Jan. 27, 2014 NewsRescue at ABU Zaria Hardly is a news item about any breakthrough in research or technology ever hits the tabloids from Nigerian Universities and research centres. In fact no one could have come up with the intelligent guess that in recent times there is going to be worthy news from Nigerian Universities. It becomes most difficult when it is a Northern Nigerian University. Being that, the North, frequently graces the headlines only with reports about endemic poverty, overwhelming insecurity and persisting religious or sectarian crisis. But such assumption has now been put to rest, at least, by the findings of NewsRecue.Com. A recent visit to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, the first indigenous modern University in the North, left lips agape and souls, wowed! There is a team of astute young men led by a focused, ambitious and a very resourceful Professor of Computer Science, Sahalu Balarabe Junaidu, who are working round the clock, using world class industry standard technologies to produce revolutionary software suites that could match every of their kind anywhere across the globe. Prof Sahalu, NewsRecue.Com learnt, is also the first Professor of Computer Science from Northern Nigeria. Honourable Minister for Education, Prof Rukayyat Rufai visited ABU Software Committee’s grotto at the 1st National Education Innovations Exhibition held at Old Parade Ground, Area 10, Abuja (Organized by the Federal Ministry of Education in collaboration with 4 other ministries and supported by at least 17 other international bodies). Team Lead, Mal. Muhammad Shuaibu Umar, took time to explain key functionalities of NINE in-house developed software systems to the Minister and her entourage ( Nov.19.2012). Mal. Adamu Auwal Gene, one of the software projects Team Leads and a head of Software Development Unit at Iya Abubakar Computer Centre of the University, said their mission “is to revamp the Nigerian software industry by leading and practically showing others how local talent can be harnessed to alter the narrative of software development in Africa”. It was former minister of Science and Technology Dr. Alhassan Bak Zaku that once revealed how between 1995 and 2008, Nigeria spent over N23 billion on the purchase of software products. He also said Nigeria is a ‘dumping ground for software products emanating from software companies mostly in India, UK, Ireland, Middle East, Brazil and so on’. ‘if Nigeria is to realise her dream of being among the top 20 highest economies in the world by year 2020’, he added, ‘then it should realise that it cannot continue to remain insulated from the global requirement to be a software development nation, stressing that there is need to take note and recognise that software development is an important key to national economic development’. Perhaps it is a similar concern shared with the management of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, that catapulted it to assume the lead to reduce the number of software being imported and captain the progress of the Nigerian ship of software production paving way to a set of new positive narratives in the nation’s economic development. “What naturally works and ensures efficiency in ABU Community can have its variables extended to cover other universities, government offices and private organizations spanning the country”, said Khalil Muhammad, one of the Team Leads who once worked for a leading software company in the UK but now teaches Software Engineering courses in the University’s Department of Mathematics. For a starter, ABU has twelve academic faculties, a School of Post Graduate Studies and 84 academic departments. It has five Institutes, six specialized Centres and a division of Agricultural Colleges. The total students’ enrolment in the University’s degree and sub programs, per session, is about 35,000, drawn from every state of the Nigerian Federation, Africa and the wider world. The University also boasts of about five hundred thousand alumni. Aw
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 07:29:06 +0000
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