By Emma Elebeke

The Minister of Communication Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson, says Nigeria has moved 21 places in the bi-annual United Nations e-Government Development Ranking index. The Minister disclosed this at a function in Abuja recently.

She said the improvement was made possible through the standardization of all MDA websites and deployment of ICT in all government parastatals, where their daily routines had become seamless.

According to her, Nigeria pooled a total of 190 points to climb to 141st position in 2014, from 162nd in 2012, an indication that the country moved 21 places from the previous ranking in 2012.

She listed some of the achievements of the Ministry as: establishment of Presidential committee on e-Government; expand capacity building of e-Government; draw special budget on e-Government; and creation of organizational framework for e-government among others.

As part of its contribution to the nation’s economy, the Minister told the audience that the industry now contributes over $50 billion (9.58%) to the GDP and is further enabling other parts of the economy.

She stated that the improved environment assured by the President’s Transformation Agenda helped in creating local companies that are innovating and adding value to the Nigerian economy.

“The Nigerian telecom sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world and continues to attract significant foreign Direct Investment. The Ministry has laid down key policy documents: the National ICT Policy, National Broadband Strategy and Local Content Guidelines among others,” she added.

Johnson, who lamented the loss of $360 million to the purchase and maintenance of software on products and services over the years, promised to usher in a new regime that would address the huge loss.

Connect Nigeria

Johnson explained that the ministry, through the Universal Service Provision Fund, USPF has rolled out targeted initiatives to connect Nigerian students.

Specifically, she noted that 1.4 million students in 27 federal universities are now connected while 3.4 million from Polytechnics would be connected by the end of 2015 in second phase.

This she said was in addition to school knowledge centres established by the ministry. through the USPF to reach out to the un-served areas and provide shared public access to ICT tools, adding that 1,552 secondary schools had been equipped with ICT and 1,458,880 students estimated to have been introduced to ICTs through the centres.

Fibre Optic Cable

On the fibre Optic rollout in Nigeria, the Minister said an additional 38,000 km fibre optic cabling was deployed in 2014 alone; bring the total to 1,200 km of the fibre optic so far deployed in the country.

According her, the intention was to facilitate the build-out of backbone transmission infrastructure, describing it as a subsidy-based project designed to facilitate the connection of rural and semi-urban areas to the national transmission backbone infrastructure..

Digital Job creation

On digital jobs creation, the Minister said the Ministry and the Rockefeller Foundation are partnering to deepen the effect of online job creation in Nigeria. Through the partnership, she said, 35,000 youths would be created to empower young graduates on ICT skills.