54th Independence: Nigeria’s ICT sector shows commitment

THERE is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria has witnessed laudable achivements in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) since independence in 1960, especially the telecommunications arm. This can be said to have even been supported with the 15 years of uninterrupted democracy. That said, the fact remains that there is ample room for much more improvement.

Going memory lane, from 1960, Nigeria witnessed telecommunication services through the coaxial cable, supplied by a British Firm called Cable and Wireless Limited. Then the cable capacity, which was not fibre, was limited and only a few government offices and limited individuals had access to telephony.

The coming of SAT 3 fibre cable, several years after independence, brought increased activities to the sector, including telephone and partial Internet services.

The NITEL era

Indeed, the establishment of Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) in 1985 was seen by many as an opportunity for the country to formally become part of the global society. It must be said, that the now moribund telecommunications firm, was the toast of every body then and envy of other African countries. NITEL, which was termed ‘Nigeria’s cash cow’ then, had the best of infrastructure scattered all over the country and even extended to some neighbouring cities. But when the pangs of corruption and mis-management set in, the telecommunications firm became a torn in the lives of the people.

By the time it was commercialized in 1992, the services had become very erratic. NITEL had to struggle to maintain the about 400,000 available lines. Today, the telecommunications firm is grounded, though the Federal Government said it will revamp it via a guided liquidation, but analysts are of the opinion that it is rather too late, looking at the competition, especially from GSM players in the country and globally.

Arrival of the GSM players

Although, Nigeria’s market potential was under estimated by the GSM players, the duo of Econet Wireless and MTN paid about $285 million for their licenses in 2001 and they are thanking God today that they took a wise decision coming into the market. The arrival of the operators formally liberalized the telecoms sector under the then President Olusegun Obasanjo.

After some few years, two more operators, Globacom and Etisalat were licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), under the leadership of former Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, who had pioneered the earlier auctioning.

Globacom, owned by Nigeria’s oil magnate, Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr, came in 2003 and further repositioned the sector with the introduction of per second billings, which hitherto the duo of MTN and Econet said was not feasible. By 2008, when Etisalat entered the Nigerian market from the Middle East, the competition became more interesting.

It must also be mentioned that some players also operated via the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology including Multilinks; Starcomms; Mtel; Visafone among others. The country had also witnessed explosion of Internet Service Providers.

Today, the liberalization of the sector has put Nigeria on higher pedestal globally. The country, which struggled to maintain NITEL’s 400,000 luxury lines, can confidently boast of over 160 million connected telephone lines of which 130 are active. The country’s teledensity is over 90 per cent. Nigeria has about 67 million people online and its increasing.

The recent rebasement of Nigeria’s economy from 2012’s $262.6 billion to the current $510 billion saw the telecommunications arm been adjudged as a ‘star performer ’, because of its contributions. The rebasement made Nigeria the largest economy in Africa and 26th-biggest in the world.

ICT sector’s contributions

Although, the sector is still plaqued with so many challenges as affirmed by the Minister of Communications Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson, who said about 350 local IT firms currently play at the fringe of the industry, the sector currently contributes about 19 per cent to the service sector. The telecoms sector is growing 30 per cent yearly as also affirmed by President Goodluck Jonathan last October.

Furthermore, the telecoms players last year claimed to have covered 64 per cent of Nigeria with their services, adding that about 20, 000 jobs have been created directly and over 1.1 million indirectly.

The fact also remains that the activities and contributions of indigenous players like MainOne; Visafone; Zinox; Omatek; CWG; Chams; PFS; New Horizons; Mobile Software Solutions (MSS); Jetlink; Upperlink, Teledom Group among others in the face of heated competition from multinationals in the country cannot simply go without mention. In fact, they have been super in their contributions towards the development of the country’s ICT ecosystem.

FDIs attractions

Apart from players contributing much to government coffers, the sector has also witnessed attraction of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs). While players, especially MNOs claimed to have paid over N160 billion as taxes to government, various spectrum auctionings from inception till now have made the government richer by over N500 billion.

The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah about six weeks ago informed that Nigeria’s telecoms sector investment has grown from the $25 billion of 2008 to over $32 billion now.

Challenges facing the sector

Despite the over $32 billion investment and the enviable status of the country’s ICT sector, the telecoms sector, especially telephony and data contend with the challenge of improving quality of service. This issue of poor QoS has brought the MNOs times without number against the NCC. In fact, there have been several monetary sanctions against the players, but even now, the quality has failed to improve.

