Ekuwem Tasks Nigerians on Productivity Boost

Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, GMD/CEO of the Teledom Group and president of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (Atcon) has tasked Nigerians on the need to boost productivity.
He said the expected broadband revolution in the country hinges on the productivity of the Nigerian populace.
In an exclusive chat with Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, Ekuwem said the productivity of every Nigerian counts for us to have a digital banquet.
“When we talk of digital harvest, year 2020 will not be a switch, nobody will come and activate the switch for Nigeria to become one of the 20 most developed economies in the world. It is the work of today that will lead to the world of tomorrow.”
“It means that every Nigerian’s ability to be productive counts. The cumulative effect of all these will give us a vision 20:2020, he said.
Ekuwem said rapid broadband infrastructure penetration of every nook and cranny of the country is needed to launch the country into the broadband revolution.
The Atcon boss said there is the need for broadband Internet connectivity to Internet backbone and commended the efforts of Glo 1 and MainOne at laying submarine cables which will be operational before the end of the year.
He said though operators are laying a lot of optic fibre cable network across Nigeria, wireless will still be required to do justice to the broadband infrastructure to carry the broadband Internet from the huge pipes on the coast as provided by Glo 1 and MainOne and the epileptic SAT 3.
“All these,” he said “would penetrate the entire country so when we have broadband infrastructure penetration, broadband  services can run.”
He quoted Christen Qiang as saying,10 percent increase in broadband penetration in a country translates into 1.3 percent increase in GDP as different from a 10 percent increase in analogue service which translates into 0.8 percent increase in GDP,” noting that what we are seeing today will be a child’s play when broadband finally arrives.
Ekuwem called on Nigerians to do whatever it takes to boost productivity as broadband is an important platform of that boost in productivity.
“We expect that between now and 2015, there should be infrastructure roll out which will give us the digital banquet.”