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Lagos

In this report, Efem Nkanga looks at how Nigeria can leverage on its growing importance in the global economy especially in the light of its emergence and recent official endorsement as the largest telecoms market in Africa

Nigeria like most developing countries is an amalgamation of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Hardly will you find any excellent trait in the economy of the country referred to as the giant of Africa and Africa's most populous nation, that you can score 100 per cent. The country is facing a lot of challenges posed basically by the absence of adequate infrastructure characterised by lack of adequate power supply, good roads, etc.

The power situation, which is so bad has brought the nation of 140 million people to its knees and made the candle, lantern and the continuous irritating noise of generating sets a constant friend of those able to afford it. Constant supply of electricity taken for granted elsewhere is an elusive dream that successive administrations have been unable to get right despite the huge sums spent on the sector. No thanks to the antics of some government officials and politicians who translate the mandate given to them by the people to serve, as an endorsement to rob the country blind.

However, despite the challenges the country is facing at home, it has been celebrated for its astonishing growth especially in the area of telecommunications by being officially recognised as the largest telecoms market in Africa.

From less than half a million connected lines in 2001, the country has garnered about 42 million active subscriber base and still counting in less than six years, pushing South Africa aside to the second position. Hardly had the news hit the airwaves that Nigeria was now officially the largest telecoms market in Africa, than it got another endorsement from no other than the United States government, which stated that Nigeria and South Africa were both in the forefront of a gradual shift in the balance of power around the globe. Reports over the weekend quoted the Director for Public Affairs and Diplomacy for African Affairs, US Department of State, Gregory Garland, as describing Nigeria as a rising strategic power that has used its diplomatic, economic and military power to shape the continent for the better, leading the US government to change its African policy.

The benefits of this recognition in addition to that of the World Bank report, which described Nigeria as one of the nations to look out for in the year 2020 if properly harnessed, can indeed catapult Nigeria to the one of the top 20 economies by 2020. But this will be largely driven by the full adoption of information communications technology (ICT). ICTs are technologies that enable communication and information processes and transmission through electronic means. It includes the deployment of telephones, media, radio, television, computers and the internet for information transmission.

It is a known fact that development, power and wealth of nations are directly proportional to and dependent on its uptake of ICT. This is instructive and should not be taken lightly especially as the global ICT market hits 4.6497 trillion dollars.

With ICT globally used as a tool to drive development, Nigeria can leverage on its recognition by adopting ICT as a tool to reengineer and strengthen its economy for growth. This is because ICT is accepted as a veritable platform for using sophisticated technologies to provide solutions to many of the problems of people everywhere, especially in the face of grinding poverty faced by many nations of the world.

The ability of Nigeria to take over from South Africa as the largest market in Africa has shown that despite its challenges, the country can use ICT to make a change and drive development.

Despite the country's oil wealth, poverty is still a reality and a mind boggling 70 per cent of Nigerians are said to be living below the poverty line according to the world fact book.

To address the scourge of poverty in the nation, experts have advocated the deployment of information communication technology as a panacea to address the menace.

For Nigeria to achieve a sustainable socio economic growth and become a country to be reckoned with in the year 2020, it must deploy ICT to generate wealth for the masses and tackle poverty. Currently, the indicators of poverty in the nation are joblessness, inability to sustain self and dependants, lack of access to basic amenities like food, shelter, lack of material well being, lack of choice and opportunities etc. It is a fact that the unemployment level of the nation is currently at its highest with many able bodied men and women in the unemployment market. Since ICT has become one of the most important channels through which a nation can impact on its citizens, there is no doubt that it can be used to drive sustainable development and eradicate poverty. The mobile phone for example, is the most common example of Information Communications Technology deployment that can be effectively used to tackle poverty.

For most poor folks, the mobile phone has become a lifeline and a bridge to jump out of the scourge of poverty. The introduction of the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication has opened up many windows of opportunities that has helped changed the lots of many poor folks in the country. Most people now run their own call centres to create income. For example, most of the GSM operators have empowered several unemployed persons especially women to own their own franchises where they operate a phone kiosk, sell recharge cards and render call services to generate income for their households. Today in Nigeria most government concerns and private businesses ride on the back of technology to transact business and sustain productivity in business.

It is a fact that Nigerian businesses are increasingly becoming so dependent on technology that there will be chaos if you remove ICT from the picture. This is because information infrastructure has become critical to Nigeria's economic and social well being, which means that any kind of damage at this time would have a wide ranging and expansive negative effect on the nation's economy. That is why all hands must be on deck to protect the astounding growth of Nigeria in the telecoms sector by the government joining hands with the operators to ensure that quality service issues that has reared its ugly head is brutally crushed to ensure the unimpeded growth of a sector that has brought the nation almost 17 million dollars in foreign direct investments.

With a tool described as a mechanism that enables a user to leverage on resources, the tools of ICT can be used by the Nigerian government to engender a change for the better for Nigerians. Already the benefits of the introduction of mobile technology into the nations landscape has brought so much change into its economic equation that the President Musa YarAdua administration can not afford to ignore ICT. It should use it as an effective tool to take Nigeria to greater heights. Africa for years known as the forgotten and down-trodden continent with poverty as its best friend is gradually turning around as convergent services enabled by mobile technology spreads across the continent. Currently with 42,915 867 million active subscribers, Nigeria is set to reach 60 million active subscriber base by end of the year especially with the entrance of new players into the telecoms landscape.

With operators offering telecoms services on the GSM, CDMA and 3G platforms, the country's subscriber numbers will keep hitting the roof as a continent hungry for effective communication gobbles up the services offered by operators. President Yar'Adua administration should make the deployment of ICT a focal point of its policies by establishing telecentres in rural communities to serve over 70 per cent of Nigerians who live in the rural areas to have access to ICT. It should also ensure that IT Parks are established in all the states across the federation to fast-track the development processes of ICT everywhere in the nation. Infrastructural challenges that are currently slowing down the growth of all the sectors should be tackled once and for all by the government. This is especially desirable at this time because the survival of Information Communications Technology depends a great deal on the power sector.

The success of the measures taken by government to address the power issue will further guarantee effective ICT development in the nation. At the end of the day it will make Nigeria and its people a technologically savvy lot that will shape the global economy in the future.

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Nigeria looks to be on the rise! No wonder the US is trying to set up Africom. Trying to establish a footprint on the continent to watch the growth of countries like Nigeria of the next decade.
 

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Posted by argyle104 (Member # 14634) on :
 

 

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Posted by HORUS^*^ (Member # 11484) on :
 
^lol the resident hater has nothing to say.
 

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Posted by Alive-(What Box) (Member # 10819) on :
 
LOL
 

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Posted by kenndo (Member # 4846) on :
 
population is around 147 million at at least by now.
20 million new births every 5 years.

ANYWAY I READ SOMEWHERE ELSE THAT THE poverty RATE IS AROUND 65%.
 

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Posted by HORUS^*^ (Member # 11484) on :
 
^I think the real population of Nigeria is about 200 mil right now
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by HORUS^*^:

^lol the resident hater has nothing to say.

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Of course he doesn't cuz he's got too much **** in his mouth. Looks like argyle the gargoyle needs to gargle.
 

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Posted by Hori (Member # 11484) on :
 
I like the title of this thread .

Up you go.
 

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