Omobola Johnson, minister of Communication Technology, has reiterated that implementing a national broadband strategy and roadmap that seeks to increase broadband penetration from 6% to 30% in the country by 2018 is achievable.
Johnson made the remark during a presentation at the Pat Utomi Center for Values and Leadership celebration of the ICT sector, adding that ensuring 3G/LTE Wireless Broadband Coverage to 80% of the population; Fixed broadband to 16% of population based on fibre by 2018; Minimum download speeds of 1.5 Mbps; Open Non-Discriminatory Access; Facilitating increased investments in ICT infrastructure; Spectrum auctions; Regional Infrastructure (fibre) Companies (Infracos); Smart States initiative (to reduce cost of infrastructure deployment) are part of top priorities set by the Ministry.
She added that through Universal Service Provision Fund, issues related to critical national infrastructure, particularly at the rural areas, are been tackled.
In Connect Nigeria initiative, government wants to speed up the building out of communications infrastructure so that all of Nigeria has access to good quality and affordable, high-speed telecom and internet services.
Also, with Connect Nigerians initiative, the Ministry is working to, “Ensure that Nigerians have affordable and convenient access to devices and have the capacity to use them; so that all Nigerians can share in the benefits of ICTs.
Lower the barriers to entry and increase the participation of Nigerian companies in the ICT sector; and stimulate job creation in the industry, form part of the policy thrust.
Specifically, she said, mobile money is currently mostly used to buy airtime; it however has the potential to serve as a platform for drawing more people into formal financial services
Backing up the claims with statistics, Johnson said that, “More people in Nigeria have a mobile phone than have a bank account. 75% of adults living in urban areas and 39% of them living in rural areas have access to a pre-paid mobile phone. 18 Mobile Money Operators registered in Nigeria; since commencement of operations: Approx. 1m subscribers; About 67,000 registered Agents and Over 11million transactions of over $600 Million have been conducted.
She admitted that whilst uptake has been initially slow, improving infrastructure, fine-tuning of legislation and increasing confidence in product by consumers will result in significant acceleration.
Analysis shows that a significant proportion of payments in Nigeria are cash based.
Total payments are estimated at US$695bn per annum; Cash accounts for over 90% of transactions in terms of volume, and about 60% in total value.
Bank transfers and cheque payments combined make up less than 0.5% in terms of volume and approximately 38% in terms of value.
Other digital forms of payment are increasing in volume, however they currently make up only about 2% in value.
Most payments (in terms of value) are between businesses and persons (B2B, B2P, P2P).
Government payments however have high potential to change the payment landscape of the country.
Cash transactions are expensive, risky and promote insecurity in the financial system and country.
Government is therefore implementing policies to increase the adoption of digital forms of payments.
The Minister said that, ICTs are at the heart of the success of such policies with infrastructure for the delivery of services, applications for management, security and adoption of services.
Although the situation is improving, currently 35 million adult Nigerians (about 46%) are financially excluded.
Adoption of products and services not supplied by deposit money banks has contributed the most to reducing exclusion (i.e. the “formal other” category).
Johnson was optimistic that Nigeria’s positioning in the growth story of the global ICT industry is improving and strategic hence successes achieved in several sub sectors are worth celebrating but key initiatives are still a work in progress.
“Delivering an ICT environment that is ‘enabling’ for consumers and engages more Nigerians at a high level will only be possible through creative partnerships and collaborations,” she added.