisory body's membership domain. This will be achieved through building cooperation in the Sector that the supervisory body regulates for the effective coordination and management of security incidents. These activities are also expected to broadly enhance local and international cooperation on information security.

2 Information Sharing: Information Sharing including findings from reported incidents and case studies, so that such information can be used to identify and correct information security and related vulnerabilities before they are negatively exploited. It is envisaged that organisations that the supervisory body regulates will share experiences and best practices so that the sectoral CERT members can jointly develop measures to deal with large-scale, regional, national and international network security incidents and emergencies.

3 Prevent cyber terrorism and computer crimes: Prevent/ reduce cyber terrorism and computer crimes by eliminating loopholes, harmonising cyber security policies, regulations and rules; share best practice and other requisite information; and strengthen cooperation and initiatives on such matters.

4 Collaborative Technology Research, Development and Innovation: Foster and Promote Collaborative Technology Research, Development and Innovation such as advisory information on potential threats and emerging incident situations, exchanging information on information security reviews and facilitation of research activities in specific areas in line with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Global Cyber security Agenda www.itu.int/cybersecurity/gca.

5 Education and Outreach: Cultivate Foster Education and Outreach Programs for setting-up CERTs within sectoral institutions that do not have a CERT within their respective organisations structure. The supervisory body CERT is expected to assist other CERTs to conduct efficient and effective computer emergency response. Collaboration on Human Resource Capacity building with entities such as the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) www.issa.org Abuja branch is crucial.

6 Recommendations on legal and regulatory issues: Providing inputs and/ or recommendations to help address legal and regulatory issues related to information security and emergency response within and between sectoral Institutions.

7 Report to the Sectoral Supervisory Body: Report all developments and propose recommendations/ advice on relevant issues and resolutions to the supervisory body for further action.

Membership of the Sectoral CERT

Any CERT either supported and/ or funded by an organisation with the focus sub-sector operating in Nigeria, the government, private sector or combination thereof, in any locality under a given supervisory body's jurisdiction that is interested in sharing the objectives of Sectoral CERT will be allowed to join as member of that Sectoral CERT. The Sectoral CERT membership model is expected to consist of two primary levels which are Full members and General members.

1 Full Member:

a. The Founding Members as articulated by the supervisory body and/ or CERT constitution;

b. Applications to join, the Sectoral CERT, as a Full Member will be discussed and approved on a case by case basis by the Steering Committee;

c. Full Members have the right to vote on Sectoral CERT issues and to stand for election to the Steering Committee in the General Meeting;

d. Each Sectoral CERT Full Member will have one vote;

e. The Full Members are the CERTs that are located and/ or primarily function within the jurisdiction of the supervisory body and have secured the authority of the host institution to represent the institutions interests in the Sectoral CERT;

f. Each Full Member will designate a person as a primary point of contact (POC) for communications and administrative interaction within Sectoral-CERT.

g. The supervisory body will set-up, maintain and manage the secretariat and its functions.

2. General Member:

a. Any CERT from a legally recognised institution acceptable to the supervisory body and approved by the Sectoral-CERT Steering Committee is allowed to join as general members of Sectoral-CERT.

b. Applications to join Sectoral-CERT, as a General Member, will be discussed and approved on a case by case basis by the Steering Committee.

c. Any CERTs from the supervisory body jurisdictional community sponsored by a Sectoral-CERT can be made a Full Member.

d. General Members will have observer status and thus have no rights to vote or to stand for election.

The Sectoral-CERT Administrative Structure

All CERTs including Sectoral-CERTs are expected to maintain a flat administrative structure consisting of the following core components:

1 General Meeting (GM):

a. A General Meeting (GM) will be convened and attended by at least a minimum quorum of all representatives of the Sectoral-CERT Full and General Members.

b. During the GM, overall policies of Sectoral-CERT will be defined; election of Steering Committee members; and acceptance/ approval of reports from the Steering Committee including any other related policy issues will be addressed.

c. The GM will be held once each year.

d. GM quorum will consider valid if at least half of Sectoral-CERT Full Members are present.

e. In the event of deadlock between Full members on any issue, the General members will cast votes on that issue so as to resolve such dead lock.

2 Steering Committee (SC):

a. A maximum of 7 representatives elected by Sectoral-CERT Full Members during the General Meeting.

b. Appointed for a term of 2 years and responsible for the orientation and management of Sectoral-CERT.

c. The Steering Committee will meet regularly, usually via a teleconference, and will meet in person at least once per year or more often as required.

d. An initial list of activities is included in this document. Other working areas will be identified by the Steering Committee once elected.

e. SC meetings will only take place if 5/7 of the Steering Committee members are present at the meeting.

3 Chair:

a. A representative from the Steering Committee elected by majority of votes of the Steering Committee members at the Steering Committee meeting after election.

b. The chair will be appointed for a term of 2 years and will be responsible for coordination of the Steering Committee. A representative cannot serve as Chair for more than 2 consecutive terms.

c. The Chair and the Secretariat cannot be concurrently held by the same organisation.

4 Secretariat:

a. Responsible for providing:

i. A primary and general contact point for the Sectoral-CERT;

ii. Coordinate the activities of the Sectoral-CERT;

iii. Maintain the Sectoral-CERT records and Membership information;

iv. Provide general guidance for prospective members and other interested parties;

v. Serve as an administrative point for Sectoral-CERT;

vi. Maintain the Sectoral-CERT web site, e-mail lists and related resources.

b. The Secretariat tasks will be approved by the Steering Committee.

c. The Secretariat has no power to make policy and strategic decisions, enter into strategic relationships or otherwise make major investment decisions on behalf of Sectoral-CERT.

d The Sectoral-CERT Secretariat will limit itself to enacting administrative and related decisions to facilitate normal day-to-day activities and/ or initiatives, programs or projects approved by the Steering Committee.

e. While the physical equipment used by a CERT can remain located within the premises of the supervisory body/ sector regulator the Chair and Secretariat administrative functions, of the CERT as a cyber security entity, can be rotated. The virtual presence and online coordination and administrative activities of the CERT Chair, Secretariat and Steering Committee are of critical importance.

Points of Contact (POC)

1 The purpose of Sectoral-CERT POC is to provide a framework for sharing information about serious and time critical computer threats, vulnerabilities and/ or incidents that happen around the world.

2 Each Sectoral-CERT member is required to nominate one (1) person to be the POC for that organisation CERT.

3 The Secretariat is responsible for maintaining an up-to-date POC list and disseminates the requisite information as required to other members.

Sectoral-CERT Activities

It is envisaged that Sectoral-CERT will undertake activities in the following areas:

1 Capability Building: Organise capability building development programs and initiatives along with awareness and training on CERT related issues for selected Financial Institutions regulated by the supervisory body that either have some capabilities or have expressed an interest in establishing a CERT, or CERTs, in their respective organisations.

2 Assist other CERTs: Formulate initiatives, programs and projects to assist CERTs in supervisory body regulated Financial Institutions, Organisations, Programs or Projects that are beneficiaries of supervisory body activities and the Financial world in general that do not have the necessary technical skills, knowledge and experience to conduct efficient and effective computer emergency responses.

3 Establish secure communication for members: Establish a means of secure and cost effective communication for its members.

4 Establish guidelines attack reporting: Establish guidelines and procedures for receiving and handling reports of computer attacks from internal and external sources of interest to it members and associated stakeholders.

5 Web site. Develop a web site to:

a. Publish relevant information and documents;

b. Enable members and other stakeholders to interact with each other and the secretariat; and

c. Facilitate transaction mechanisms that allow stakeholders to undertake transactions with the Sectoral-CERT by providing Sectoral-CERT services available online provision of.

6 Information Security Working Group: Facilitate for setting-up and ongoing operation of the Information Security Working Group (ISWG) as one of supervisory body's core initiatives.

7 Joint technology research: Facilitate joint technology research and development on subjects of interest to its members.

8 Code of Practice: Each Member of Sectoral-CERT agrees to take active measures within its own organisational structure to handle local and regional network security issues through an agreed Code of Practice in-line with global standards and good practice.

9 Information to be sharing: Develop procedures, based on international good practice, in order to allow information to be shared to the best possible advantage for and by the Sectoral-CERT members.

10 Cooperation with other CERT related organisations: Establish cooperative relationships with other CERTs and related organisations such as Asia Pacific CERT (APCERT), European Government CERTs Group (EGC), Organisation of Islamic (OIC) CERT and many other multinational CERTs/ CIRSTs. Provide requisite leadership in facilitating the growth of an AfCERT and CERTs other nations facing similar challenges to Nigeria.

CERT Costs

The following are an outline of the broad areas of expenditure when establishing CERTs:

1 Capital:

a. Hardware;

b. Software;

c. Networks, servers and switches.

2 Administration:

a. Management of the staff and assets;

b. Security monitoring and follow-up;

c. Legal assistance and Audit.

3 Technical support:

a. When people call the CERT help desk;

b. Documentation of the calls;

c. CERT staff training.

4 End user operations:

a. Management of user data of resources breached;

b. End-user training;

c. Awareness training of Stakeholders.

