By peter oluka
Technological contribution to Nigeria’s economic growth has continued to grow, but an expert in the industry has a concern.
Mr. Olusola Teniola, president of ATCON in a chat with Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, recently, expressed worry that the country which leads policy formulation on the Continent, seemingly, is still regarded as oil producing nation by investors.
The situation, according to him, does not lend itself to further investments in the short to medium term in the industry believed to have injected over $80billion to the economy; and requires a level of appropriate concessions being provided by government to retrigger the potential investors’ appetite to take on risks that are no longer immaterial.
Teniola said, “When I look at how other climes in Africa have performed in terms of policies in the telco space, it appears that Nigeria is ahead in policy formulation, however, we are predominantly viewed by investors as an Oil & Gas producer and with the cyclical nature of commodity prices, it has meant that policies to diversify the economy including our ICT policies have been met with healthy skepticism from a view point that suggests that Nigeria is treated as a consumer led ICT market and not one that has sufficient local capacity to develop into a knowledge based society.
“So, the policies that are in place in our industry are predominantly infrastructure focused requiring a high degree of debt leveraging to undertake the execution of these projects and as money (both local and foreign) is no longer inexpensive, then the only guarantee left for our industry is for government backed incentives and an enabling environment to exist to allow and encourage the inflow of non-portfolio investments to accommodate the risks that are evident in our business environment”.
This, he said is critical area requiring immediate regulatory interventions.
“We need government to further encourage opening up and sharing of backbone infrastructure already present in the market to all our members at a price that ensures fair competition for all our members and the wider industry players – this will create a sustainable and healthy industry”.