A retired professor of Data and Information Science at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Mutawakilu Tiamiyu, tells ADEMOLA ADEGBITE how the advent of artificial intelligence will change the work environment
Will you say you are fulfilled retiring at 70?
Yes, I am fulfilled because I never thought God would keep me alive, healthy, hale and hearty to celebrate my 70th birthday. I was consistent in my workplace and next year will make it my 40th year.
What are your plans for retirement?
As I said during my valedictory lecture, I have been working since I was 18. I worked in a mass factory for two and a half years. I worked in a ministry for two and a half years and went to the university for my undergraduate programme. I went back to the ministry and returned to the university for my master’s degree. So, I have worked for about 52 years. A time comes when you need to take a rest, look back and reflect on what you have been able to accomplish. At 70, you need to keep your mind and body safe. I am planning to write a book. I had wanted to travel a lot to see the world more than I could when I was working. But as I said, I may also want to become a 70-year-old student, just for the love of trying to learn more and keep myself alert and see if there is anybody who wants to recommend me for any job.
What was your experience in information technology like?
When I was trained at that time, information technology was just starting. In fact, it was the main reason I agreed because IT was new and I felt its future was bright. In 1985 when I was in Canada, that was when the computer revolution started. So, I have witnessed all the developments that have taken place. I have also mentored many students, taught many students and in fact, I have supervised a mother and a daughter, and two of my students got married. Those are the only instances of many opportunities that God gave me to impact the lives of young people who also felt that they needed to join the IT revolution through our centre (at the university).
In the course of this, what challenges did you face?
Challenges keep coming with IT. You know one of the problems we have in the IT sector is that technology keeps changing, so you must be somebody who can update yourself constantly or else you will lose track and you will be left behind. That is the main challenge everybody in this field faces every day. Every two years, new things are coming up. Before Covid-19, I was already teaching online because, despite my age, I like to take up challenges. I don’t run away from challenges; I face them. I have learnt how to programme software, so any skill or knowledge that is relevant to my profession, I have made an effort to acquire it to teach my students, do good research and publish adequately in the course of my career.
What are your prospects in the field of information technology?
I have high hopes for achieving much in information science and technology, as a teacher, mentor, researcher and somebody who publishes (one of) the best journals in the world. When we started, there were no local journals for our field, so all our completed publications were abroad, with high-quality journals. That was the prospect I saw and I have kept to it. I have travelled to many countries. I have been an external examiner in many universities and I have consulted for them because I started my work life in a ministry in Kwara State. So, I know the public sector. In the ministry, I was at various times a junior officer and a planning officer. So, I have experienced life in the public sector both at the junior and senior levels. My focus during my career has been on whatever research and publication I can do to help the public sector in Nigeria.
What is the happiest moment in life?
My happiest day is (being recognised by my former students) today because all through my career, I concentrated on doing my work as well as pleasing my God. I do things thoroughly not to cut corners. When I supervise, I supervise carefully and demand excellence from the people I supervise. So, today is my happiest day because, for all these things I have done for over so many years to be recognised by my former students, I will say it is the happiest day in my life to be honoured by many people without actually asking for it. It is like the icing on the cake.
Have there been low moments in your life?
Sad day? Sad moment? Career-wise, I never had any sad moments because, in our own belief, we normally embrace challenges. I don’t embrace challenges in the sense that I will fail. I embrace challenges in the sense that later in life, I will begin to understand that God just wanted me to play certain roles that can only be played when challenges are thrown at me. So, I cannot say I have had a sad moment career-wise.
There are other periods where you worry but I don’t consider them serious enough for me to call challenges. I think I should be thankful to Almighty Allah. In my childhood, I was a sick person; for the first 10 years of my childhood, I was very sick. I believe my parents never thought I would survive. That is why I was given the name, Folorunso, not by my parents but by the people around me. So, for me who was so sickly and people thought I would die, to have gone through life getting healthier and happier, you may not believe that I was a sickly person about 60 years ago. That is why I said I should be very thankful to God.
God wanted me to play a role and I have done it beautifully to the best of my abilities that God has given me. And I just look forward to reflecting on the past and thank God as I hopefully age peacefully. I don’t believe in working till I drop dead. I believe there is time for everything, time for working, serious work. With retirement now, I want to relax and reflect and thank God, hoping I will be able to live many more years in life.
In what ways can you say IT has contributed to nation-building?