Potential CERT Income Streams

CERTs in general, provide combinations of advanced warning, prevention, insurance, "fire brigade", mitigation, amelioration, repair and recovery services. Thus, depending on the specific CERTs operational situation and circumstances e.g. Public Private Partnership (PPP), it may be able to charge, and thus generate income, for some of its services. For example:

1 Some forward thinking organisations may be prepared to pay for Alerts and Warnings as well as Incident Handling, analysis, response support and response coordination. Such organisations will also likely be willing to pay to have the vulnerabilities evaluated.

2 Where continuity is extremely critical such organisations will pay to receive announcements of impending incidents, concise technology watch reports and even allow security audits or assessments by trusted CERTs.

3 Some entities will pay for Security Tools and Intrusion Detection Services.

4 Often organisations are, after an incident, willing to pay for Artefact analysis to understand what happened, why, how and gain insight on what to do to prevent reoccurrence of other similar occurrence.

5 There may also be entities that will consider paying for Security Quality Management Risk Analysis services including Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, Security Consulting, Education/ Training, Product Evaluation or Certification services.

ICT & the difference between growth (projects) and development

ICT advancements have had its ups and downs in Nigeria like any other nation. I was recently asked if why we seem unable to effectively implement our ICT projects. There are many challenges of course but I believe that in the main the core problems have not been the technical challenges per-se. The core challenge has always seemed to be the political will, vision & leadership, which is tied into the larger challenge of national development.

Nigeria is & her people at many levels are, and have been, ready to advance since the Nation state was created. Indeed the creation of Nigeria as an entity was to enable advancement of the inhabitants of the geographical expression called Nigeria. The question is if the leadership @ several levels has the will & desire to advance? Sadly, in the main, with a few notable exceptions, the leadership cadre perceives its personal (self) advancement as synonymous with the community’s advancement.

What is missing? Much of our advancements depend on the leadership at all levels, as well as us. We need to find ways to encourage/ enlighten our leaders, & the followers, to understand the difference between growth (projects) and development. Nigeria in the past few decades has witnessed a lot of growth without necessarily experiencing development. The number of highways for example has increased, communication that is not driven by the people (community radio); “sky scrapers” or big buildings have sprung up in many large towns and cities. Fancy cars on pot-hole infested roads. Exotic mansions for the rich yet little, or no, shelter for the poor and majority. In the sphere of Education, schools are dilapidated, quality of teachers poor, product of universities not meeting industry need because of poor quality outputs. Health care is at its lowest with maternal and infant mortality been at all time high. Diseases like polio that have been eradicated all over the world are still endemic in Nigeria. No portable water, food security dismal etc. Over 70% of our people are living below poverty line. YES, these are all indicators of poor development.

So, in Nigeria we certainly have more roads but our people seem to be less educated. We seem to use more sophisticated things, cell-phones, satellite TV & the like yet people seem to be getting poorer. Our Academic output is increasingly less useful to government & industry employers because they are not taught to deliver on the needs of prospective employers. There seems to be less core entrepreneurship & more dependence on shortcuts which often have questionable, but often unquestioned, legitimacy.

As we have found in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, building a $2.5 billion Liquefied Natural Gas plant in of itself actually does very little to improve people’s lives & arguably destroys ways of life. It would be interesting to know how much foreign direct investment and other investments actually empower and improve the lives of the inhabitants of our region. Projects may not necessarily be an accurate gauge of advancement/ improvement in people existence, as many of us may assume. NITEL “hogging” of SAT-3has not generated growth or development. Arguably insufficient attention has been placed on content development that this & other similar infrastructure will carry; a better mouse trap where there are no mice leaves much to be desired. It is not always the case that if you build it they will use it, & aping the west is of limited usefulness as we have found in our building designs. Furthermore, unlike past technologies, most modern technologies have very narrow life spans. After all, where there is fibre VSAT will struggle if not die, except when the nation in general is not “allowed” broad access to SAT-3.

A DEFINATE ICT UP occurred this morning. Today, 24 Nigerian Universities are receiving Campus Community Radio (CR) licences, truly a major step but are they really the right place to start. If the University of Lagos CR experiment is anything to go by, they will likely play more music and operate like a city FM station than a medium/ tool for community empowerment through dissemination of knowledge. We had hoped the CR regime would be more about setting up of a system where communities can obtain operating licences on reasonable and consistent terms. That said I salute the Director General of the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission and his team. We cannot forget to thank the Minister and the President who provided the requisite approvals. Indeed, THANK YOU.

All said & done, it is still back to content/ information/ knowledge capacities & empowerment of people & getting our leaders to rethink the notion of development vis-a-vis advancement of their “subjects.” And, how we can encourage such thinking?

I was recently asked “What would it take to advance (specifically) the deployment of physical internet/ network infrastructure in Nigeria?” The solution to this overlaps with the solution to the “broader question of what it would take to advance Nigeria.” I suspect the answer lies in leadership that empowers its followership to collaborate and leverage knowledge by generating, processing, storing, transmitting and APPLYING information. Leadership that thinks things through in the collective best interest. Such leadership does exist and is possible, especially in Nigeria.

NO WE CANNOT, at least not yet

Africa: NO WE CANNOT, at least not yet

“Yes we can” and they have. Certainly the election of Barack Obama is historical. Yes he is likely to initiate changes, as obviously his being President, at the very least, symbolises this. However, we collectively need to lower our unrealistically high expectations of him because he will work within a system that has many challenges, some obvious and many subtle. If he can focus, as he has pledged, on American education then he will have laid the seeds for America’s future prosperity and survival. Barack Obama certainly brings a level of constructive intellect, creativity, global goodwill and energy to leadership in the USA that has been missing for several years.

As a Nigerian, I find Barak Obama’s victory, while extremely well deserved, bitter sweet because while we rejoice that YES WE CAN, it is sad that apparently in Africa it seems that NO WE CANNOT, at least not yet. Not that we cannot, as such, but we won’t have the opportunity to, at least not likely in this generation. The seeds of today were planted years ago, probably in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Barak Obama was born in 1961 but more importantly that was approximately the middle of the modern period of the struggle for the political and social emancipation of the African-American, the anti-apartheid struggle and the political (not economic) independence of African nations. Clearly, Nigeria and much of Africa are NOT effectively planting seeds now for tomorrow, or what we are planting is troubling to say the least.

As the ancient Chinese proverb says, “If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.” Today, we must educate our people and leverage on global tools such as Information Communication Technologies to foster the requisite education for all people at all levels regardless of background, age, sex, physical and mental characteristics, creed, tribe, religion, status, income or any other social divide. Today, our competition is no longer local but global, and our core limiting factors are ourselves, our education and the opportunities we create.

Can an African child of humble means be empowered to attend the best University in Africa? Assuming of course you believe that the best African Universities are globally competitive. Can that African child be empowered to rise to a level in the political sphere where they can realistically aspire to greatness in Africa? Will the African/ Nigeria political machinery give them an opportunity to articulate and express their possibilities? Will the African/ Nigeria general electorate receive the message of someone who is “not like them”, especially if that person is not from their ethno-cultural group. Arguably people like Nelson Mandela, MKO Abiola and the like have demonstrated that in principle “Yes we can.” We should remain hopeful that it is potentially possible for this to happen. However, the price/ hurdles are still very high and part of MKO Abiola’s lesson, in Nigeria, is that there is still a way to go. Our current political circumstances however, remain disappointing.

As Nigerians and Africans we ask, will our leaders at all levels truly learn from Barak Obama victory? Not likely. Will they try to superficially “ape” him? Probably. Will our leaders change and change our circumstances, for the better? Not anytime soon. This is the bitter pill we are swallowing. While a few of our leaders may themselves, or enable others who, have the basic intellect to deliver on a Barak Obama like potential we are yet to be convinced that any of them have the attitude, or can create the opportunities, to do so.

Thus, while, we remain convinced that Nigeria and the rest of Africa “can”, & WE MUST, change for the better. Realistically, I suspect it will be later rather than sooner. To do this we must invest in knowledge and the requisite information tools, infrastructure, processes, methodologies and attitudes. As people of the so called developing world, and assuming that the generation to which I and maybe you belong to, have “missed the boat” we must still make the requisite investments for our children and those yet unborn – our posterity.

So as we congratulate Mr. President elect, and the people of the USA for having the opportunity to make a choice and for making what we consider the appropriate choice, we can only watch wistfully as they do so, and continue to work towards the day when we, and our children, can do likewise.

AhA

The Internet Safety, Security and Privacy Campaign (ISSPC)

The Internet Safety, Security and Privacy Campaign (ISSPC)

The Internet Safety, Security and Privacy Campaign (ISSPC) http://www.pinigeria.org/isspin/ youth concert tagged "The Alternative" held on the 25^th of October 2008 at the Planet One auditorium in Lagos. Activities of interest apart for the music and dancing included:

1 Students from Niger State won the essay competition and ten youth got prizes, including computers, GSM wrist watches, cash and coupons for two years hosting of their personal websites.

2 Twenty Four IT Youth Ambassadors have and will continue criss-cross the nation advocating and apply positive peer-pressure that youth redeploy their misapplied cyber skills to constructive endeavours.

3 A series of stickers were launched as part of an effort to make cyber malfeasance "un-cool."

4 We watched videos of the ISSPC workshops that took place in Anambra, Delta, Niger and Ondo states, as well as an MS video on in-built Vista based security functions.

