By Ogaga Ariemu
2021 would be considered as the Year of the Rebound for Nigeria’s Information and Communication Technology(ICT) sector despite Covid-19 pandemic.
It was not all gloomy afterall as the Nigeria ICT Sector recorded huge milestones driven by the strategies, policies of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Pantami and the careful, implementation of these policies by Chief Executives, Directors loop General/ Managing Directors of agencies, parastatals under his Ministry.
To contextualize this claim, available data from the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS) indicates a growth in Gross Domestic Product, GDP by 5.01% per cent which in nominal terms translate to N45. 11 trillion in comparison with N39. 09 trillion recorded this period in 2020.
Though the world is still in a pandemic with omicron cases on the steady rise, the sector seem to have turned a corner and remarkably achieved a growth rate of 15. 41 percent.
Government with respect to Nigeria’s Digital Economy, which was hinged on Eight(8) strategic pillars. And as part of the efforts aimed at implementing the Policy, some of the projects implemented nationwide include:
ICT Innovation Hubs; Digital Skills for Entrepreneurs and InnovatorsCommunity IT Training Centers; Tertiary Institution Knowledge Centers (TIKC); School Knowledge Centers (SKC), Digital Economy Centers, and Emergency Communication Centers (ECC), several of these centers have been established in key locations over the Country.
Critical on this journey has been concerted efforts by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), with bullish moves such as spearheading licensing of Fifth Generation Network(5G) spectrum to suitably qualified operators in order to expand Nigeria’s digital economic space thereby guaranteeing deeper penetration and improving connection speed amongst users.
Following the auctioning federal government earned a total of $547.2 million as MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications Ltd emerged winners of the auctioned 3.5 GHz spectrum for 5G deployment in the country by paying $273.6 million each.
It is worthy of note that the world seem to be in a race towards technological dominance as highlighted in the delayed Dubai Expo 2020 fair recently held in December- and at the epicentre of this drive are cutting edge innovation such as 5G and Artificial Intelligence(AI).
Further augmenting the gains of the year, Galaxy backbone through its prudent initiatives have been able to save over N3 billion for the government, hereby eliminating waste within the system and leading the pack in line with this administration’s policy on cutting the cost of governance.
Similarly, strides in the use of technology as a veritable tool in combating insecurity which the nation is grappling with as well as strengthening cyber security within several public and private sector websites.
In addition, the e -Government initiative which is principally structured around the deployment of technologies in government processes and service delivery to citizens in a more efficient manner as tenable in advanced clime.
Unsurprisingly, this is not the first time concepts of this nature are being touted but we watch with bathed breadth to see if the will can be sustained.
A focal point of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA ) in the year under review is its Ombudsman duties – having successfully investigated complaints of data breaches and appropriated sanctions to erring organizations.
However, the continues to be unease with rife criticisms of it being a puppet to major players in the industry and turning a blind eye when the fall foul.
Nigeria Tech start-ups this year have churned out a whooping $1.7billion through creating new products, services, platforms raising and seed fundings. This amounts to over 60% of total revenue start-ups generated in the continent.
While pouring encomium on the feat of these indegenous tech giants, Mary Berth Leonard, the US Ambassador to Nigeria stated that of top seven highly successful tech companies – Opay, Flutterwave and Interswitch are born and bred by Nigerian talents.
The need to checkmate certain unwholesome acts by criminal minded individuals and enhance the general security of the country spurred the National Identity Management Commission to embark on mandatory registration of mobile phone users and have thus far been able to enrol over 60 million unique National Identification Numbers. An impressive feat given the apathy the process witnessed from the flag off years ago.
Despite the auspicious signs of recovery experienced, the IT sector remains a sector that’s embedded with lots of potential which can be ,further exploited to create more tangibles such as more jobs for our teeming youths as growth is never accidental but a product of deliberate planning and well articulated policies capable of engineering a desired outcome by all concerned parties.
It is imperative to highlight that pervasive cyber crimes for instance increase in ramsomeware hackers and social hackers, Nigeria’s heavy reliance on foreign countries on IT software, hardware, softwares production, have been hallmarked as setbacks in the period under review.
Also, whether ICT boom positively affected every Nigerians especially those in the rural communities in Zamfara, Kaduna cutoff from telcoms services in order to curtail banditry and the ban on a microblogging site, Twitter, calls for serious reflection as the sector slides into a new year.