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Stories by Olabisi Olaleye [email protected] 08094000013, 08111813040
With Nigeria currently facing economic recession under President Muhammadu Buhari, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector has been in focus as one of the sub-sectors that would reposition the economy, if its huge potential is leveraged on.
Industry analysts believe that driving economic advancement requires strong leadership with the political will and proper framework to leverage opportunities in ICT for socio-economic growth.
When Mr. Adebayo Shittu was given the enormous challenge of unlocking the potential in the nation’s ICT sector a year ago as Minister of Communications, his first duty was to organise a retreat, which served as a platform to engage industry players and chart a road map that would propel the industry.
An all-inclusive four-year national guideline road map for the ICT sector from 2016 to 2020 popped up, with a view to repositioning the industry as a major revenue earner for the federal government in its quest to diversify the economy.
At that forum, Shittu had identified the philosophy of new thinking as “Continuing Innovation and Innovating Continuity: Creating a Smart Digital Nigeria.” He listed five steps to get to a Smart Digital Nigeria as building on ICT sector growth via infrastructure improvement and quality of service; delivering ICT and broadband penetration; raising revenue and reducing waste; innovative continuity for private sector-led continuous innovation; and migration to a digitally-native Nigeria through capacity, job and wealth creation.
To fast-track implementation of the five steps of the road map, Shittu created time to visit major indigenous ICT firms to compare notes, understand the challenges facing the organisations as well as brainstorm on the way forward.
Coming away with diverse impressions, the minister appreciated the need for the industry to have proper guidelines that would serve as action plans towards actualising government objectives of not just creating jobs and wealth from the sector, but also to increase ICT’s contributions to the national GDP.
Twelve months down the line, the minister has been working to realise the objectives, which from all indications, are beginning to manifest in the industry’s performance.
Recently, the National Council on Communications Technology met in Kaduna and provided a platform for the minister to give an account of the progress so far. The ministry identified the Nigerian ICT sector as one of the fastest growing, contributing 9.8 per cent to the GDP in 2014, in spite of economic recession.
A recent report from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the sector contributed 11.98 per cent to GDP in the first quarter 2016. The minister and his team have expressed confidence that ICT would contribute up to 20 per cent to Nigeria’s GDP by 2020.
Shittu noted that the challenge in the country was how to harness and leverage on the opportunities thrown up by the new economy, powered by ICT, to address the issues of revenue, investments and cost savings.
With the ICT road map, the ministry has identified priority projects, including the establishment of a multi-campus ICT university and a National Digital Literacy Council that could make positive impact on the economy.
On the other hand, government, through the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has stepped up its intervention in the area of infrastructure development, capacity building and job creation. One good example is the establishment of over 250 knowledge access venues within two years, in addition to sponsoring of 129 students to the United Kingdom to pursue ICT-related courses at postgraduate level.
With another agency, Galaxy Backbone, government has provided Internet access to about 400 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), over 11,000 nodes of wireless local area network to all MDAs at the Federal Secretariat, Abuja. Over 40,000 email addresses for government officials under the gov.ng, and mil.ng domains. The project has ensured that government data was hosted locally on a secure website with data back-up to MDAs and 200 servers hosting 94 MDAs.
Following its success in conceptualising gov.ng, government is now focusing on cost-saving service delivery and leveraging economies of scale by prioritising services that have direct bearing on the administrations’ priorities and classifying them as shared services to be provisioned from the National Shared Services Center.
The minister listed other initiatives introduced for a more modern, efficient and effective workflow process as Government Document Management System (GDMS), Government Revenue Collection and Payment Systems, Identity Verification and Authentication and e-procurement.
This is without prejudice to the collaboration with the South Korean government for the successful implementation of the e-government master plan.
Industry statistics underscore the fact that the performance of the telecommunications industry has improved significantly in the last year. As a matter of fact, there has been a rise in the number of active telecoms subscribers. Subscription jumped from 148.7 million in August 2015 to 152.28 million in August 2016, an increase of 5.9 per cent. Teledensity rose from 107.67 per cent in August 2015 to 109.14 per cent in August 2016, thus recording an increase of 1.47 per cent.
Suffice to say that the industry under Shittu also attracted more investments. For instance FDI (foreign direct investment) jumped from $32 billion in 2015 to $38 billion in 2016 as broadband penetration reached 20.95 per cent, while the percentage of Internet penetration hit a milestone of 47.44 per cent, making Nigeria second only to South Africa on the continent.
Also, to broaden broadband penetration, increase quality of service on voice and data, government licensed six slots of the 2.6MHz spectrum for the deployment of 4G-LTE services just as processes have commenced for the licensing of broadband services on the 5.4 GHz spectrum band and the allocation of 70/80 GHz band (E-Band).
Opemipo Davies, an industry watcher, noted that the ministry had done well but there are still untapped opportunies in comparison to Rwanda’s digital growth, whose population is a fraction, compared to Nigeria.
Going forward, Shittu has vowed that government would not relent in promoting research in higher institutions and building synergy between the academia and the industry.
How to make money via tech this Xmas
In a matter of days, Christmas would show up even though many families are trying to weather the recession. However, with nine digital tips, diligent people could net a few extra income to make this Yuletide a memorable one.
1. Sell your stuff
Do you have an old Canon “point-and-shoot” or a vintage blazer gathering dust in your closet? Post your gently used electronics, collectibles, clothing and toys on online stores to make some quick cash without lifting a finger. Plus, it’ll feel good to rid your living space of clutter.
2. Do digital prints
Digital prints on any printable material could also fetch in some bucks.
3. Freelance
Take on freelance work to outsource your expertise in areas such as writing, animation, graphic design and marketing. Companies use sites like Freelancer,Elance and oDesk to post small freelance jobs that pay anything from $50 to $500.
4. Give answers
Sign up as a certified professional on sites such as JustAnswer and HelpMe, and you’ll receive money every time you can answer a user’s question. You can also take your answers to go with the Rewarderapp.
Sign up with UserTesting or uTest to test websites and mobile apps for bugs and user interface issues. UserTesting.com pays $10 per website and $15 per mobile app.
6. Get crafty
Are your friends obsessed with your hand-knitted scarves and whimsical pottery? Maybe it’s time to monetise. Create a virtual store to peddle your crafty wares, you might even spot a few gift ideas while you’re there.
7. Rent out your space
If you have a spare room or will be out of town for the holidays, consider renting your place on Airbnb. If the thought of a stranger using your bathroom gives you the heebie-jeebies, however, you might want to skip this option.
8. Become a tutor
Unleash your brilliance by becoming an online tutor at Tutor.com or by designing a course for Udemy. If you’re already a teacher by trade, Teachers Pay Teachers allows you to buy, sell and share teaching resources.
9. Take surveys
Those pesky pop-up ads aren’t always lying: you really can make money by completing online surveys.SendEarnings, MySurvey and Opinion Outpost all offer cash rewards for completed surveys.
•Culled from Mashables
