Technology Innovation Will Influence Nigeria’s Economy, Says Minister

Emma Okonji

The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani has called for more technology innovation and adoption across different sectors of the Nigerian economy, insisting that technology innovation will rapidly influence Nigeria’s economy.

The minister who said this recently during a one-on-one interview on a national television station, said the federal government had remained keen on ensuring increased deployment of fibre optic cable from its current 45,000km spread across the country, to reach 95,000km spread in the next four years in order to boost internet connectivity in schools, hospitals, work spaces and other public places, that will enable increased technology innovation across the country.

According to him, Nigeria has 5G technology but spread across limited places because the infrastructure driving 5G technology is not available in large quantity across the country.

He however said with the current seven submarine cables that have already landed in Nigeria, coupled with the additional two submarine cables that Meta will be landing in Nigeria before the end of the year, will increase broadband internet connectivity and allow for technology innovation that will drive national development in Nigeria.

“The global technology workforce is facing a major decline because in many western countries, there is limited number of workforce, but in Nigeria, we have the youthful population with which the country can produce enough talent to develop our own economy, using technology,” Tijani said.

Addressing the issue of service quality, he said his ministry released its five strategic blue print some months ago, which identified industry challenges and proffered solutions to address them in the shortest possible time, leveraging technology.

He however said drop calls that negatively affect quality of service in the telecoms industry, was a function of several factors, which according to him, have been addressed in the strategic blur print that was earlier released by the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy. 

He further explained that should more investment be put into submarine cable deployment, it would address the connectivity issues that Nigeria is currently facing and thus address the issue of drop calls and poor service quality in the telecoms sector.

Tijani spoke about the intellectual conversation currently going on between the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to ensure that customers have the best experience in quality of service and quality of experience across networks.

He further explained that his ministry was working towards achieving the feat of making telecoms infrastructure a critical national infrastructure that will help put an end to telecoms infrastructure vandalisation across the country. According to him, willful destruction of telecoms infrastructure like cable destruction, goes a long way in affecting quality of service delivery, adding that such has to stop.

He spoke about the need for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to take responsibility to reach out to customers and inform them of any failure in service delivery and ensure quick resolution of whatever the issues may be.

He assured Nigerians of his intention to improve service quality and drive technology innovation across the country.