Following the conclusion of the five-day 4th regular meeting of the National Council on Communication Technology held in Kaduna, AYONI M. AGBABIAKA highlights some of the issues raised including quality telecommunications services, revenue generation to government through ICT and many more.
One of such issues that connects to the common man on the street in Nigeria who out of no choice of theirs but with the tide of time find ICT challenging every sphere of their lives, though positively is…
Improved Telecom services
One of the very annoying phenomenon in Nigeria is the failure or poor service of telecommunications, knowing this as a challenge in the telecommunication industry, the Minister of Communications, Barr Adebayo Shittu, during the meeting assures Nigerians that they will shortly experience a quantum improvement in the quality of Telecom services across the country.
Barr Shittu made this revelation while delivering the key note address at the 4th Regular Meeting of the National Council on Communication Technology in Kaduna.
In order to improve the quality of services to the public, the minister had set up a task force to identify issues militating against the provision of excellent services and the report of the task force is being implemented according to the minister.
The minister at the occasion further noted that the theme of the council meeting is anchored on the importance of ICT in economic diversification.
He said the federal government is diversifying the economy from oil as sole foreign exchange earner to other sectors and that ICT has a vital role to play in this endeavour. He noted that countries not even endowed with natural resources have used ICT to advance their growth.
He cited Singapore, South Korea and Thailand as countries that have used ICT to transform their countries from developing to develop by leveraging on ICT to make a difference in their economies.
$550m additional satellites for NIGCOMSAT
According to him, the federal government will expand its investments in ICT infrastructure to extend connectivity to unserved and underserved areas.
“In this regard, attention will be paid to the issue of multiple taxation of ICT infrastructure and we are working to have ICT infrastructure designated as Critical National Infrastructure.
“We are also working to make more investments in building the capacity and harnessing the talents of our youth.
“In particular, we are increasing Accelerators and Incubator programmes as a means of building and harnessing the capacity of our increasingly ICT savvy youth population.
The minister further revealed federal government plans to purchase two additional satellites for Nigeria Communication Satellite Ltd (NIGCOMSAT) at the cost of $550 million.
The minister disclosed this to newsmen while addressing them at the end of the meeting.
According to him, the federal government was already negotiating with China EXIM Bank for the purchase of the two additional satellites meant for data storage.
He further stated that efforts are being made to procure the additional communication satellites to complement the existing NIGCOMSAT as a means of reaching areas that cannot easily be covered by terrestrial fibre.
“We need just about five hundred and fifty million dollars ($550 million) to acquire two new satellites; we are already negotiating with China EXIM Bank, who had assured us that they will deliver the money.
“We will negotiate and procure extra satellites for NIGCOMSAT, so that there will be adequate back up and once this is done whatever data is stored in one satellite will equally be shared by the two or three satellites.
“With that, there will not be fear of any problem because there will be enough data collection centre and there will be reliability.
The minister explained that once the issue of backup is solved, all government institutions, ministries, agencies amd parastatals will readily patronize NIGCOMSAT. He lamented that a lot of the country’s resources was being exported to flourish other economy through data storage.
“Once we are sure that we have three satellites then we can beat our chest that nobody would take Nigeria money outside for the purpose of storing data.
Barr Shittu also stated that government is also planning to secure functional mobile equipment that will be deployed to enforce compliance and also enable detection, location and blocking of illegal users of spectrum and further boost security in the country.
“Effective radio spectrum monitoring would assist with intelligence gathering and support the security agencies in enhancing security and safety of citizens and the nation in general.
The minister pointed out that government has worked assiduously on setting the proper policy and strategic environment for the development of ICT in the country,” he said
Also speaking at the opening ceremony, the permanent secretary, Ministry of Communications Technology, Architect Sunny Echono, said that with proper focus, policies and strategies, ICT can be a major revenue earner for government, and a game changer in achieving thee goal of economic advancement.
The permanent secretary noted that there is a consensus of opinion that ICT has a very vital role to play in the diversification of economic growth of the country in view of its multi layer contribution to various sector of the economy.
The permanent secretary at the technical session, said the council would take decisions on policy issues that would advance the economy of the country through ICT.
Meanwhile,the permanent secretary, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Kaduna, Alhaji Adamu Mansur, in his welcome address noted that the choice of Kaduna state to host the 4th regular meeting of NCCT, is significant coming on the ease of Kaduna state roll out programme for the transformation of the state into ICT based public service.
He said since the inception of the new Administration, ICT remains the focal point in governance to
clean up the pay roll system.
The host Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, who declared the council meeting opened expressed hope that the meeting would come out with a road map that will assist Nigeria and its teeming youthful talents to begin to reap from the many untapped opportunities inherent in Nigerian ICT sector.
According to the governor, the choice of the theme is apt and timely as Nigeria is grappling with serious economic challenges arising largely from over reliance on oil as a major source of the country’s revenue.
He said that the country should not only nurture the latent talent of its youth, but also promote and export the abundant human resource to international community.
Earlier, the minister had paid a courtesy call on the governor at the government house, Kaduna, where he told the governor that Kaduna was chosen to host the council meeting in appreciation of the efforts of the governor which have resulted into peace, order and social stability.
He said he was also impressed with the developmental strides of the governor, particularly in deployment of ICT in Kaduna resulting in increase in revenue generation.
The minister further commend the deployment of ICT by Kaduna state government to monitor developmental programmes from the office of the governor and he recommended the application of this technology to other states.