When we started, IT wasn’t in existence in Nigeria. The Nigerian Telecommunications Limited was the only telecommunications service in Nigeria and you know the problems that organisation had in terms of satisfying consumers. So, when we started, in fact, in the whole of West Africa, our organisation was set up to train people in the whole English-speaking West Africa and conducted workshops in these places.
In Nigeria, because we have been in the area of consultancy, I was a member of the national committee and chaired the ICT sub-committee. I have been part of the educational management information system at the national level and also in Lagos State and many other consultancies I have done for public sector organisations during my career.
As an expert, what is the prospect of ICT in Nigeria’s economy?
In Nigeria for example, because I have used IT in the public sector, we still have a long way to go. The main reason is that the public sector doesn’t pay good salaries or good remuneration. So, the good people don’t go to the public sector. In all ministries in this country, you will never find good people, the best at handling their ICTs. If they are employed as the best, they won’t stay because they have better offers in the private sector and also abroad. If the public sector continues like this, it will be unable to attract the best and even when they do, even when they develop or send them on training, when they come back, they become experts, because their remuneration is not good, they often leave and that has been a recurring problem over so many decades, since independence. You know the health of the public sector determines the health of the whole economy of the nation. It has influenced a lot of things that happen in every sector.
In developed countries, usually, the public sector is large. They allow the private sector to do a lot of things. But here (in Nigeria), people expect the public sector to do a lot of things for them but if the public sector is unable to harness ICT effectively and efficiently due to a lack of human resources, it means the whole economy will suffer and that is a serious problem. Take the Independent National Electoral Commission as an example. The best ICT people will not work for INEC. How much will INEC pay? They can easily be bought to tamper with the way the computer is working. They can easily be bought because they are not paying them well and somebody can easily give a million naira to somebody to tamper with their ICT. Of course, it is what you tell ICT that it will do. You consider it a way just like hacking. They will do it and that means that the ICT will not be used for useful purposes but for criminal purposes, even by insiders. Even in the banks where the people are paid better, you still see insiders collaborating with outsiders to defraud people.
What impact can artificial intelligence have on Nigeria’s economy?
The problem with Nigeria is that we don’t control the creation of technology but we have been forced to use it. For example, given our population with youth unemployment, this is not an economy where you give more attention to ICT doing things because that will mean more people will be made unemployed. In the olden days when you go to the banks, you see so many tellers. The automated teller machine is an ICT. It took away a lot of things. In every sector that ICT gets to, people will lose jobs. But the way the world is going, no country can dare say, “No, I can’t play the ICT game.” No country will say that because other countries will use ICT to get the best of you in the global arena. So, we cannot say we can’t play that ICT game.
Now, with the advent of AI, virtually all human activities are being shifted to robots or robots tied to devices or vehicles. Imagine most vehicles become driverless. What happens to all the drivers, and conductors, all over the place? What happens to them? Imagine even teachers? Artificial intelligence teachers don’t get tired, they don’t demand salary increases, no strike. So, the issue is about what human beings will do. Lack of work can kill, and the lack of income, and depression lead many people to take drugs. Alcoholism kills. This is the problem the world is facing. A country like Nigeria is unlike developed countries where the population is static and they don’t procreate. That is why they (developed countries) are developing that technology to replace human beings.
Here we can easily do it without creating joblessness, unemployment, crime, drug usage, and poverty. Poverty can cause anything. A gentleman becomes a rogue when poverty comes. This is the issue that is facing the world and unfortunately, this ICT we are talking about is owned by corporations. They are the ones developing this technology. Those are the companies developing these technologies. It is like they are creating robots to replace human beings.
There are concerns about the dangers of AI. What is your thought on that?
It is a future where no one can predict how it will affect society, that is even if the AI is being used for useful purposes because you can also use it for terrible purposes. Any technology can be used for good or bad. If technology gets to the hands of terrorists, they will use it to achieve their aims. If that technology gets into the hands of good people, they can also use it to achieve good purposes.
Even the experts out there are not really sure. One thing is this, once you allow the world to pass a certain threshold, control may be difficult. That was what happened when nuclear weapons were being developed. It was when the world powers realised that if nuclear war comes, the world would be destroyed that they checkmated themselves and told themselves to go into arms limitation.
Similarly, as we are talking, there is an Al, a small device, it will come like a fly, come in, get settled somewhere, and listen to everything we have said. You will think it is a fly, privacy is endangered. So, it may help security agencies to check crime but at the same time, that same technology can be used by kidnappers to know where you are. That means AI and ICT will have benefits but they are likely to be risky and portend great dangers to humankind.