5 Twenty Five youth are to be rehabilitated per annum from being cyber "threats" to software programmers.

Prof. Pat Utomi of the Lagos Business School and Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem of Teledom International Ltd., personally delivered brief, eloquent and thoughtful goodwill messages. Obviously, I kept my goodwill message on behalf of the Internet Software Security Association, Abuja Chapter, www.issa.org short so as not to get in the way of the flow of the entertainment. :-)

"The Alternative" was a good outing and a useful proactive and preventative model, for and by youth that others around the world who wish to reach the youth on Cyber Security ought to consider. Organisations charged with, affected by, or interested in, combating cyber-crime may wish to partner with Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN) and Microsoft (MS) Nigeria. For more details please contact Gbenga Sesan me@gbengasesan.com & Jummai Umar jummaiu@microsoft.com directly.

Digital platforms for community broadcasting: jinx or opportunity?

Digital platforms for community broadcasting: jinx or opportunity?

by

Steve Buckley, President, World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters

AfriCast 2008

@ the

Sheraton Hotel & Towers

23rd October 2008

Abuja, Nigeria

I am honoured to be here at Nigeria's leading event for African broadcasters. I would like to thank the National Broadcasting Commission for their kind invitation and especially for holding this special session on community broadcasting.

In 2004 I also had the privilege to speak at Africast. So I am not a first timer. On that occasion I expressed the hope we might see established in Nigeria, hundreds of community broadcasters. Somewhat optimistically, and no doubt infected by the enthusiasm of those present, I suggested this could happen as early as 2006.

Well here we are again. Some important, though tentative, steps have been taken. And may I especially congratulate, for their excellent work, Professor Alfred Opubor and the diligent members of his Drafting Committee for a Community Radio Policy. But community broadcasting, as internationally understood, is still yet to achieve a solid presence on Nigeria's airwaves. I trust its presence as a topic on this week's agenda is an indication that, behind the scenes, there is a seriousness of intent and that, long before Africast 2010, Nigeria will have moved from policy to implementation.

Now let me come to the topic of today's session, which is 'community broadcasting in a digital era'. We have been awarded the rather curious subtitle 'dialectics of mascots and jinxes'. I suppose I come here as a kind of mascot. I am President of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters - more usually known as AMARC, its French acronym. AMARC is an international membership organisation that groups together community radio stations, production groups and their federations in 113 countries worldwide. This year we are celebrating 25 years since our foundation, in Montreal, in 1983, by a group of Canadian community radio activists. But community broadcasting has been around a lot longer than that. It is more than 60 years since its early origins in the Americas – in Bolivia, Colombia and the United States.

Community broadcasting is a relative youngster on the African continent, born on a wave of democratic reform and political change. In 1991 Mali became the first country to end the state broadcasting monopoly inherited from colonial times and to open its airwaves to private and community broadcasters. Benin followed in 1992 and then South Africa, following the end of the apartheid era. The majority of countries in sub-Saharan Africa today have at least some community broadcasting services. More often than not, their emergence has been associated with broader political developments - strengthened democracy, greater civic participation, increased social accountability.

That community broadcasting has secured its status in Africa is not in doubt. Indeed the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa, adopted by the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, calls on African governments to ensure "an equitable allocation of frequencies between private broadcast uses, both commercial and community" and states "community broadcasting shall be encouraged given its potential to broaden access by poor and rural communities to the airwaves."

So what then of its prospects in the digital era? Is digitalization an opportunity or is it, perhaps, a jinx? Let me tell you a story that might lead us to suspect it is the latter.

Three years ago I was in another African country working on an advisory report to its government on strategies for media reform. Shortly before my arrival the national regulatory agency that allocates broadcast frequencies had taken out an advert in the national press. The advert announced a moratorium on the licensing of FM spectrum for private and community radio services. The reason given: digital switchover. This, despite the fact not a single digital sound broadcasting service had been licensed. Fortunately, in this case, the regulator came to see the error of its ways and the moratorium was withdrawn. But this is not the only occasion that digital switchover has provided a pretext for the premature announcement of the death of FM radio.

Now, behind this announcement, there exists a state of some confusion which has become rather widespread. It is one that, some suggest, has even been deliberately encouraged. The confusion is to use the term 'broadcasting' when what is really meant is 'television'. Because, as you all know, radio and television are two different things.

What is true of television is not necessarily true of radio. And the strategy for digital switchover that is being adopted for television most certainly can not be easily applied to sound broadcasting nor is there even any need to so do. Let me explain why.

I am sure you know the tale of the jinni in the lamp who grants three wishes, the outcomes of which are not entirely as expected. Well there are three wishes that are widely held for a successful digital broadcasting technology. First, that it should lead to more efficient use of available spectrum. Second that it should improve the quality of the signal. And third that it should lead to more choice for the listener and viewer.

It would be fair to say that current plans for digital terrestrial television are well placed to achieve all of these things. They will free up a substantial part of the broadcast spectrum for other uses. They will enable improved quality including high definition services and there should be space for more television channels, if not more diversity.

On the other hand, the first generation of digital sound broadcasting systems provides none of these things. The European model, known as DAB, is no more spectrum efficient than FM for local radio, the sound quality improvements are marginal and where DAB has been introduced it has mainly duplicated the existing services. The US model is no better and in certain respects it is significantly worse. Germany and France have now abandoned their commitment to these first generation technologies. In Europe, only the UK and Denmark are committed to DAB, and the UK position is looking increasingly fragile. Last year the largest UK commercial radio group, GCap, withdrew from the DAB platform, and only last week, the much heralded new national UK DAB service plunged into crisis when its main backer, Channel 4, pulled out.

Most European countries are now considering choosing from a second generation of digital sound broadcasting technologies, with names like DAB+, DMB and DRM, which means listeners who have bought first generation DAB receivers have spent a lot of money on an item that will be obsolete before their FM wireless goes silent.

So what does this mean for community broadcasters?

Well, if is community radio that we would like to develop, then analogue broadcasting, on FM and AM, remains the only game in town. It is on the FM platform, in particular, that community radio must establish its presence and demonstrate its sustainability if it is to find a future on whichever digital platform finally prevails. So any suggestion that FM should be faced with a switch-off time table should be vigorously opposed.

On the other hand, for local and community television services, the switch to digital may indeed be an opportunity. More channels should become available and if governments are to respect the call for an equitable allocation of frequencies, set out in the Declaration of Principles for Freedom of Expression in Africa, then that commitment must apply in the digital environment as it does in the analogue.

So let me conclude with my three wishes.

1. There should be no switch off timetable for FM or AM sound broadcasting services until there is a proven and viable digital replacement technology. At least part of the FM band should be retained for local and community radio for the foreseeable future.

2. In countries where community radio has not yet developed to the point of being near universal availability, priority should be given to ensuring this is enabled to happen including reservation of a substantial part of the remaining FM and AM spectrum.

3. An equitable allocation of the spectrum freed up by the switch from analogue to digital television should be reserved for the future development of digital community broadcasting - radio and television - using whichever technologies prove suitable.

Finally let me remind you why this is important. It is because community broadcasting, and community radio in particular, reaches out to and engages some of the poorest and most marginalized communities - amplifying people's voices, improving access to information and contributing to a more equitable and sustainable development. We can not wait for technologies of tomorrow when appropriate tools are available to us today.

Thank you for listening.

//

Steve Buckley

Abuja, 23 October 2008

Further information:

Email: sbuckley@gn.apc.org

Tel: +44 114 220 1426

AMARC website

http://www.amarc.org

Community Broadcasting in the Digital Era: Amplifying the People's Voices

Community Broadcasting in the Digital Era: Amplifying the People's Voices

by:

Tunde Adegbola (Ph.D)

AfriCast 2008

@ the

Sheraton Hotel & Towers

23rd October 2008

Abuja, Nigeria

One of the fundamental characteristics that distinguish humans from lower animals is the much higher levels of communication that humans are capable of. Humans have the capacity to communicate both simple notions and complex concepts. This capacity and its results puts communication at the very heart of humanity. Humans commune within community, sharing communion by communicating with one another. Hence, communication is the very essence of humanity and it is for this reason that humanity lives as communities. Community is the fundamental building block of civilisation and so, enhanced communication provides impetus for civilisation at its highest levels.

Simply put, communication is the process of sharing beliefs, ideas, information and knowledge among individuals. By virtue of the capacity to share these beliefs, ideas, information and knowledge, humans have the ability to build new knowledge upon existing knowledge, thereby developing deep insights into the complex workings of nature, both at the material and immaterial levels.

Broadcasting as a means of heightening the pace and intensity of communication therefore needs to be seen as a tool for community building. Today, community broadcasting is serving to extend the capacity of people for communication and thereby making them function much better as members of community in various African countries. It is important to note that the developments that have made broadcasting possible at the community level is due to advancements in digital technology.

In the early days of radio broadcasting, radio studios utilised expensive analog sound production and reproduction equipment which had to be operated by specially trained engineers. In addition, the transmitter, which is the core equipment in radio broadcasting, depended on a specially and precisely cut crystal which controlled the frequency at which the transmitter radiates the electromagnetic energy that propels the sounds to be communicated. Such transmitters which incorporated large coils and condensers were expensive and so were beyond the economic reach of the average small community that would have wished to use radio to extend its voice. Today, however, with digital technology, and particularly the development of the simple phase locked loop (PLL) circuit, it is now possible to determine and control the frequency of a transmitter by the simple throw of a set of DIP switches. This and many other advantages of digital technology have made radio broadcasting much cheaper and hence democratised access to one of the most popular means of mass communication. Due to these developments, it is now possible to purchase a complete radio station in a suit case for under about N750,000.

