Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, CEO at Teledom International Limited has decried the epileptic supply of public power in Nigeria, insisting that it has drastically hindered the growth of telecommunications as well as other sectors of the economy in the country.
He said “Telecommunications in Nigeria has taken a quantum leap in the past 11 years with active subscribers growing beyond 90 million people. Regrettably, the poor power supply threatens further telecoms growth”.
He compared the growth rate in telecommunications with the recent electric power supply in the country, and expressed fear that such growth rate will soon begin to decline if the issue of poor electric power supply was not vigorously tackled by government.
On the way forward to resolve the power issue, Ekuwem suggested that the federal government should compel Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to step up electric power supply and encourage more private sector investments in the country, especially in the area of telecoms and IT.
With the power issue properly sorted out, government can persuade and attract international brands like Cisco, HP, Dell, Sony, Samsung LG, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Huawei, and ZTE to establish factories, assembly plants and product development centres in Nigeria. The Nigerian market is huge and it is the largest in Africa.
He listed other threats to ICT development to include policy inconsistency or flip-flops or outright somersaults by governments; low human capital or non-availability of critical expertise to drive growth and developments within the industry; non-availability of a manufacturing base in ICT; non patronage of locally made ICT goods; as well as low level of awareness or knowledge of the power of ICT in national economic transformation.
Teledom International Limited is fully incorporated in Nigeria to carry out the business of Information Technology and Telecommunication (ICT) facilities provisioning within and outside Nigeria. It is a member of Teledom Group. The Group also has WebInn Limited and Technology Development Company Limited both of which offer other specialized ICT-based services and IT MART (Resources) Limited, which is a One-Stop Infotech Superstore.