By Prince Osuagwu

Nigeria seems to be having two major problems as far as internet penetration is concerned. One is that of low penetration, another is poor women participation on the web.

Recently, the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson lamented that Internet penetration was still low in the country. She was astonished that over 7.78 terabyte of internet capacity was lying untapped at the shores of the country, while Internet penetration in the country remains at the lowest ebb.

For her, taking this capacity to the hinterlands through last-mile connectivity would remain the challenge to conquer to address the abysmal Internet penetration in the country.

In addition to this headache, a recent research conducted by Intel and Dalberg, titled: “Women and the web,” presented at the just concluded Working Forum on Women Information and Communication Technologies And Development (WICTAD) conference in Washington DC, U.S.A, revealed that nearly 35 per cent fewer women than men in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa have Internet Access, and nearly 30 per cent in parts of Europe and across Central Asia.

The report also dropped a bombshell: “On the average, across the developing world, nearly 25 per cent fewer women than men have access to the Internet, and the gender gap soars to nearly 45 per cent in regions like sub-Saharan Africa. In rapidly growing economies, the gap is even enormous”.

This means that despite the transformative power of the internet, in these fast growing economies, including Nigeria, women and girls are being left behind in the revolution. According to a research In most higher-income countries, women’s Internet access only minimally lags that of men’s, and in countries such as France and the United States, it in fact, exceeds it.

According to the report, “there are 600 million women and girls in developing countries using the Internet today, which is nearly 25 per cent fewer than men”

The report couldn’t have been lying. Nigeria with about $7 billion investments in four major submarine cables including MainOne, Glo1, SAT3 and WACS carrying over 7.78 terabytes bandwidth capacity, still records low Internet penetration.

This is considering that out of about 160 million Nigerians, only 45 millions have access to the Internet at the moment and this 45 million users are dominated by 90 per cent of the male folks, leaving the remaining, paltry 10 per cent for the women. That’s a huge gap.

But right at the conference, Nigerian women rose to the occasion, kicking and promised to take the crusade up to relevant authorities to ensure the divide is bridged.

2012 statistics on Internet Usage and population, according to Internet World Stats ranked Africa least among continents with Internet penetration.

Internet World Stats estimated that there are 2.4 billion Internet users globally, but access was not equally dispersed, stressing that developing countries in particular lag behind.

President of Women in Technology in Nigeria (WITIN), Mrs. Martha Alade-Omoekpen who was also a speaker at the WICTAD conference, said the Internet offers potentially transformative benefits, adding that there are myriads of concrete benefits for the female folks from the Internet She listed some of them to include access to improved education, job opportunities, access to health and other services.

She said the Internet provides users more subtle but profound benefits related to empowerment, confidence, a sense of connection and participation, even a feeling of liberation.

But she however noted that if the gap between men and women Internet usage must be bridged, there was need for adequate sensitisation on its benefits,

She said that “once achieved, all these benefits to individual women and girls create positive outcomes for their communities and countries, through their impact on economic development, gender equality, and the growth that can result from a greater diversity of ideas and political participation” .

The WITIN president also contended that access to the Internet can facilitate specific ends, stressing that Internet access provides more subtle, longer-term benefits around empowerment, such as increased confidence, external validation and expression.

Corroborating Alade-Omoekpen, another Nigerian woman and a retired Director of Education in Lagos and a technology advocate, Mrs. Adetoun Ojo pointed out that the Internet can convey numerous benefits to women, but that unlocking these benefits depends on how deeply women engage online.

“Fully engaging on the Internet requires feeling conversant—knowing what to look for, how to search and how to leverage networks, knowledge and services, as well as having fast, unrestricted, reliable access. This gives women leverage to good jobs and better improved education”, she added.

Another IT for Change Advocate, who also spoke at the forum, Anita Gurumurthy, also argued that women who can access only mobile phones do not receive the transformational and empowering benefits of the Internet.

“Women need to participate in a full-fledged way, with the Internet and a computer or laptop, in order to create knowledge. This isn’t possible with a platform such as SMS. They need equal participation.”

Benefits of Internet access, according to Gurumurthy do not accrue to women and girls alone. She said the effects of bringing millions more women and girls into the online world ripple far beyond themselves and their own households and communities.

For her, exposure to new information, ideas and connections, women and girls, will spread their new knowledge and confidence throughout their spheres of interaction, helping to undermine stereotypes and others foundations of gender inequality.