The above described use of digital technology in radio broadcasting is confined largely within the environment of the broadcasting stations and therefore makes no demand on the listener to do anything different. Even though the use of digital technology as described above has widened access to radio broadcasting by making it feasible to set up a relatively cheap radio production and transmission chain in a local community, the real advantage of digital technology in broadcasting at the community level is in the high efficiency in the utilisation of the radio spectrum by the use of broadcasting techniques based on digital radio transmission. This has the overall effect of expanding the existing radio spectrum by accommodating each radio station in much smaller slices of the radio spectrum. To take full advantage of this level of use of digital technology however, there is a need for some major changes in the equipment used by every radio listener. It is the need to mediate this change process in order to make it easy for the average loyal radio listeners to handle that has attracted so much attention to the conversion of analog to digital broadcasting.

If we agree as argued above, that it is at the level of the community that broadcasting achieves its most natural objectives, then there is a need to develop effective strategies for the digitalisation process in ways that the rural communities can accommodate the change without any unnecessary strain.

There are various practical models for the analog/digital transition. One model, that particularly addresses the needs of rural West African communities is the WADR model.

The West Africa Democracy Radio (WADR), a project of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), is the hub of a network of community, public service and commercial radio stations in West Africa. Its objectives are to:

• Promote peace and reconciliation within a more open, tolerant and democratic society in West Africa
  
• Create a channel that enables people to voice their opinions on issues affecting them
  
• Facilitate information exchange, especially among the people in rural West Africa, encouraging them to enter into dialogue at a regional level and thereby capacitate them to appropriate the processes of globalization
  
• Provide a platform for an alternative to the 'bad news is good news material' approach of foreign press in reporting on Africa
  

The hub of the WADR network is situated in Dakar, Senegal, and there are, at the last count 30 network partner community radio stations in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone on the network.

Each of the network partner community radio stations contributes programme materials to the Dakar station on a daily basis. These materials are produced into radio programmes in Dakar and broadcast via digital satellite radio to the whole of West Africa (and beyond). Each of the 30 network partner stations is provided with a relatively low-cost digital radio receiver with which they receive the signal from Dakar. The digital signal is converted to analog and injected into the local FM transmitter to be broadcast as traditional FM radio to these 30 communities.

This model makes the radio programmes available both in digital and analog modes, enabling those with and without access to digital receivers to access the radio programmes. This way, those who do not have digital radio receivers are not put under pressure to dump their analog receivers.

With such simultaneous broadcast of both analog and digital signals, an environment is created for digital broadcasting to develop while analog broadcasting easies out.

The model is at present working in these three countries making it possible for people in rural West Africa to participate in world affairs. In particular, WADR is poised to facilitate the participation of rural West Africans in the Charles Taylor trials at the Hague. Through the mediation of WADR, daily reports of the proceedings of the trials will be broadcast to these 30 West African communities and the peoples' reactions will also be projected to the world. Within a 24hr period therefore, people in rural West Africa have the opportunity to participate in world affairs. By this efficient use of digital technology, they would have become not mere subjects of world affairs, but they too will be commenting on world affairs and hopefully affecting its direction.

Unfortunately however, as presently formulated, the Nigerian broadcasting code does not accommodate this model because radio stations are not allowed to network. There is a need therefore to reconsider this provision of the broadcasting code, weighing its perceived advantages against the disadvantage of sentencing Nigerian broadcasting stations to soliloquy.

From the forgoing, it can be seen that digital broadcasting technology can be appropriated to enhance community broadcasting. To take full advantage of these developments in Nigeria however, new need to further the penetration of community broadcasting in Nigeria.

Amplifying the People’s Voices: Community Broadcasting in a Digital Era

Amplifying the People's Voices: Community Broadcasting in a Digital Era

By

Jummai Umar

Citizenship Program Manager, Microsoft Nigeria and Anglophone West Africa

jummaiu@microsoft.com

AfriCast 2008

@ the

Sheraton Hotel & Towers

23rd October 2008

Abuja, Nigeria

Introduction:

Vox populi, vox dei, "The voice of the people [is] the voice of God", as stated in a letter in 798 from the scholar Alcuin of York in present day UK to Charlemagne also known as Charles the Great, whose empire included much of present day Western and Central Europe. Through time People's voices have been and remain a critical instrument in the development and sustenance of any society. This is more so in this era of the ascent of the Information Society, Democracy (government of the people, by the people and for the people) and the rule of law, assertion of human rights, empowerment and development of the people at the grass-roots.

In order to communicate government policies to the people as well as elicit and encourage the people to give voice to their own ideas, which they will own thus ensuring sustainability, on issues such as nation building, government at different levels had always used various media prominent among which is mass media, town hall meetings etc. Today, though not utilized, the media of choice for our environment is Community Radio (CR). Arguably, CR is the "poor man's" GSM. As Charles Akolo Katsibi in his 08 October 2008 article in the Daily Trust titled 'Community radio in Nigeria's democracy!' succinctly asserts "The proliferation of media houses (print and broadcast) with diversity to ownership-private, group and or government is a clear definition of what is known as media pluralism. However, a closer look at this development indicates that all of these media are concentrated in the urban centres of the society. Except, of course, for the wider coverage and accessibility of radio, village dwellers do not have the presence of a media outfit." This is a gap that only CR can address.
Bruce Girard in a paper presented at the first International Workshop on Farm Radio Broadcasting titled 'The Challenges of ICTs and Rural Radio' posited that "more than ninety years after the world's first station was founded, radio is still the most pervasive, accessible, affordable, and flexible mass medium available. In rural areas, it is often the only mass medium available." You can corroborate this by taking the time to chat with the typical Nigerian night watchman colloquially called the "Maigadi." You will be surprised to be updated on current situations related to the US Election, Chechnya, Palestine, China trade surpluses, global economics and world politics. Predawn Hausa broadcasts from BBC (UK), Deutsche Welle (Germany) and VOA (USA) educate and empower these people with information. We must ask ourselves, why do these nations invest in foreign language radio services?

Low production and distribution costs have made it possible for radio to interpret the world from local perspectives, and to respond to local needs for information. More than any other mass communication medium, radio speaks in the language, and with the accent, of its community. Its programming reflects local interests and it can make important contributions to both the heritage and the development of the cultures, economies and communities that surround it. Again we must ask ourselves, if radio and other mass media give the average person living in the rural areas a voice and how amplified are such voices?

Community Broadcasting:

Community broadcasting as a precursor of present day online social networking is unique in its focus and structure. Think of community broadcasting as pre-Internet YouTube, FaceBook and MySpace. According to Liora Salter in an article in the Canadian Encyclopaedia titled, 'Broadcasting, Community'; "Community broadcasting is designed to fulfil social and cultural needs by allowing members of the audience to participate in decisions about programming and, in the case of radio, in the ownership of stations. It serves local communities, reflecting the diversity of their views and needs, and provides access to volunteer participants. It is public broadcasting, but it is not operated by a government or a government agency."

Sadly, Nigeria has been, and continues to be, left behind and according to Prof. Umaru Pate from University of Maiduguri in an interview with Daily Trust Newspaper of August 23, 2008 said concerning community radio in Nigeria "One thing I must tell you is that in the whole of West Africa today, it is only Nigeria - which is incidentally the biggest of all and the richest, too - that does not have a policy on community radio stations. All the other West African countries have policies and not only policies; they have existing, robust and very well functioning community radio regimes. Here in Nigeria, there have been attempts by individuals and groups to convince the government to initiate and promulgate a policy on community radio, there are some impressions being given particularly in some government cycles that we have a policy on that but if you take your time to go through the NBC policy, they cannot be described as community radio per se considering the cost and other prohibitive requirements".

When broadly allowed, in Nigeria, CR will positively empower our people and crystallize our fledgling democracy. However there are several challenges as Is'haq Modibbo Kawu, in his 18 September 2008 Daily Trust article observes that "Community broadcasting opens up access which might be very difficult to understand for those who have lived within the dictatorial ambience which unfortunately has operated for a long time in Nigeria's broadcasting policy. The bureaucratic argument that the radio spectrum must be tightly regulated had been the ruling mantra in the Nigerian tradition for a very long time. But that has also gone hand-in-hand with the deformed nature of Nigeria's democratisation. So up there, within the ruling elite, the bureaucrats controlling the processes of regulation of broadcasting, and the commercial broadcasters, there is an alliance, which has not been particularly disposed to the opening up of the access to community broadcasting in Nigeria. Of course, it has been very easy to manipulate the red herring of security, amongst many reasons to slow movement on that track."

Community broadcasting in the digital era:

Media convergence around digital based Internet Protocols (IP) is a reality. According to Jennifer Makunike-Sibanda - Regional Director, Federation of African Media Women, Southern African Development Community (FAMW-SADC), in a paper titled 'Improving Access to Rural Radio by 'Hard-to-Reach' Women Audiences', said: "First and foremost, I wish to underscore the point that the convergence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has to date brought to the fore the emergence of the phenomenon of creative divergence - this positions knowledge
as the new prime resource in the world economy. Secondly, there has been a noted tendency by countries in transition to a knowledge economy (k-economy) to forestall development which is identifiable with the satisfaction of human needs - namely, a needs-oriented development or people-centred development which should be a necessary condition for development".