While NCC and some quarters are clamouring for more investment in the networks, the players are lamenting that there are grave issues confronting their operations in the country.

Times without number, they have complained about multiple taxation; over regulation; vandalism and erratic power supply. They also want their infrastructures protected through the Critical National Infrastructure bill, which the National Assembly has failed to grant attention.

For the indigenous IT players, the challenge has been low patronage of their wares and services. In fact, in one of his interviews with journalists, the Chairman of Zinox Group, Chief Leo Stan Ekeh said most of the local players are bleeding.

Same story was from the immediate past president of the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) and Chairman of MSS, Chris Uwaje, who stressed that huge capital flight, is being witnessed in the local software sector.

The minister confirmed this in Lagos at the weekend, when she said about $360 million is taken away as capital flight from the software industry.

There is also the challenge of broadband penetration in the country. Both the World Bank and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have linked economic growth to availability of broadband infrastructure.

With the country's broadband penetration currently at 8.6 per cent, Johnson, who oversees the National Broadband Council has disclosed that the Federal Government is working towards achieving a five-fold increase in its penetration, atleast a 30 per cent growth by 2017 and ubiquitous Internet penetration by 2018.

To achieve this, there is a National Broadband Plan and the ministry is soliciting the support of the states governments, which to larger extent have seen operators as an avenue to make money, by slamming huge taxes on them; frustrate roll out of infrastructure, especially the last mile.

The states, with the exception of Lagos, Bayelsa, Ondo and Anambra, have also come under knocks from the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), which have accused them of slowing the pace of the country's ICT development initiatives.

According to NITDA, for even development, states have to fast track the ICT4D programmes.

Going forward and experts view

In an interview with The Guardian, Chief Executive Officer of Teledom Group, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem said Nigeria has moved from waiting for telephone service for more than a year and mobile phone service for about a year and half to getting the service in 10 minutes.

According to him, the country has come from the ability to make international calls via the famous IDD line to where any and willing Nigerian can make international calls at will today. “From dialup access to the Internet to full Internet services. From queueing in NITEL telephone exchanges to place a call and when the call is through the operators call you via a public address system to go into a particular cubical to pick your call”, he stated.

Ekuwem, a former ATCON president said the time has ripe for Nigeria to start applying ICT in education, health, agriculture, government, tourism, national security, law enforcement, aviation, transportation among others.

He also called for Nigerian content development and patronage of developed in Nigeria content, improvement in QoS; rapid broadband infrastructure penetration of Nigeria.

While also lameting the shortfall in telecommunications services in the country, the Publicity Chairman, Nigeria Computer Society, Jide Awe said new software development and entrepreneurship initiatives should be focused on seriously, stressing that addressing issues of funding and patronage hold a lot of promise.

According to him, it is essential to promote, reward and encourage innovation, local software developers and entrepreneurs.

Awe is very optimistic that the online environment is a huge prospect for a nation with a large populace that this is enterprising and resourceful – “as awareness is growing more individuals and SMEs are tapping into the benefits and boosting local content development as well as job and wealth creation in the economy.”

To Uwaje, with one and a half decades already gone, the 21st Century has is indeed a time blazer – just as IT itself, the speed of knowledge is now as fast as light.!

According to him, it can be said that the Nigeria ICT sector was greatly challenged at the inception. “But today, one can say that ICT-Nigeria has come of Age. As we celebrate our 54th year of Nationhood anniversary, the nation is constructively engaging the transformation Agenda with ICT input – which by extension accounts for 8.6 per cent of the GDP.

“Fact is, we can double that figure if we deploy Broadband, build large-scale skilled Software Workforce and Retool the national Workforce with ICT knowhow. Currently, of all economic facilitators, motivators, accelerators and communicators, there is none comparable with ICT in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, dependability, accuracy, predictability, reliability, with amazing multiplier factor and indeed as a guarantor for national survivability.”

Uwaje , the immediate past president of ISPON wants more attention paid to national ICT maters, stressing that there is need for the government to position national software capability as a veritable backbone for national survivability, “it is a strategic imperative to establish an independent National Software Policy – with a national board; establish IT knowledge parks; innovative software parks and ensure a Fiscal that grants pioneers’ Tax-free status for five years to ICT Knowledge innovation.”

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