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Nigeria’s IT clearinghouse, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Land Forces Simulation Centre Nigeria (LFSCN), a formation of the Nigerian Army, plan to establish a simulation centre for the military.
Director General, NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, disclosed this in Abuja this week as the outcome of a visit by the Director General, LFSCN, Major General Garba Sani Abdullahi to at NITDA’s corporate headquarter.
The NITDA’s observed that the adoption of technologies in executing warfare has become pronounced more than ever before as war are not being fought by physical presence but through technology.
“We can work with you to develop a simulation centre where arms and ammunition could be simulated and used for training,” he said even as he stressed that NITDA is organising Innovative Challenge for youths to come up with home grown innovations.
H added that the agency could integrate the idea of coming up with simulating military hardware for the centre.
His words: “We are working on innovation challenge. We can call on people to compete and bid for such ideas and we work with them to develop something. NITDA will be willing to assist the startups to come solutions that can be developed into products.”
He also assured that agency will help the formation to build the capacity of its personnel on identified area of skill gaps.
“On capacity building, we can do that. NITDA’s mandate empowers us to build the digital skills of Nigerians. We urge you to work with our team to identify your capacity building needs. We can do some training online through our virtual learning platforms and some could be done physically.
“We have a lot in common because technology makes your work efficient and effective. We do research and develop the IT sector. Our regulations cut across all sectors because everybody needs technology to survive. So you can avail us the type of digital capacity you would want to build so we can come up with it or develop a generic curriculum for you in those areas.”
Earlier, Major General Abdullahi said he was in NITDA with his team to explore possible areas of interventions it could get from the agency as technology defines modern warfare.
He said that new strategies to prosecute war now makes it mandatory to acquire digital skills, adding that simulation training has become imperative in order to save resources for government.
“A trainee soldier would require 10,000 round of ammunitions before he could perfect shooting and the resources to provide that is not available hence the need to adopt simulation for training,” said General Abdullahi while appealing for NITDA’s intervention in the provision of hardware and customized software-based simulation systems.
Also, General Abdullahi said he looked forward to a joint NITDA/LFSCN technology acquisition programmes which could be achievable through organisation of conferences and workshops that are aimed at promoting development of indigenous simulation systems and provision of adequate internet bandwidth support for the centre to enhance simulation activities.