To buttress this notion we note Stella Hughes - Senior Programme Specialist, UNESCO, Paris, France, in a paper titled 'Community Multimedia Centres: Integrating Modern and Traditional Information and Communication Technologies for Community Development.' Where she declares that "In the era of the knowledge society and the knowledge economy, access to the infrastructure to share information and knowledge is paramount for social and economic development. It is evident that the traditional forms of knowledge acquisition are insufficient to foster an inclusive knowledge society. People and communities in the developing world need access to the mechanisms that provide multiple sources of rapid information - and information exchange - which traditional ways of accumulating and exchanging knowledge cannot deliver."

She further said "only when the Internet and other 'new' ICTs are combined with 'traditional' community radio, can all members of a community - irrespective of languages spoken or level of learning - be fully included in the process of accessing, identifying, producing and exchanging information relevant to their needs."

Amplifying the People's Voices:

There is no doubt that the past decade has witnessed an unprecedented achievement in the area of information and communication technology (ICT) to the extent that even the developing economies like Nigeria now have access to ICT equipment that have great potentials of amplifying the people's voices. With many mobile phones being equipped with cameras, and video cameras, internet outlet for posting broadcasts, sites such as You Tube, FaceBook, MySpace, personal online sites and blogs, accessing and uploading information has become easy. Many media houses now rely on information and live pictures and videos captured by private individuals (i-report) to report on events as they happen. GSM operators in Nigeria have equipped the rural dwellers with similar opportunity to contribute to information and knowledge sharing, except for the absence of community radios where such generated voices of the people could be amplified. The digital era has opened up a huge space for often marginalized persons to have a voice. It was once believed that mobile phones were not for all, or that they might in some manner jeopardise the security of the society. This has been found NOT to be that case, as I am also confident that CR will enhance the security of the society if allowed to flourish.

We are witnessing digital migration as analogue broadcasting technology gradually gives way to digital broadcasting technology with more sophisticated technological and information transmitting backbone. The main benefit of digital broadcasting is the efficient use of the radio (broadcasting) frequency spectrum, thereby freeing that frequency spectrum.

However, in line with the adage "use it or lose it" the inability or unwillingness of Federal Government to licence CR stations will be undermined by advances in technology which are providing alternatives. If Nigeria does not put in place structures to licence and control CR Stations then they will develop via other means in an increasingly globalised environment which the Nigeria state will not be able to control. For example, a few years ago a prominent Nigerian journalist made unsuccessful efforts to secure a domestic FM Broadcasting licence. Today, he operates an AM Radio station out of Spain that broadcasts to all of West Africa.

Internet Radio is arguably an advanced form of a digitally converged Community Radio station. We are not talking about radio stations that stream their media across the Internet like the BBC in the UK, but Radio stations that exist exclusively on the Internet. Firms like Com One, Revo, Roku, Terratec and Tivoli have each developed and market their own brand of tabletop or bookshelf radios that use Wireless Ethernet/ Wireless Fidelity and commonly known as Wi-Fi which is the most common wireless IP networking standard. These Internet radio receivers cost from under N10,000. Users can tune these radios in the same manner that most of us use our existing radio sets. The reception is digitally crystal clear with no static with the current choice of up to 10,000, and rising, existing Internet radio stations from all over the world. It is a matter of when, not if, Nigerians will use this media.

Twenty years ago a group of El-Salvadorans and Canadians combined radio broadcasting and new ICTs to help bring about social and political change, democracy and development in Central America. A book titled 'The One to Watch: Radio, New ICTs and Interactivity' edited by Bruce Girard, and published in 2003, asserted that "The Internet and other new ICTs are changing radio in the developing world. But far from making it less relevant, they are opening up hitherto unimagined possibilities:

Broadcasters, who used to have to travel for hours or even days to find a public library to research a programme, now have instant access to the Internet;

National, regional and global radio news agencies are making world news and alternative perspectives available to even the most remote communities;

The radio/ telecommunications combination is helping to keep communities together, despite the distances imposed by migration.

The cases presented in this book are among the first examples of the convergence of radio and new ICTs for development, and the book underscores the significant potential of the combination. In this convergence, radio promises to take on even greater significance and value. For this reason, we believe that radio is the one to watch." As many of us are aware Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) and Africa Independent Television (AIT) are watched, while Voice of Nigeria (VON) is listened to, overseas and especially by Nigerians in the Diaspora.

Some aspects of Internet Radio are challenging, especially those areas dealing with international jurisdictions and the limits of national sovereignty. For example, as Nigeria through the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) facilitates the roll out of last mile IP access how will the Nigeria state control anyone from setting up a Nigeria centric Internet radio station on a web server based in another country. How will the Nigerian state exercise jurisdictional control over a foreign based "VIRTUAL" Internet radio station that "apparently" broadcasts "from Katsina," about Katsina, and in a Katsina dialect?

China among other nations have developed sophisticated, expensive and as some have argued in the long-run futile initiatives to comprehensively filter all Internet traffic. Furthermore, our current IP infrastructure makes this problematic as Nigeria has found in dealing with the relatively less sophisticated problems of "Internet 419" and "Yahoo Yahoo boys." As the first in a series of steps, we humbly advice government to open up the CR window, so that there is a framework that it can develop and adapt, which will eventually encompass Internet radio as that sector opens up.

It must be noted no CR station has even been involved in any subversive or anti-people activities anywhere in the world. As noted earlier, security has been used as a red herring to side track the opening of a CR policy window. However, in the case of the Genocide of Rwanda, it was found that Government owned Radio stations were culpable of instigating the genocide.

As noted by the Spore web site No. 109 published by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, in Feb. 2004 "The next generation of rural radio is already with us. Once prized for their 'proximity' to local news as well as local listeners, progressive rural stations have added on several news layers of quality, thanks to the Internet. Research by local stations can now easily have a global spread, and programmes can be shared all over the world, as happens between diaspora migrant communities and their home villages."

In January 2005, LG Electronics released the World's First Digital Broadcast-Enabled Mobile Phone. Today any of us with minimal exposure can upload, store and broadcast video streams from our mobile phones by leveraging on initiatives from firms like Qik, World TV and Cybersoc.com. This has been the direction of Community Broadcasting and it is happening around the world without us. Two years ago CNN asked its views to submit "iReports" and to date CNN has received more than 175,000 videos and photos. According to the Max Digital Media Newswire article titled 'CNN Celebrates Second Anniversary of iReport' of Thu, 21 August 2008 "CNN's user-generated content initiative now generates an average of nearly 15,000 iReports each month." These technology enabled services are empowering other people that we are expected to compete with, and we are not yet empowering ourselves as a nation to even try and successfully bridge this growing divide. Clearly as a Nation we have not used our opportunities advantageously, and sadly we are all losing.

IP broadcasting and IP radio in particular, leverages on the Internet. Globally the Internet like radio is pervasive and becoming increasingly so in Nigeria. The Internet like radio is simultaneously global in scope while being local in nature. Recent Internet services are making it an oral medium like radio. Oral media are coming closer to our inherent African comfort zone as a people with our rich oral traditions. The Internet like radio involves people in an interactive medium. According to Bruce Girard in his paper 'The Challenges of ICTs and Rural Radio'
he postulates that "It has been said that the Internet is a window to the world – offering a view that includes a wealth of knowledge and information. Local radio is a mirror that reflects a community's own knowledge and experience back at it. The convergence of the two just might offer us the most powerful tool we have yet known to combine research and reflection to harness knowledge for development." Such convergence cannot happen in Nigeria until a critical mass of functional CR stations exist.

CR can pass on knowledge useful to the daily lives of the people much more effectively than GSM phones or the use of cyber-cafes. Health and wellbeing, agriculture and food security, justice and accountability, national security and democratic stability, business and the economy have all been shown to improve through the knowledge gained and empowerment achieved through CR.

To date (Oct. 2008), Nigeria has issued only ten CR licences and only the station at the University of Lagos is operating. As of July 2005, Mozambique had 45; Senegal 14, Malawi 10, Ghana 8, Namibia 6, Republic of Benin 5, Sierra Leone 4 and Sudan had 4 functional CR stations.

Way forward:

The Chinese philosopher Lao -Tzu (604 BC - 531 BC) in his book The Way of Lao-tzu stated that "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." We thus request that government through the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) consider issuing CR frequencies/ licences as a first step/ pilot to at least 1 qualified rural cooperative, as guided by NBC rules, in each of the 6 Geopolitical zones. We understand that the NBC is ready to oblige once they secure the requisite clearance from Mr. President. Thus, our prayer is that Mr. President, with all deliberate speed and due diligence, approve at least six CR frequencies as pilots so as to open the way for a broader implementation, and full opening up of the CR window.

Sir, Nigeria is a signatory to the African Charter on Broadcasting, which is a legally binding multilateral document. This defines Community Broadcasting as the third tier of broadcasting. CR that is owned and operated by and for a community and broadcasts in its dialects is in the truest sense the "poor" persons' ICT. It should be noted that the basic low-end equipment for CR Stations with a range of 15 to 30 km costs from N700,000 to N2,000,000. This is exclusive of power, accommodation and overheads.

