Jigawa invested in ICT before Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms from the Western World not only in Africa

 Jigawa invested in ICT before Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms from the Western World not only in Africa 

Jigawa State has become one of the early ICT hubs in Africa and the first in Nigeria with mega projects in the sector since the year 2000. 

The installation of a multi-million naira broadband access network by Galaxy Information Technology and Telecommunication (GITT) in Dutse, the establishment of biotechnology centers, and the creation of Jigawa Informatics Institute (JII) all in Kazaure are among the things that touted ICT revolution in the state. 

Jigawa state was the first to have woken up to the innumerable and uncountable potentials of ICT more than good 20 years ago. As someone said, this instantly catapulted the state to a leading position and pioneer position in terms of the use and application of ICT in the whole of Nigeria at that time.

I know it will surprise you to know that lots of western ICT projects were commenced after Jigawa state-owned. Among them, Facebook was founded in 2004, Twitter in 2006, Android in 2008, and WhatsApp in 2009. From that, you can see that the state was very early and ahead of others not only in Nigeria or Africa but also in the Western world. 

If all these infrastructures were properly maintained with the functional tools from 2001 to date, Jigawa could have surely closed the digital divide gap and have the highest percentage of digitally literate citizens apart from the economic gains. What Lagos today become was probably emulated from Jigawa after all those years.

The unfortunate thing is that the state is now crashed down or well off in terms of tech communities and building IT solutions compared to other Northern states. The facilities of other projects were abandoned for no good reason.

Therefore, where is the course of the real dream we have started? Now that going digital is no longer an option, we must wake up and do the needful and harness the tremendous potentialities of ICT in everything we do for the transformation and diversification of the state's economy and the progress of its people.