MAKE VANDALISATION OF TELECOM FACILITIES CAPITAL OFFENCE - ADEBAYO

By Prince Osuagwu
Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, last week repeated calls that the federal government should make the vandalisation of telecom infrastructure a capital offence to deter vandals from frustrating the efforts of telecom operators in Nigeria.

Adebayo was speaking in Lagos as the chairman of a book launch 'Technology Made Simple for the Technical Recruiter' written by an American based Nigerian expert Mrs. Obi Ogbanufe.

According to Adebayo, the call is not strange and neither is the law because that used to be the case during the early days of NITEL.

He added that for the Nigerian telecom operator, the happy hour is over as this is the era of building and maintaining solid infrastructure base in the telecommunications industry in the country, adding that if this must be benefited from, there must be law in place to protect what the operators have built.

According to him, telecommunication infrastructure should be seen as social infrastructure which makes vandalisation of such infrastructure a security risk highly punishable by law.

He recalled that there used to be a law against stealing of NITEL infrastructure and that helped in no small measure in protecting the assets of the company.

Commending the author of the book, Adebayo also noted that writing a book, mostly on technology was not an easy task and that Mrs. Ogbanufe has just achieved a feat that would benefit even generations un born.

For him, that Mrs Ogbanufe focused her book on human capital development was a major achievement because human capital capacity is very important for a sustainable Information and Communication Technology sector.

Adebayo said that there are lots of challenges in recruiting Information Technology personnel even as it is more challenging to retain such a workforce eventually.

He decried the inability of Nigerian businesses to retain employees for so long in the sector, attributing that to the poor socio-economic environment.

He said: 'The book is about processes to engage and what employers

should know. Part of the challenges facing the industry today is human capital, mainly because technology dynamic. To find human resources to support IT in the world is very difficult and even more difficult for developing economies. That is why the book is unique in its own way'.

He added that 'everyday innovations are emerging on the dynamics of technology, retaining good human capital in the sector is giving us some concerns'.

Commenting on the factors that led to the writing of the book, Ogbanufe said that although she was not particularly an IT person, her experiences as a Human Resource personnel prompted her to put something down.

According to her, 'as a Human resources person, I had cause to recruit IT persons for my organisation and the experiences reminded me that something should be done to prepare people seeking for core IT jobs on what to expect and how to prepare for it. 'In the other hand, it is also imperative that the companies seeking to recruit IT persons should know what questions to ask to know who exactly has what they are looking for.

To be quite frankly, it was not easy even though that I have always loved to write. To bring this book to what it has become today, most times, I had to lock myself up away from my husband and children and I am proud that they understood.

I give God the glory for the contribution the book is going to make in the life of many job seekers particularly in the burgeoning ICT sector' she added..