Written by Adeyemi Adepetun
BETWEEN 2001 and now, over 63 million Nigerians have been connected to the Internet.
The Minister of Communications Technology Dr. Omobola Johnson, disclosed this information at the closing out session of the 2014 Nigeria Internet Governance Forum held in Lagos, yesterday.
NIGF is a coalition formed among the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology, the Information Technology development Agency of Nigeria (NITDA) the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), as the Nigeria Internet Registration Council of Nigeria (NIRA).
Johnson, represented by the Director, Telecoms and Postal Services in the ministry, John Ayodele, said the country is witnessing a huge transformation in its socio-political and economic lives with the increased access to the Internet by Nigerians, stressing that the ICT sector has contributed significantly to the country’s recently rebased Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which ranks telecommunications as the fourth largest contributor to the economy.
“Before now, the story was many did not have access to the Internet. Today, not only do we have the internet access and availability, we are also witnessing gradual growth in speed of the internet and latest statistics has shown that over 63 million Nigerians are connected to the internet,” she said.
She said the government was working with all necessary stakeholders to ensure that more Internet infrastructures were deployed much easily by the operators towards ensuring that affordable and easily available Internet access was provided to the growing rate of Internet users.
Johnson said through the National Broadband Plan (NBP) approved by the government, the plan was to achieve 80 per cent Internet penetration by the end of 2018 more than the current 32 per cent penetration.
“In terms of the actual broadband penetration, there is currently about six per cent broadband penetration and we hope to deepen this by 30 per cent by 2017,” she said.
She promised the ministry support to hosting the NIGF, stating that it provided a common platform for all stakeholders in the industry to consolidate their position on the global Internet governance Forum.
Going forward, the minister said that the government would ensure that broadband infrastructure gets to the nooks and crannies of the country.
“Furthermore, in our quest to extending the use of internet services to rural and underserved areas, as well as schools, Government agencies such as Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) will continue to provide facilities to Public Access Venues (PAVs) funded by Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) and NITDA,” she said.
Also she noted that the Ministry’s collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Research and Education Network (NgREN), a World Bank sponsored project has reached advanced stages. The project is to provide connectivity to 27 Federal Universities in the first instance with plans to expand to others soon, she stressed.
“Our ‘Getting Government Online’ initiative is geared towards ensuring that government deploys technology as a mechanism to transforming the way government operates and enhance the effectiveness of service delivery for the benefits of its citizens,” Omobola stressed.
NIRA President, Mrs. Mary Uduma stressed that Internet has become a force without which a country can achieve economic development. “It is this realisation that has informed our theme for this year’s forum which” Harnessing Multi-Stakeholders Framework for Internet Governance and Economic growth.”
She stressed on the need for Nigerians to adopt the use of the Nigeria’s country code Top Level Domain name. ng, which she described as a secure Nigeria’s identity on the web while also calling for increased local contents on the web. “NIRA’s .ng is fortified with necessary security that shields users against cyber attacks. It is our own and we need to adopt it for economic development,” she added.
Director General of NITDA, Peter Jack, who was represented by the Head of Standard, Guidelines and Regulation, at the agency, Nye Kem-Abonta, harped on the needs for a concerted effort to ensure security and cost reduction of the internet for the growing umber users being recorded in Nigeria.
According to jack, who also espoused the multi-stakeholders approach to ensuring internet governance was a good one that will make Nigeria internet ecosystem grow faster and position Nigeria as a key player in the global internet space.
Former NITDA boss, Prof, Cleopas Angaye, also stressed the need for Nigeria to take the issue of Internet security more seriously.
“Nigeria has been said to be rated second in terms of the high rate of cyber insecurity and with the growth in the user-base of the internet in Nigeria, I think the time has come for us to take the need to protect our cyber space more seriously,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment