The federal government Thursday announced that it generated the sum of $820.8million from G5 Auction processes, and also created 2000 digital projects in the last four years and 2.21million jobs from Q1 2020 to Q3 2022 through partnership.
Besides, it also said the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) also generated 94 million National Identity Number(NIN) as at September 2022 from the 39million in 2020.
These were some of the highlights of the achievements reeled out by Minister of Communication and Digital Economy Professor Ali Ibrahim Pantami, while featuring at the PMB Scorecard Series (2015-2023), organised by the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture in Abuja.
He said: “As mentioned earlier, the 5G auctioning process generated $820.8m for the Federal Government. In addition to the revenue generated from the 5G spectrum, additional revenue is being generated from other spectrum fees. For example, in 2020, the sum of Twenty-Six Billion, Four Hundred and Twenty-Eight Million, Six Hundred and Forty- Two Thousand, Four Hundred and Fifty-One Naira, Sixty-One kobo (₦26,428,642,451.61) was generated as Spectrum fees.”
“Our mandate was to focus on the deployment of 4G Networks. However, in line with our commitment to proactiveness and innovation, we had 5G trials, developed a National 5G Policy, auctioned the spectrum and have commenced commercial deployment of 5G across Nigeria.
“His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, unveiled and launched the National Policy on the 25th of January, 2022 ¡ MTN, Mafab and Airtel all have participated in the auction process and each obtained a lot of 100 MHz from the 3.5GHz Spectrum after successful ly participating in the auction process. This generated $820.8m for the Federal Government. ¡ 5G services are now available in in at least 225 sites across 8 states in Nigeria.”
On job creation, he said the ministry prioritised “programmes and projects that can generate direct and indirect jobs. Have regular meetings and engagements with technology companies on how to support in the creation of jobs, and to regularly update us on the progress The result – 2.21million jobs have created between Q1 2020 and Q3 2022.”
Speaking on NIN, the minister said: “Digital identity is well regarded as the fabric that holds the digital economy together. ¡ We have recorded significant increase in enrolment records from less than 39m in August 2020 (when His Excellency, Mr President, put the National Identity Management Commission under my supervision) to about 94m as at September 2022- that is 55m records in just over 2 years- a remarkable achievement in National Identification Number (NIN) issuance.”
While saying “the IT Clearance Project has also seen the agency assessed and cleared 575 from267 Federal Public Institutions,” the minister said this had saved the country N45.7 billion.
