 | Issue: | Global-ICT 2005 |
| Article no.: | 4 | |
| Topic: | Advancing upon the digital divide | |
| Author: | Cornelius Olatunji Adebayo | |
| Title: | Minister of Communications | |
| Organisation: | Nigeria | |
| PDF size: | 204KB |
About author
Cornelius Olatunji Adebayo is Nigeria’s Minister of Communications. During his years in public service, he served as a Senator and member of Senate Committees on Education Science and Technology, Public Works and Foreign Relations, as the second Executive Governor of Kwara State, as Commissioner of three portfolios (Education, Information and Home Affairs) Social Development and Sports and Economic Development in the Kwara State Government. Cornelius Olatunji Adebayo has also been active as the National Vice Chairman of the Nigeria Chapter of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Secretary General of the Movement for National Reformation (MNR) and a leader of both the Middle Belt Forum and AFENIFERE. He has been imprisoned and exiled for his opposition to the policies of past governments. Early in his career, he taught English at Kufena College, Zaria, was a Lecturer in English at the University of Ife, now OAU, and was the founding Head of the Department of English at Kwara State College of Technology, now Polytechnic. Cornelius Olatunji Adebayo graduated from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and earned his Master’s degree in English from the University of Ghana, Legon.
Article abstract
Nigeria is working to create an infrastructure that will facilitate its participation in the Information Society. Since 1999, basic telephone service, both wireless and wired, has multiplied almost 22 times, to 16 million subscribers. Internet service is growing, but at a slower pace, due mainly to Nigeria’s limited transmission infrastructure. Optical fibre and microwave backbone networks are expanding and a new submarine cable has boosted its international connectivity. Nigeria’s first communications satellite will be launched towards the end of 2006.
Full Article
That the world is progressively moving towards an information and knowledge based economy is an incontrovertible fact. It is also true that any society that is not conscious of this global trend is certainly heading towards irrelevance and non-performance. It is the desire of every government to harness all available sources of information within its jurisdiction for national planning purposes and sustainable development goals. The global consensus, the common vision of governments, calls for all stakeholders to build a people-centred and development-oriented Information Society that is rich in knowledge. A knowledge-based economy has great potential to create wealth, introduce innovation and serve as a key driver for national economic growth. A knowledge-based economy stimulates activities that help eradicate extreme poverty from the society and, thus, improve the quality of life of the people. This vision is in line with the declaration made by world leaders in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 2003, during the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). It is one thing to make a declaration and it is yet another to implement decisions and proposals expressed in such declarations. In my country, Nigeria, I am glad to state that modest efforts have been made towards achieving the objectives of government in the area of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The goal is for information to be made available and accessible to all Nigerians and with a wider goal of fostering integration in the West-African sub-region, the rest of the African continent and ultimately, getting integrated into the world economy, which is key to the overall development of the African economy. The successes and achievements made so far have not been without challenges. However, I am happy to state that Nigeria has made reasonable progress in the growth and provision of telecommunications infrastructure and services in the past five years. With the successful licensing of three GSM operators, mobile service is now available in all state capitals in the country and more towns and villages are currently being connected to the mobile networks. A second national carrier has also been licensed. It has rolled out its network and is giving strong competition to the previous incumbent. The overall telephone subscriber base has grown from less than 700,000 lines in 1999 to 16 million as of the end of the third quarter of 2005, out of which 14 to 15 million are mobile subscribers, while the remainder are on the fixed service. This is a phenomenal growth over the short period under consideration, especially when compared to what obtained in the preceding period of over 40 years. The goal for Nigeria is that, ultimately, every community in Nigeria should have access to ICT services. Internet use, connectivity and penetration have been on the increase since the inception of the present administration in 1999. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has licensed not less than 334 Internet Service Providers, although not all of them are operational. One of the challenges that became obvious as more operators started to roll out their networks was the inadequacy of the existing networks and the lack of a robust transmission infrastructure. The operators had to develop strategies to overcome this. The erstwhile monopoly fixed line operator, NITEL, has awarded a contract for the expansion of its optical fibre transmission backbone. The second national operator, Globacom, has also started to develop its own optical fibre backbone infrastructure, while MTN one of the GSM mobile operators has built a microwave backbone. The Southern Atlantic Telecom-munication-3, (SAT-3) submarine cable, which has capacity of 125 Gbps and can carry 5.3 million simultaneous telephone calls, has a landing in Lagos, Nigeria. Apart from providing reliable quality voice traffic, it also supports high-speed Internet access and data transmission services. Nigeria is also investing in a national satellite project, another important part of its telecommunication infrastructure. Nigeria’s first satellite, NigeriaSat-1, a GIS satellite, was launched in 2003. This satellite in constellation with other satellites has captured many images of the Nigerian environment. Plans have reached an advanced stage for the launch of a communication satellite (NIGCOMSAT-1) in the last quarter of 2006. A rural telephony project is being implemented with a loan secured from the Chinese government. The programme is aimed at providing affordable telephony to all the Local Government Headquarters throughout the country, especially where commercial telecommunication service providers consider it economically unviable to deploy their networks and services. The government hopes that this initiative will expand access to telecommunications services and provide a platform for broadband ICT services in many of the remote regions of Nigeria. A review and fine-tuning of the country’s legal and regulatory framework for the ICT sector is in progress; it will provide a more conducive business environment and build the confidence of prospective investors in the prospects of Nigerian telecommunications. The government believes that encouraging partnerships by providing support, and by the sharing of ideas and experiences between government, private sector, civil society and international organisations, would help in overcoming some of the challenges of building a global Information Society. Nigeria’s Government is participating fully in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Nigeria has contributed €500,000 towards the Digital Solidarity Fund. Its financial commitment and contribution confirms its desire, and support, to bridge the digital divide, especially in the least developed and the developing countries of the world. The country has not gotten to the Promised Land yet. The challenges of inadequate and unreliable power supply, inadequate transmission backbone infrastructure for telecommunications, including broadband services and a dearth of trained professionals for the sector are real. Nigeria’s government, with very limited resources to allocate, is also facing the challenges of providing basic health, education and shelter for its citizens. I hope the foregoing has served to highlight the fact that, for us on the other side of the digital divide, we are still grappling with providing basic telephony and data services for the vast majority of the people. For other, more advanced, services to be provided such that they are accessible and affordable, a lot more has to be done. The capacity of the people to create and use information and knowledge for development has to be improved. Until this is done, it would not be possible to say that we have joined the Information Society in any real and meaningful way. It is in view of the above that we call on those who have progressed further in establishing their networks and systems for a genuine Information Society to assist those who have not, so that together we build a free and equitable society where sustainable development can be said to have occurred. Clear strategies for implementation and follow-up in a sustainable manner have to be identified and adopted so that the WSIS does not end up as another talk-shop.
