The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Pantami, has said that the average price of one-gigabyte data was reduced to N350 in October 2022 from N1200 in November 2019.
The minister made this disclosure in an interview with journalists during closing ceremony of the Maiden Digital Economy Regional Conference, DERC, held in Abuja.
Pantami, speaking on the federal government’s achievement in broadband, said with the launch of Elon Musk’s Starlink, Nigeria now has 100 per cent penetration nationwide.
According to him, “If you look at the plan, the average price of one gigabyte data was N1,200 in November 2019, then we said by 2025 we are targeting to reduce it to N390 by the reduction in the cost of production. Today, based on the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, report in October 2022, the average price of 1GB of data is now N350. Sometimes what we do in policy formulation is to under-promise and over-deliver.”
He stated that other West African countries are eager to adopt the nation’s digital economy policy across the region, especially the manner the Nigeria government dealt with the issue of Twitter
He said: “They are willing to adopt most of our policies that we have been implementing in Nigeria. They appreciated our modest efforts of producing the policies and particularly how we have diversified the country through the ICT sector and Digital services.
“And the last one they requested was the way and manner the Nigeria government dealt with the issue of Twitter.
“They are willing to learn how they can also get a copy of some of our agreements with them so that they can also adopt and they are also looking for the possibility where the conditions can be accepted and adopted by the African continent so that we can have more converged efforts to address the challenges.
“So, they have been engaging me about our efforts, negotiations with Twitter, the agreement we reached and how can this agreement be extended to a least west Africa sub region or at least within the African continent. It is an ongoing discussion and all of them appreciated the boldness of Nigeria as a government.
“We are a sovereign country. And we cannot be intimidated. So, they were all appreciative that Nigeria was bold to take a very decisive decision.”
