Nigeria rakes in $38bn from telecoms, plans big for sector

The Nigerian telecoms sector is currently estimated to have raked in revenue of about $38 billion into the economy in the past five years.

Despite the cheering news however, stakeholders lament that their impact is yet to be felt by consumers of their services.

This is even as government revealed that there are plans to maximize benefits from the sector.

Reviewing the industry’s investment profile, Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, expressed optimism that the sector could be alternative to oil and gas as the sole source of revenue for the country.

However, Shittu stated, that “There is a draft bill in the National Assembly, aimed at increasing private participation in the ICT industry, if passed into law. It will not only create a better investment environment, it will further increase the revenue, and will make ICT compete favourably with oil and gas sector, in terms of job and wealth creation.”

According to Shittu, his ministry’s projection for the digital economy is to create an industry that is less fragmented and more representative as from next year.

He listed new target levels to be achieved in 2018 to include full implementation of broadband penetration plan (30%), ICT contribution to GDP (30%), internet penetration (50%), and mobile penetration (100%).

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But the Association of Telecoms Consumers (ATC) said there were yet to be direct impact of the much-touted high revenue profile on an average consumer of the services.

This, according to a coordinator of the group, Mr. Theo Ezomon, could be noted from the fact that both data and voice services were yet to be as seamless as is obtainable in many other African countries, like South Africa and Egypt.

It would be recalled that earlier in the year, Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) Prof. Umar Danbatta, had revealed that about 32 billion dollars has been invested in the nation’s telecommunications industry from Foreign Direct Investment, FDI and local investors.

Speaking at a forum organised by the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, ATCON, in Lagos, he stated that before 2001, few people had access to telephone and the internet, adding that only about 500,000 lines were available for a population of 90 million people in Nigeria before the advent of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM).

“However, the Digital Mobile License auction of 2001 changed the story. Since then, over $32 billion has been invested in telecommunications industry, both from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and local investors”, he stated.

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