Follow Us on Google
From Walter Ukaegbu, Abuja
Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu, has said that the greatest challenge to socio-economic development in Africa was the huge ICT infrastructure deficit across various countries in the continent, which he said greatly impacted the living condition and welfare of Africans with various countries initiating policies and programmes to reduce the deficit.
He stated this yesterday at the Future-Sat Africa Summit 2017, in Abuja where he noted that most economies across the globe were becoming knowledge-based with information and communication technology playing pivotal role as central drivers of the globalization process.
Represented by the permanent secretary, Sonny Echono, he said the cardinal objective for ICT development in Nigeria was to provide a ubiquitous, robust and cost-effective ICT infrastructure to support the creation of a digital economy.
In this regard, he stated, the National ICT Roadmap 2017-2020 was approved by government.
Shittu challenged the organizers of the summit to “pay deliberate attention to issues around technology transfer and capacity development,” so that Africa would have fair share of the business opportunities provided by telecommunication infrastructure development.