An excellent draft policy was developed in 2006 by a 17 member committee chaired by the pre-eminent communicator, Prof. Alfred Opubor. This was deliberated on, by the 37th National Council on Information in Enugu in January/ February 2007. To the best of our knowledge, all that remains is to present the policy draft to the FEC for deliberation and approval. We unequivocally add our recommendation for approval by the FEC.

Mr. President, Sir, with the greatest respect and admiration we humbly ask that you and the Federal Executive Council (FEC) considers and approves, in line with due process and the rule of law, the existing draft COMMUNITY RADIO (CR) POLICY which we aver is in line with the National Vision and the laudable development strategies of your administration.

Mr. President Sir, Honourable Ministers, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, colleagues as well as esteemed members of the Press, Knowledge is the key to our survival, advancement and salvation.

Technology, infrastructure and finance are extremely important. But human experience demonstrates that it is thinking based on true knowledge that positively develops individuals, societies and mankind as a whole. Economies grow as a part of this. We humbly pray that Mr. President and this administration considers, endorses and adopts the above suggestions. A "servant leader" will be considered successful if the people can be empowered with knowledge to sustainably improve themselves, those around them, their own material circumstances and prepare better for the future of those yet unborn and the environment they will live within.

DIGITUS Vox populi, vox dei! – The digital voice of the people [is] the voice of God."

We ask the Almighty for his guidance, protection and success.

Thank you.

SUSTAINED AND TARGETED ADVOCACY FOR FOSS UTILISATION IN WEST AFRICAN COUNTRIES

SUSTAINED AND TARGETED ADVOCACY FOR FOSS UTILISATION IN WEST AFRICAN COUNTRIES: STRATEGIC PLANNING MEETING FOR FOSSWA

ICT POLICY/ FOSS ISSUES - DISCUSSION POINTS

BY:

ABDUL-HAKEEM B D AJIJOLA (AHA)

Accra 14-17 February 2008

INTRODUCTION

Knowledge is the key to our survival, advancement and salvation.
Technology, infrastructure and finance are extremely important. But human experience demonstrates that it is thinking based on true knowledge that positively develops individuals, societies and mankind as a whole. Economies grow as a part of this.

We need to create systems from synergies derived from a triple helix of Government, Private Sector/ Industry and Academic Institutions; linkages which would spur innovation by empowering our citizens through knowledge. Knowledge will allow them to translate their ideas into productive goods and services.
It is imperative for us to be involved and lead the ICT policy development, implementation and ongoing review processes as and when they occur through appropriate advocacy. This is to ensure that such ICT Policies and initiatives must be:

1 Aligned with achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) including:
a Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
b Achieve universal primary education
c Promote gender equality and women’s empowerment
d Reduce child mortality
e Improve maternal health
f Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
g Ensure environmental sustainability
h Develop a global partnership for development

2 Address the three central elements that underpin the Education For All (EFA)
objectives and programs, namely:
a Every child, every youth, and every adult has a right to a minimum basic education.
b The participation of local communities, professional organizations, and educational institutions is essential.
c Special attention must be given to girls' education and women's literacy.

3 Support, in the Nigerian context, government in achieving the goals of the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), like:
A Wealth Creation,
B Employment Generation,
C Poverty Reduction and
D Value Re-Orientation

4 Other West African Countries will likely have developed or adapted similar national, regional and international development initiatives and policies, like:
A Universal Basic Education (UBE)
B Information for All (IFA)
C New Partnerships for Africa Development (NEPAD)

BROAD ICT POLICY/ FOSS ISSUES: UNIVERSAL ACCESS ISSUES

ICT’s are about PEOPLE; their welfare, health, education, employment, poverty-reduction, empowerment, security and participation. To this end there are some broad concerns that must be considered when developing advocacy strategies for FOSS utilisation, namely:
1 Availability – is it there?
2 Accessibility – can everyone use it?
3 Affordability – can everyone afford it?

SPECIFIC ICT ADVOCACY/ POLICY ISSUES
Beyond the broad concerns there are other issues that must be addressed by any “sustained and targeted advocacy” program. The advocates must understand and address the issues squarely and honestly to be successful. They include:

1 Physical access: Is technology available and physically accessible?
A Like many other developing nations, Nigeria’s tele-density has seen rapid progress over the last 10 years. However, it masks certain issues related to last mile and rural access which governments and advocates need to be addressing.
B The Nigerian government is actively encouraging Nigerians in the Diaspora to participate in our economic development, much of this includes ICT capacity building. It is estimated that there are 3.5 million in the USA alone, with over 5,000 of them registered as IT professionals with the Nigerian IT Professionals in the Americas (NITPA).
C Nigeria is collaborating with development partners like UNESCO, USAID, Japan funds In Trust, OSIWA, IDRC, British Council and DFID.
D Nigeria is exploring ways to stimulate the growth of ICT-based SMEs to tap into the huge potentials of Nigeria and the global markets.
E Government has recognised that Bandwidth is a major concern to all ICT user and calls on Banking, Oil & Gas and Telecommunication industries to assist Higher Education institution to utilise their excess bandwidth.
F Predatory pricing is an issue of grave concern and Government is ensuring that the regulators have the legal backing and independence to protect consumer’s rights.

2 Appropriate Technology: What is the appropriate technology according to local conditions, and how people need and want to put technology to use?
A Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to build viable ICT projects such as the proposed Virtual Library and rural kiosk access points in Nigeria. Government can not do “IT” alone.
B Where do One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and Classmate PC (CMPC) programs fit into the equation, if at all? Can they work, will society accept them and will status-quo, multi-national proxies and Government encourage or frustrate them? Will competitors or internal wrangling scuttle them? Should FOSS advocacy propagate or ignore them? Where should we stand on such initiatives?
C The are several anomalous ICT licensing processes e.g. some broadcasters tried to provide “retail” connectivity leveraging their excess bandwidth, because they use Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity for relaying their TV satellite links. They can use these IP links because they have the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) licence. However, they found out that they were running afoul of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) when it “closed” them down for providing IP access without appropriate NCC licences. Interestingly both NBC and NCC are agencies of Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Communication.
D Government is investing in building Satellite technology capacities.
E Government is also evaluating the merits and otherwise of other ICT technologies such as fixed wireless, VSAT, Low cost wireless technology, low power, and low cost computer technologies.

3 Affordability: Is technology access affordable for people to use?
A In general the cost of telecommunications is still too high and the regulators is facilitating is reduction.
B With the launch of Nigeria-Sat 1 and the planned launch of Nigeria-Sat 2 before 2010 Government believes that such Satellite technology, owned by Nigeria, will significantly bring down costs of telecommunications.
C Nigeria has apparently jettisoned its relationship with RASCOM, the Africa Regional Satellite organisation.

4 Capacity: Do people understand how to use technology and its potential uses?
A Very low level capacity to understand ICTs in government and among politicians.
B Media coverage is private sector-driven, hardware adverts, IT industry
C General ICT/ FOSS awareness at all levels is very low
D The are too few ICT-based Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Government look forward to the evolution of a critical mass of CSOs with a focus on ICT’s to act as drivers
E West African FOSS advocates should review and take inspiration from the African Network Operator Group (AfNOG) FOSS capacity building model http://www.afnog.org/ and pay special attention to the Nigeria Network Operator Group (NgNOG) http://www.forum.org.ng/ngnog/about as a model for their own countries.
F Advocates should consider instigating, and collaborating with other stakeholders on, the development in their countries of FOSS based:
I) National Research and Education Network (NREN).
II) Virtual Library (VL) for and by Higher Education Institutions
III) Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT)
IV) The ubiquitous nature of the above strategically places the FOSS movement, and its precepts, in an advantageous and possibly unassailable position quickly and relatively easily.

5 Relevant content: Is there locally relevant content, especially in terms of language?
A Language barriers, our researchers need to continue the good work they have started in adopting ICT’s to our local languages.
B Academia and ICT industry must embark on the digitisation of local languages: Yoruba, Ibo, and Hausa for use in ICT. However, let me commend NITDA for the development of the computer keyboard that has the Naira symbol and those who have developed Yoruba, Ibo, and Hausa keyboards.
C Loss of indigenous knowledge and history – non digitisation, loss of local content resources.

6 Integration: Does the technology further burden people’s lives or does it integrate into daily routines?
A No national ICT awareness campaign, but local initiatives in States e.g. Jigawa, Lagos, Delta.
B For essential message transmissions, high cost
C Widespread ignorance.

7 Socio-cultural factors: Are people limited in their use of technology based on gender, race, or other socio-cultural factors?
A Lack of technology adoption in daily lives
B Lack of gender mainstreaming in all areas

8 Trust: Do people have confidence in and understand the implications of the technology they use, for instance in terms of privacy, security, or cyber crime?
A Government set up the now defunct National Cyber crime Working Group (NCWG) to develop legislation and structures to build confidence and engender trust in Nigeria’s cyberspace.
B Security forces such as the police and army are largely unaware of ICT and need to integrate them it their operations as articulated in the last administrations Grand Strategy for National Security.
C Poor uptake of Smart cards which have been introduced in urban centres.
D We should consider the use of Smart cards in higher education institutions.

