This call was made by Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, the
Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)
on Thursday.
He spoke at the 10th and 11th combined Convocation Lecture
of the Fountain University at Osogbo, Osun State.
In the paper titled: “Empowering the Nigerian Youth though
Information and Communication Technology,” Danbatta said Uber, the world’s
largest taxi company, owns no vehicle; Airbnb, the world’s largest
accommodation provider, owns no real estate; Facebook, world’s most popular
public-facing digitally-mediated social networking platform, creates little or
no content; Alibaba, a leading global retailer, has little or no inventory, yet
they have become signposts of prosperity riding wholly on ICT resources.
To Danbatta, it would be a failing prophesy decades ago if
anyone had said a company with no vehicle, just via an application, will control
more than 75 million active commercial drivers in, at least, 80 countries. It
would also be contested that through a mere app, a company will provide
accommodation to millions of travellers and tourists in more than 100,000
cities of the world.
Similarly, just as Alibaba, without inventory, had over 828
million annual active customers across its China retail markets, as at June
2021. Needless to mention that the troves of contents synonymous with Facebook
are actually generated by its 2.89 billion monthly active users.
He explained that adoption of digital revolutions by
government is creating multiplier effects across critical sectors, aiding job
creation, better governance, youth empowerment and overall socio-economic
development. “It is the reason this objective reality is cited as the Fourth
Industrial Revolution (4IR).
Indeed, for over 10 years, ICT has consistent contributed
more than 10 percent of the Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the
telecom sector alone contributed 12.45 per cent to GDP as at the fourth quarter
of 2020,” he said.
Given that Nigeria accounts for 82 per cent of Africa’s ICT
market and 29 per cent of continental Internet usage and sub-Sahara Africa
being the fastest growing region for ICT adoption, the Federal Government, in
its determination to ensure that the nation harness full benefits of ICT,
instituted a broadband vision that will see Nigeria as a society of connected
communities of high-speed broadband access and connectivity.
The EVC said the envisioned society will deliver Internet
connectivity speed 10 megabits per second (Mbps) in rural areas and 25 Mbps in
urban areas by 2025. Additionally, effective coverage will be available to, at
least, 90 per cent of the population by 2025 at a price not more than N390 per
one gigabyte of data.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Vice Chancellor of the
University, Prof. Olalekan Sanni, described Prof. Danbatta as an accomplished
academician and administrator, whose wealth of experience was considered worthy
of tapping into by the university community towards proffering solutions to the
issue of youth empowerment and to suggest ways for enhancing Nigeria’s
socio-economic life through effective leveraging of ICT.
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