The President of the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria, Dr. Yele Okeremi, has adduced reasons why software developed locally by Nigerians are not getting the desired patronage both within and outside the country.
Okeremi, who is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Precise Financal Systems (PFS), disclosed that one of the reasons for the limited patronage of local software developed in Nigeria is inadequate expertise.
He argued that most Nigerian software companies do not have the required certifications, compared to India, where you will see several small businesses with the certifications.
“For a software company to produce software that can be trusted, such a company must have CMMI certification. This is not the case with many Nigerian software development companies,” Okeremi who should know told the Punch Newspaper.
He disclosed that in Nigeria, PFS is just one of the only two companies with a CMMI certification in Nigeria, noting that getting the certification is an expensive process.
He added that there been improvements in the expertise of indigenous software providers, but the truth is that it could have been a lot better. “On one hand, we can say people are improving, but if we are moving from one to three where we could have moved from one to 15, I am not sure that is the kind of progress we want to talk about,” he was quoted by the newspaper.
He enjoined the federal government to formulate a policy that would encourage the development of technological capacity and empower more Nigerians for software development, as it is central to digital transformation of Nigeria.