9 Legal and regulatory framework: How do laws and regulations affect technology use and what changes are needed to create an environment that fosters its use?
A High levels of software piracy
B Multiple policy documents and “turf wars” between government agencies as exemplified in Nigeria by the ongoing public “miscommunications” between:
I) National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) owned firm called Nigeria Communication Satellite (NICOMSAT) Ltd., and Galaxy IT Backbone Ltd., now in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, but initially a firm under the Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). NOTE: Both NASRDA and NITDA are agencies under the Federal Ministry of Information Communications.
II) NigComSat Ltd and NCC are both under the Federal Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.
C The question that arises is that “Must all things be overtly stated in a policy or law?” Most of the major ICT break throughs occurred in places and at times where/ when there were no overt policies to guide creative thinking. No doubt some policies are necessary and others if we are not careful may end up clogging the system, because people revert to, and hide behind, policy instead of creatively developing solutions.
D Some Nigerians in the Diaspora have been advocating that the proposed NITDA Bill make explicit provisions for including at least two highly skilled Nigerian ICT professionals living and working in industrialized countries on the NITDA Board. He purpose is to inject some global perspectives into the policy making and give Nigeria some competitive edge in their ICT initiatives. Arguably putting in "concrete" quota provisions the NITDA, or any other, Bill is not in the best interest of Nigeria or ICT development. This is because it is not necessary to set aside a quota for the Diaspora. Arguably, quotas, if any, should be limited to resolving historical imbalances where absolutely necessary, such as the emancipation and empowerment of women and providing ethic balancing to keep the peace. Quotas often disable meritocracy and arguably the Diaspora is at an advantage when capabilities are fairly assessed. One likely effect of quota board seats would be to forestall opportunities for diasporas to aspire to executive and chairmanship positions on such boards, as others would argue that the diasporas will have had their quota filled. The current NITDA DG, like several other Government agency CEO's, was, and arguably is, part of the Diaspora and he is now the DG without any overt policy on the matter. The Diaspora, like citizens at home, are but another resource that Nigeria, if we stop to think, can and should leverage in its best interest.

10 Local economic environment: Is there a local economy that can and will sustain technology use?
A Sluggish government with little or no understanding of leadership in ICTs
B High levels of corruption in government
C Nepotism in terms of awarding of licences / contracts
D Corruption: This administration has embarked on several far reaching initiatives:
I Independent Corrupt practices Commission (ICPC)
II Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (Due process)
III Economic and financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
IV Public Procurement Reform Programme (PPRP)
IV SERVICOM – Organisational charters and commitment to provide services
V Government is pleased to note that a member of the National assembly has proposed “Integrity pacts” between procurement agencies and contractors, whereby they vow to be transparent in payments and costs
E Software developers network available: process for certification of software in progress

11 Macro-economic environment: Is national economic policy conducive to widespread technology use, for example, in terms of transparency, deregulation, investment, and labour issues?
A GSM licensing process open, transparent, professional, responsible for rapid growth
I In 2001 Nigeria had less than 300,000 working telephone lines and today Nigeria has over 6 million telephone lines.
II The core lessons that AFRICA and the world must learn from the rapid expansion of the GSM market in Nigeria is that:
The GSM Policy and licensing process was by and large open, transparent and professionally conducted.
If policies and processes in other sectors could be addressed in a similar manner we might all be the better for it.
B Servicom, Due Process

12 Political will: Is there political will in government to do what is needed to enable the integration of technology throughout society?
A The African Charter on Peoples and Human Rights (1981)
B NEPAD, AU, Commonwealth, UNESCO, ECOWAS, leadership and driver. All have ICT components
C NEEDS (National Economic Empowerment, Development Strategy) initiative
D The FGN, Lagos, Jigawa, Delta states enabling environment

13 The role of the various stakeholders:
A Public Sector/ Government: Government has made efforts to evolve, adopt and fund the above agencies and related policies to create a conducive enabling environment.
B Private Sector: Provides funding, impetus and in some cases initiates policies by default.
C Trade/ Professional Associations: Facilitates the development and implementation of policies that Protect and promote the interest of its members.
D Education Sector/ Academia: Provides the intellectual framework for policy discourse and development.
E NIGERIANS: A potent yet untapped potential that needs to be drawn upon.
F Other stake holders: CSOs, Media and Development partners

14 Implementation: Most policies are made, or broken, by the degree to which human beings buy into/ leverage them, thus it is important that the advocacy and capacity building components of any FOSS advocacy program address the following:
A) Provide NITDA www.nitda.gov.ng/ with the capacity to develop income streams that are relatively independent of government. The IT Development Fund is a separate issue as is the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) at the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) www.ncc.gov.ng/ . Part of what makes the NCC the powerhouse it has become are its deep financial pockets rooted in the income streams it has been able to facilitate and tap into. Experience has shown that NITDA cannot rely on government subvention, time-tables & bureaucracies as presently found in our environment.
B) NITDA needs to focus much more on being the systemic and systematic visionary and facilitator, and not executor, of IT development. Sadly, Government, in the main, funds projects that are executed and not facilitators, visionaries or the like. The reality is that NITDA like any other organisation needs funds to exist. Thus, the need for 13A) above.
C) Entrench as part of standing government organisational organgrams/ hierarchy, operations and structure at all levels is the position Information Communication Technology (ICT) Director, equivalent or other appropriate nomenclature with a reporting-line DIRECTLY to the CEO of the Ministry, Department or Agency (MDA) as the case may be.
d) The proposed new IT policy, which is still very early in development, can with proper advocacy, stimulate NITDA into creating/ grooming a broad and representative cadre of under 30 year olds whom over the next five years or less will take the LEADERSHIP of the IT sector in government and the broader society. These are the groups our advocacy activities must also target. Those above 30 are not to be wasted but we need to look more towards the bigger picture of mentoring, inspiring and empowering the younger ones and leave the day hustle to younger dynamic people with the alertness and energy to compete with similarly empower youth globally. History notes that the zenith of leadership development of respected elders such as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo and Kwame Nkruma when they determined destinies, took crucial decisions and laid foundations of peoples and nations they were in their very early forties and mid-fifties at most i.e. the years 1950 to 1960. Furthermore, they did not start at 40 but had been incubating and evolving long before assuming leadership positions. Arguably, that age threshold is much lower today. FOSS advocacy must also reach out to such potential leaders who are currently passing through their incubation period. It is also arguable that these great leaders identified with and advocated the underlying philosophies espoused by the FOSS movement. We should take a leaf from history and build up those who will deliver to society what will be needed over the coming years.

15 Possible starting point: In two years time Nigeria will be celebrating its 50th year of existence as the nation we now identify.
A) There is a pressing need to encourage through government and other stakeholders to articulate and set some short-term goals that terminate in 2010 and/ or that lay the foundation for achieving further larger and longer-term goals.
B) We also need to undertake events in advance that will record our current socio-economic, developmental and political times so as to provide historical records and legacies of our activities for generations yet unborn. A series of FOSS based "time capsules" or the like would be interesting projects.
C) These are challenges for all of us individually and collectively to work on: including planning, management, tracking, support, scheduling, web-sites and web based activities along with a plethora of associated activities and services. We must encourage our nation to leverage on FOSS to ease these process such that an initial advocacy goal for Nigeria 2010 could be that we “plan” to commemorate our 50 years of nation hood and put to rest the "fire brigade approach" forever using FOSS.
I ask that the above be considered and adapted as needed. As "ICT/ FOSS advocates " we will be considered successful if, through our “advocacy”, people can be empowered with knowledge to sustainably improve themselves, those around them, their own material circumstances and prepare better for the future of those yet unborn and the environment they will live within.

Abdul-Hakeem Ajijola (AhA)

My 2001 notes on suggested Nigeria IT Policy Thrust

1 Education must be the main thrust of our Information Technology (IT) policy, followed by liberalisation, and maximising competitiveness using the resources and advantages we possess.

2 IT is an all-embracing phenomenon with, Computers, Communications, and Multi-media inputs, analysis, and delivery systems tightly intertwined and overlapping, but ultimately coordinated by the human touch. Policies, frameworks, initiatives, and activities, will by their nature cut across multiple sectors of our Nation, and they must be highly coordinated, structured, and flexible/ adaptable.

3 Professional groups will advocate that we adopt positions that serve their interests, such as:

3.1 The construction of a chip plant. While this can be considered over the very long-term, it is not realistic at this time. It costs over a billion dollars to construct and equip, while new chip design turnover is high i.e. measured in months, and our regional market is small.

3.2 Professionals tend to be elitist, and seek to exclude all-comers through registration processes et al. IT industry leaders are usually not restricted to traditional computer people. Astute businessmen are the leaders in Europe, Greece and USA. While "drop-outs" like Microsoft's Bill Gates and Dell's Michael Dell are world leaders. Many financially successful Nigerian IT companies are owned and operated by non-"technicians." We need to allow for a degree of lazier-fair free market wheeling and dealing, while pre-empting monopolistic and unfair trade practices and tendencies.

4 While some of the above concepts are not intrinsically wrong, they must be weighed against the time and resources we have available, other immediate problems at hand, and the global competitive forces we face. Our resources can be better applied to:

4.1 Encouraging the development of software and "service" houses. We have the potential to generate foreign exchange through the development of software, and provision of services. Government patronage and leadership is required here, due to its purchasing power. When the USA Department of Defence (DOD) adopted the COBOL computer language in the 1960's, it became an international standard. When the DOD dropped COBOL, it died. Today's Internet started because DOD wanted to link USA Universities and research centres. Thus, focused and sensible government patronage if properly harnessed is a catalyst for development. Examples include:

4.4.1 Government employees who are nominated to attend overseas, advanced management or technical programs, or those being considered for promotion or special posting should be told that their eligibility in part hinges upon their being functionally computer literate. This will stimulate growth in computer training sector qualitatively and quantitatively, due to patronage.

