By Emmanuel Elebeke

Looking at the score card of the past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, particularly in the Information and communi-cations technology, ICT sector, it may not be farfetched why industry practitioners are asking President Muhammadu Buhari, to fight hard to sustain the legacies if not significantly improve upon them.

Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda of  2011-2015 was a blueprint to propel Nigeria towards the attainment of Vision 20:2020. But of importance to the agenda was Nigeria’s ability to leverage and harness ICTs for national growth and development.

Creation of ComTech ministry

President GoodLUCK Jonathan, President Elect General Muhammadu Buhari accompanoied by the APC National Chairman Chief John Odigie Oyegun at the President. APR 25 2015

The former President hit the ground running with the creation of the Ministry of Communications Technology in 2011, to foster a knowledge based economy and information society in Nigeria. Other areas of the ministry were to facilitate universal, ubiquitous and cost effective access to communications infrastructure throughout the country.

Following its creation, the Ministry focused on four priority areas of: infrastructure development, inclusive develop-ment, local content and IT in government.

According to the immediate past Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, the use of telecommunications and ICTs suddenly became a lifestyle of many Nigerians both young and old with increased adoption and use of ICT to automate some operations and processes of government Ministries, Departments and Agencies under Jonathan’s watch.

She also said the Ministry implemented two flagship projects namely: the Government Services Portal (GSP) and the Government Contact Centre (GCC), to enable citizens and other stakeholders have access to government services that are provided by various MDAs through a single window technology.

Contribution to GDP

The Nigerian ICT industry made Nigeria one of the fastest growing  economies in the world and ICT infrastructure presented the foundation on which many economic services were delivered. Nigerian ICT industry in 2011 contributed 5.46 per cent to the nation’s GDP and an estimated 4.8 million jobs.

In the same year, there was fragmented IT sector with small domestic players made up of approximately 350 companies. Domestic value added in key areas was sub-optimal and it was characterized by consumer preference for global brands and high levels of importation of inputs and finished products.

In addition, over $360 million was transferred out in purchase and maintenance of software on products and services within the year. However, in 2014, a snapshot of the industry showed a much different picture. ICT became a critical sector and ranked with power, oil and gas. The industry contributed 9.58 per cent to GDP in quarter 3 of 2014 and further enabled other parts of the economy.

The improved environment assured by the former President helped in creating local companies such as: Wakanow, Jumia, Paga, Konga, i-Sec, iRoko TV and others   which added values to the economy. The Nigerian telecom sector today is rated as one of the fastest growing sector in the world and continues to attract significant foreign Direct Investment, FDI. FDI alone brought additional $6 billion  into the economy between 2011 and 2013.

Broadband Internet

With the increasing demand for inter-connection of networks across the globe, the former Minister informed that the administration initiated a strategic plan to get all Nigerian cities connected with broadband as key to this initiative. As a result, many state governments are already keying into the plan, which aimed to make broadband ubiquitous across the country .

To facilitate, the National Frequency Management Council (NFMC) approved the allocation of portions of the radio frequency spectrum to the Nigerian  Communications Commission for auction to eligible operators to enable them deploy broadband services in the country.

Education

In the education sector, the administration declared Nigerian students a priority demographic and through the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) rolled out targeted initiatives such as collaboration with the Ministry of education and World Bank Step-B in deployment of fibre-optic to universities and affiliated medical colleges, research and education networks.

Under this initiative, 1.4 million students in 27 federal universities were connected via NgREN ; 3.4 million Polytechnic students were due to be connected by end of 2015 in second phase. Still under education, 1,552 secondary schools were equipped with ICT tools and 1,458,880 students estimated to have been introduced to ICTs through this programme. This is in addition to 271 IT centres established by the administration and tertiary institutions Access Projects, set up in six federal universities across the country.

In the same vein, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) conducted a wholly  Computer Based Test (CBT) against the usual paper-based test for over a million students. With this novel initiative, candidates accessed their results minutes after, eliminating the usual delays associated with the release of JAMB results.

eGovernment

Until the creation of the Ministry of Communication Technology in 2011, Nigeria was sitting at the bottom of the global egovernment development ranking. With the effort made by the administration in 2014, Nigeria moved to 21 positions in egovernment in terms of using ICT in governance with the objective of enhancing service delivery and good governance within MDAs, leading to accountability and transparency in official government transparency and business with citizens and the public in general.

Telecom sector

The Nigerian telecoms industry grew in leaps and bounds over the last four years. The industry statistics shows that Nigeria’s telephone subscription which is dominated mainly by mobile lines is now over 148 million connected lines less than 100 million in 2010 with teledensity of 96 per cent less than 46 per cent in 2010.

Similarly, there was significant growth in the use of internet within a short period. Nigeria today recorded internet growth from 11 per cent in 2013 to 52 per cent in 2014 alone and currently has 29 per cent share of internet usage in the African continent.

Innovations driven by telecoms and ICTs

In the past four years, sthe country has witnessed changes and innovations in the way the people transact business in many sectors of the economy. This was evidenced by the deployment of the electronic wallet (e-Wallet) system, through which Nigerian farmers are now able to make payments for subsidized farm inputs with their mobile phones.

e-Commerce

It is on record that e-Commerce experienced unprecedented boom within this period in view,    making Nigerians and foreigners alike exchanging goods and services, reducing cost of travelling and other risks involved.

Programmes and Initiatives

The government through the ministry came up with initiatives aimed at encouraging young, talented Nigerians to develop softwares and applications of local players and companies to enable job and wealth creation.