The urgent need for the federal government to start adopting technology in a bid to bridging the gap between its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the ever growing population cannot be over emphasised.
These were the words of Tunde Coker, Managing Director of Rack Centre, who said described the nations GDP as abysmally low.
“The population size is growing fast, but the GDP growth is not commensurate with the fast growing population rate and this is a challenge for the Nigerian government.
We need to grow GDP beyond its current low level and technology is the enabler,” he said told Thisday on a chat.
’’There is need for us to drive the country’s GDP to close the gap. If we do not do that as a nation, our population will continue to grow while the GDP continues to be static.
So we need a catalyst that will drive GDP growth of the Nigerian economy.
We need to drive big data growth and encourage the establishment of certified Tier 111 Data Centres to drive GDP growth.’’
Furthermore, he said: ’’What we deliver at Rack Centre, sets Nigeria on a global map because of our technology offerings and the quality of our services. Currently we have four designs certified and this speaks volume of the kind of quality data services that we offer.’’
Meanwhile, is understood that some Nigerian departments and agencies (MDAs) of government are always hosting local data internationally.
In view of that, he called on the MDAs to consider hosting their data in Nigeria, as against the practice of hosting local data abroad.
“This is going to increasing international traffic at the detriment of local traffic that will add economic value to the Nigerian system.”
Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) size, but necessarily among the top 10 African countries with high GDP per capita, an ugly situation which has been fuelled by lack of technology adoption.
GDP per capital is a country’s gross domestic product divided by its population, which is about how much money is available to an individual in the country.
According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, Seychelles, an island nation that records the smallest population in any of Africa’s independent state, has the highest GDP per capita of any African economy, returning a figure of $15,400.
The IMF attributes this growth to the role of tourism in the country, highlighting a need for the much touted diversification of Nigeria’s economy that is largely dependent on oil with prices that have crashed.
The GDP per capita in Nigeria, when adjusted by purchasing power parity, is equivalent to 32 per cent of the world’s average. GDP per capita, a situation, Coker said is low.