4.4.2 The paper results of surveys undertaken in the developed world can be sent to us for data-entry and conversion to electronic formats, as is done to India. The computer data is sent back to the originating country via the Internet. This competitively generates foreign currency for us, due to our relatively low data entry labour costs.

4.4.3 Nigerian software houses can develop internationally competitive software products, and export such. India has nurtured and encouraged firms in its technology parks/ incubation centres, when the tripple helix of industry, academia and government converge, and today produces more custom software code than the USA. Specific examples are found in the Banking and Finance sectors.

4.2 As indicated above "free market" thinking must be encouraged. Government's job is to provide strong well-built bones (framework), while the private sector must put the flesh in place. Non-legislative methods of fostering growth and development must be exploited, as per the above examples.

4.3 Liberalisation of infrastructure by broadening options, particularly in Education, Communications, Power, Licensing, Taxation, et al are pre-requisites

Nigerian Arabic Manuscript Project (NAMP)

I wish to introduce the Nigerian Arabic Manuscript Project at the Arewa House with collaboration from the US Embassy, Microsoft and other stakeholders.

The purposes of the collaborative and cooperative Nigerian Arabic Manuscript Project are to PRESERVE and subsequently DIGITISE Arabic Manuscripts Heritage of Nigeria.

We need to look into synergies that we can build together between. We believe that with your support and the support of your respective organisations (as possibly a corporate social responsibility issue or a potential income stream) in alliance with the Nigerian Arabic Manuscript Project (NAMP) we will PRESERVE and subsequently DIGITISE Arabic Manuscripts Heritage.

In May 2008, the US Embassy, Abuja facilitated the visit of Dr/ Ms. Michaelle Biddle, the Head of Preservation at Wesleyan University Library, Middletown, Connecticut, USA. During her visit she undertook a research tour to survey and access the condition of publically and privately held Islamic manuscript collections in order to identify PRESERVATION and CONSERVATION needs. Ms. Biddle also led a practical Training Workshop at Arewa House Kaduna on 07 & 08 March 08 on Preservation and Conservation of Arabic Manuscripts.

As the Chairman of the sub-Committee on NAMP Partnership, Linkages & Funding I encourage you to join us at http://groups.google.com.ng/group/digitalheritage?hl=en and initiate an exploration of potential areas of collaboration and synergy between you, your organisation and NAMP.

Nigerian Arabic Manuscript Project (NAMP)

The Centre for Historical Documentation and Research (Arewa House, Kaduna), of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria in collaboration with the US Embassy, Abuja, Microsoft Nigeria and other stakeholders, are working on the Preservation of Nigeria’s scholarly and literary traditions and Arabic manuscript.

The purpose of the collaborative and cooperative Nigerian Arabic Manuscript Project is to PRESERVE and subsequently DIGITISE Arabic Manuscripts Heritage of Nigeria.

The capacities that we are building will be applicable to and available for, the PRESERVATION and DIGITISATION of other aspects of our heritage regardless of race, tribe, religion or location. NAMP is an example of the utilisation of Information Communications Technology in areas that are often not adequately considered when discussing development and the evolving Knowledge Society.

We need to look into synergies that we can build together. We believe that with your support and the support of your respective organisations (possibly a corporate social responsibility issue or a potential income stream) in alliance with the Nigerian Arabic Manuscript Project (NAMP) we will PRESERVE and subsequently DIGITISE Arabic Manuscripts Heritage.

In May 2008, the US Embassy, Abuja facilitated the visit of Dr/ Ms. Michaelle Biddle, the Head of Preservation at Wesleyan University Library, Middletown, Connecticut, USA. During her visit she undertook a research tour to survey and access the condition of publically and privately held Islamic manuscript collections in order to identify PRESERVATION and CONSERVATION needs. Ms. Biddle also led a practical Training Workshop at Arewa House Kaduna on 07 & 08 March 08 on Preservation and Conservation of Arabic Manuscripts.

As the Chairman of the sub-Committee on NAMP Partnership, Linkages & Funding I encourage you to join us at http://groups.google.com.ng/group/digitalheritage?hl=en and initiate an exploration of potential areas of collaboration and synergy between you, your organisation and NAMP.

Welcome :-)

Meeting with DG of National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) on Community Radio

Title of Meeting: Meeting with DG National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) http://www.nbc.gov.ng/
Date/ Time of Meeting: 26-Aug-08/ 2:00pm
Venue of Meeting: NBC Board Room
Meeting called by: CR Advocates

Attendance
S/N Name Organization
1 Yomi Bolarinwa NBC
2 Biodun Odusote NBC
3 Tom Aliu ChattaNBC
4 Mark A OjiahNBC
5 Abdul-Hakeem Ajijola CR Advocate CS2
6 Jummai Umar CR Advocate
7 Mike B Olayiwole CR Advocate
8 Vicky Sylvester CR Advocate

Objectives of Meeting:
Discuss issues affecting the proposed Community Radio policy window and the participation of CR Advocates in the upcoming AfriCast2008.

Background of Meeting:
Subsequent to a recent meeting of CR Advocates in Accra, Ghana it was decided that concrete efforts must be made to ensure the CR Advocates, including the CR Coalition and AMARC, partnered fully with the NBC at the upcoming Africast2008, as well as revisit the draft CR policy.

Matters Arising:

1 AMARC/ CR Advocacy Coalition want to actively participate in Africast2008. What is required of us and how can we assist NBC to ensure our participation and Africast as whole is successful. The NBC welcomes the participation in Africast2008, of AMARC/ CR Advocacy Coalition and all other stakeholders that wish to actively participate in Africast2008. The CR Advocacy Steering Committee should immediately liaise with Malam Awwalu Salihu of the NBC to secure all the requisite details. Mal Awwalu Salihu will be available at NBC tomorrow 27-Aug-08 as he was away on a condolence visit. AMARC was encouraged to liaise with Mal Awwalu Salihu of the NBC to secure a booth at the Africast2008 and provide international speakers.

2 AMARC/ CR Advocacy Coalition requests that NBC consider issuing CR frequencies/ licences as a first step/ pilot to at least 1 qualified institution, as guided by NBC rules, in each of the 6 Geopolitical zones. The NBC is ready to oblige once they secure the requisite clearance from Mr. President. It was agreed that it may be a more constructive strategy to advocate that Mr. President quickly approve six CR frequencies as pilots so as to open the way for a broader implementation, instead of advocating for the immediate and full opening up of the CR window.

3 Clarification on the status of the draft CR Policy and the next step(s) from the NBC point of view and how AMARC/ CR Advocacy Coalition can assist/ partner with the NBC to exercise its mandate and actualise the third tier of broadcasting in Nigeria. The Draft CR Policy was presented to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) towards the end of the last administration. NBC has made representations to the Honourable Minister of Information on the CR policy and awaits his response. Meanwhile, there is need for the CR Coalition to advocate on the CR policy adoption directly to both the Honourable Minister and Mr. President.

Other Issues:

Readiness of the NBC for CR Licensing:
* Licensing framework,
* Availability of application forms, etc.
The NBC is ready and committed to CR licensing. The CR licensing framework and modalities await the Presidential go-ahead before they can be implemented.

Feedback from govt on:

* National Mass Communication Policy: National Mass Communication Policy is still awaiting review at the National Assembly. The CR Steering Committee, with other stakeholders, should work out modalities to advocate the National Assembly for adoption of the National Mass Communication Policy.

* National Frequency Spectrum Management Policy: The National Frequency Spectrum Management Policy Council is already in place.

Digitalization of broadcasting: How far with the process? Update on the establishment of Working Group which the government promised. The NBC is awaiting the inauguration of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Broadcast Digitisation. Meanwhile, the NBC has done, and continues to do, a lot of work on the digitization of broadcasting. It is expected that by 17 June 2012 at least 98% of UHF and FM broadcasts will be digital. This is 3 years ahead of the Global 17 July 2015 deadline.

NBC/ NCC merger The NBC/ NCC merger timetable is at the behest of Mr. President.

Note: CR Advocate visits to NBC It was noted that another CR advocacy group led by Prof. Akinfele of UniAbuja had recently visited the NBC and dwelt on the issue of NBC approving 6 CR frequencies/ licences across the 6 Geopolitical zones.

Note: Internet Radio Some aspects of Internet Radio are challenging, especially those areas dealing international jurisdictions and the limits of national sovereignty.

NBC does not fundamentally object to existing terrestrial radio stations with 3 or more years of operational track record to look into the option of streaming their programming over the Internet. It is believed that such experienced Radio stations streaming their programming on the internet will uplift Nigeria’s image.

Note: Campus Radio The is a need for academic environments to consider evolving Campus Radio stations as non-commercial, participatory and with broad based ownership that is reflective of the stakeholder community, and their needs, in line with CR principles.

NBC envisages that, for the near term, such Campus CR Stations will be restricted to the geographical vicinity of the host campus.

Conclusion: It was agreed that there was an immediate need to focus CR advocacy efforts towards Mr President, His Excellency Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and the Honourable Minister of Information and Communications, Mr John Ogar Odey.

Closing:
Meeting ended at 2:45pm

Scribe:
AhA