By Olabisi Olaleye
Investments in Nigeria’s telecommunications sector have hit N2.074 trillion (about $68 billion) as at July 2016 with N1.068 trillion ($35 billion) coming from Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs)
Speaking in a keynote address at the Nigerian Telecoms Investment Forum, at the just concluded ITU Telecom World 2016, Bangkok, Thailand, the immediate past Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Dr. Hamadoun Toure, said these figures recorded so far in Nigeria point to the fact that “the country is certainly a preferred destination for telecommunications investors in Africa.”
Toure noted that Nigeria is the place to invest because the population is large and there is political stability coupled with a robust telecommunications regulatory regime.
He further explained that within 15 years when Nigeria opened its telecoms sector to the global community, investments have grown in leaps and that from a paltry 400,000 connected lines in 2001, the country now has over 150 million connected lines and a teledensity of 107 per cent. “The next growth for voice communication is in Quality of Service and the new oil in Nigeria is ICT and data transmission is the way to go,” he said.
On his part, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) boss, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, disclosed that the regulator has begun digital transformation through the National Broadband Plan (NBP 2013 – 2018) and that since broadband is the catalyst for social and economic transformation, the commission has come to let the global community know that investments are welcome.