Grave Pitfalls Stare FG’s ICT Top Earner Quest

AS THE global economy moves towards economy that is largely driven by technology, more countries seem to tour that line, and Nigeria too but are there pitfalls, it must avoid, writes Isaiah Erhiawarien

Government plans to make the ICT sector top earner for the economy on or before 2020, however obvious observations indicated that there are pitfalls that may make that projection a mirage.

 The general perception in the economy is that technology is the key driver for economic and social development, and it should be adopted to facilitate growth in key sectors of Nigeria’s economy.

The minister of communication technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson had several forum stated the position of government on that which indeed confirm that government foresees ICT as a major driver of the economy considering the unsteady price of oil in the global market.

Speaking recently, she said: "We believe that ICT has the greatest potential to eclipse oil and gas as the core source of national income, if not the most reliable, contributing the maximum possible percentage of income to the country."

She added: "We know that the few agencies under the ministry of communication technology working closely together can certainly deliver on the ICT mandate of the country."

According to her, "The ministry is committed to ensuring that ICT is leveraged to enhance and facilitate the transformational development of Nigeria in critical sectors of the economy such as power, health, education, agriculture, interior to enable inclusive development, job creation, transparency of governance and economic growth."

Also statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, revealed that the telecoms industry contributes 8.5 per cent to the country's GDP a far cry from what it takes to run the economy and get it from the hand of the oil and gas sector.

The government is also banking on major broadband projects in the country, which are expected to be completed this year, as a way of driving the ICT.

Indeed, the president had given a specific mandate that the broadband projects, which are poised to usher a high speed internet regime in the country, must be completed this year.

According to her, sectors such as education, agriculture, commerce, health, government services, entertainment, security, among others, are expected to be revolutionised using high-speed internet.

Her confidence is also based on what she described as ‘revolution’ that  would be driven within the scope of the 2.3GHz licensing process, which is planned to open up high speed internet services for users.

 “There is a wide range of e-government services, which need to be introduced as soon as possible. These include issuing the national identity cards, driving licences and registration of companies, among many others. In order to introduce these services, individual departments require high-speed internet access; so, from government quarters, there is a large latent demand for broadband access service from providers. So we are committed to seeing the success of the new broadband plan to be spearheaded by the spectrum sales,” Johnson said.

She said government is targeting the transformation of key sectors of the economy under the broadband regime, which is has taken off.

However, investigation revealed that if government did not address some fundamental issues such as power, the activities of the insurgents like Boko Haram and proposed plan by the National Assemble to compel private companies to be listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange, NSE may just be some pitfalls waiting to truncate oil and gas to ICT initiative.

For instance, most of the telecoms firms have withdrawn their staff from North Central Nigeria, heart of the battle ground of Boko Haram. The reason is that the base stations of the mobile operators have been blown up by the insurgents thereby forcing the operators to close shop there.

Investigation revealed that over 150 base stations have been shut down by the insurgents resulting not only to failed network operation but the withdrawal of staff.

It was also gathered that the attack by the insurgents on telecoms facility is not limited to base stations but Mobile Switching Centres, MSC have in one or several cases been their target.

The MSC allows for connection between the calls coming from the mobile phones to the network that the caller wants to call. So, if there are no MSC calls will not even go through.

Current trend of the sale of towers by the operators to tower owners, who may not have the fund to move to areas where the insurgents are in firm control, may just be another pitfall waiting to truncate the oil and gas to ICT revenue earner for government, and that include the fact that operators are unwilling put the damaged base stations back to use as a result of fragile security situation in the states.

 Early during the week, Airtel Nigeria announced that it has gone into agreement to sell 4,800 mobile towers to American Tower Corporation (AMT) in a leaseback transaction American by its parent company, Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s largest mobile-phone carrier.

Airtel, which initially had about 15,000 mobile towers, had in September sold about 3,500 telecom towers in Africa to Eaton Towers.

Etisalat Nigeria recently sold 2,136 towers to IHS making the operator the first of the three major GSM operators to sell towers. The financial terms of the deal was said to have cost IHS at around US$400m.

Also MTN Nigeria has signed an agreement with IHS Holdings for the transfer of its towers business, comprising 9,151 mobile network towers, to the latter.

The transaction, just like as it was in the case of Airtel is expected to reduce MTN Nigeria’s operating costs; drives network efficiencies and further expand MTN's voice and data capacity.

A recent forcast by TowerXchange, a company that studies tower business across countries said that by the end of 2014, about 84 per cent of Nigeria’s towers will be owned or operated by independent towercos, with only Glo retaining their towers.

Group Chairman at Programos Software Limited, Mr. Emmanuel Amos said that there are obvious signs that quest for the ICT sector to be the major earner for the economy come 2020 is being threatened.

He told National Mirror that for ICT to be a major earner for the country, education in the country must be  IT - ENABLED noting that service capacities must be promoted from tertiary education levels.

Amos stressed that power availability and general resource center such as smart villages and infrastructure that will boost entrepreneurs’ achievements should be place on the front burner of government’s programmes.

He disclosed that so far, the industry is yet to get the needed encouragement from government stressing that government must ensure the adoption of post-2015 strategies as well as policies that would promote sustainable development goals agenda of the UN.

He however, noted that the recent debate by the National Assembly to making listing of private companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange was not an entirely bad idea.

Amos explained that making it mandatory will ensure that companies benefit from the corporate governance rating system of the Stock Exchange adding that “In another light, investors will be protected.”