To tackle the growing incidence of ghost workers and encourage physical presence at important meetings and workplace, governments, organisations and schools should resort to the deployment of finger print based Attendance Management System. A Professor of Computer Science at the Federal University of Technology, Akure and Visiting Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Boston, United States of America, Olusola Adetunmbi ,stated this while delivering the 143rd inaugural lecture of the university on Tuesday 25th January, 2022 . He said such a system should replace the current physical verification model in use for attendance purpose in most places in the country. “ The challenge posed by ghost workers and absenteeism has made the need to involve finger print based attendance approach for the verification of attendees at meetings and in offices critical,” Adetunmbi stated. He said from research and experiments carried out, the system is highly efficient in the verification of user’s fingerprints with an accuracy of 97.4 percent. He urged State governments, federal institutions and other related organizations to deploy the system in checking the incidence of ghost workers and absenteeism at work. He described the system as fool proof as nobody can assume the fingerprints –biometric identification- of another saying physical signature can easily be copied.
Adetunmbi also urged security agencies to begin the use of footprints in crime suspects’ detection and identification . According to him , criminals find it almost impossible to avoid leaving a shoeprint or footprints behind at crime scenes . He said features from the shoe prints or barefoot can be used in determining certain information relating to suspects using state of the art digital technology . He said when the footprints are carefully preserved and the image processed , this can be computed using certain devices and digital technology for crime detection. He advised security agencies to continue to leverage on the many advantages of digital technology in the ongoing fight against banditry and terrorism.
Professor Adetunmbi also canvassed for accurate and adequate deployment of data in major sectors of the Nigerian economy saying this will enhance the nation’s growth and development. Adetunmbi who spoke on the topic , “Language: A Veritable Recipe for Universal Problem-Solving,” said “the prowess of the global world is data”. According to him, “The nation needs to wake up and do the needful in the art of data acquisition, data preservation, data utilization and data deployment in major sectors of the economy like education, agriculture, health, finance, and manufacturing, to mention a few. There is the need to harness the existing data and also increase the quality of data gathered in the nation for our overall well-being.” He said the acquisition of data and its deployment accurately will enhance development and planning in all sectors of the Nigerian economy.
The don, who developed a FUTA ‘s Timetable software and designed Fibre Optics Networks laid across the campus, said that the advances in telecommunication technology provide a platform to exploit languages for national integration and economic advancement in a peaceful neighborhood.
Speaking on the importance of language to national development he said “language is vital to the creativity of the present global society and required in problem-solving domains across the global network.” He added that the ability to interact, express feelings, moods, ideas and exchange information with one another either by speaking, writing or through gestures is what makes human unique. The same language, according to him is germane to social interactions and the well-being of the human race because in the contemporary world, metalanguage has become so vital to the extent that it constitutes the major components of the fabric that binds the entire world together as a global village.
Adetunmbi, a former Director of the Computer Resource Centre, FUTA said most metalanguages from different professions are transformed by programming languages in order to create a problem solving domain as may be required by the compelling exigencies at hand. According to him, a typical computer programme, which is a metalanguage, has become a universal language that can be used to capture any human language adequately for solving problems in any area of human endeavor. Thus, all natural languages are metalanguages and all programming languages are metalanguages. Therefore, the metalanguages undoubtedly are the converging points in the transformation of the various professional and natural languages to implementable computing programming languages.
The don stressed the need for use of local content for infrastructures in order to promote technology and resource, calling on educational institutions to imbibe the culture of creative thinking in learners through problem solving skills, using available local contents/resources. He said ,“For a vibrant economy, there is the need for all sectors of government establishments to design a common template for resolving challenges with clearly endorsed unity of purpose and coordinated problem solving initiatives.”
In his remarks , Chairman at the event, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Joseph Fuwape, said Adetunmbi has distinguished himself as a scholar of repute in his area of specialization having mentored many young academic in his department. He praised the excellent delivery of the lecture which revealed that language can become recipe for universal problem-solving domains.
