From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, has declared that Nigeria would have the highest number of subscribers of 5G technology in Africa by the end of 2022.
The Minister disclosed that the Federal Government had approved the national policy for the fifth generation network to boost new technology and Nigeria’s digital economy at large.
The minister disclosed this on Tuesday at the closing of the 2021 service-wide capacity building programme on e-government in Abuja.
“If you look at our ranking, Nigeria has the biggest digital economy in Africa. Nigeria has the biggest ICT sector in Africa. Nigeria has the highest number of phone users in Africa. Nigeria has the highest number of internet subscribers in Africa,” the minister added.
“Now, the Federal Government has approved the national policy for the fifth generation for the Nigeria digital economy. By the end of 2022, I do hope that we will have the highest subscribers of 5G in Africa.” He said.
Pantami further stated that the National information technology development agency (NITDA), carried out about 499 Information Communication Technology (ICT) projects estimated at N152 billion in 2021.
The NITDA serves as the clearing house for IT projects in Nigeria. The agency is mandated to clear all IT projects in line with the policy objectives of the Federal Government to maximise transparency and accountability.
According to Pantami, the government’s commitment to spending on digitalisation for government services is evident in the amount cleared in 2021 projects, worth N152 billion compared to 2019 projects worth N9 billion.
“To show to us the level of the implementation of the government’s digital services in the country, from January to December 2021, NITDA, on behalf of the government, has approved the execution of 499 projects. However, the approved projects include the backlog of 2020 and 2019,” Pantami said. The Minister added that the federal government had approved 16 national policies for the ICT digital economy.
Also speaking at the event, Kashifu Abdullahi, director-general of NITDA, said the Federal Government trained 1,376 civil servants from 48 ministries, departments and agencies on ICT between November 2020 and December 2021.