A total of USD68 billion has been invested in Nigeria’s telecoms as at July 2016 according to the former Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Dr. Hamadoun Toure. He revealed that more than half of the sum ($35 billion) came from Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs).
Toure, while delivering the keynote address at the Nigerian Telecoms Investment Forum during the ITU Telecom World 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand, said this pointed to Nigeria being a preferred destination for telecoms investors in Africa. According to him, Nigeria remained the place to invest because the population is huge; there is also political stability and a very robust telecoms regulatory regime.
Toure said within 15 years when Nigeria opened its telecoms sector to the global community, investments have grown in leaps and from a paltry 400,000 connected lines in 2001, the country now has over 150million connected lines and a teledensity of 107 per cent.
He said: “The next growth for voice communication is in Quality of Service. The new oil in Nigeria is ICT and data transmission is the way to go.”
Toure told current and potential investors that the NCC has done a very good job with the way it had managed regulatory activities transparently and by the fact that law makers from Nigeria were also part of the audience he spoke to at the venue, underscored the importance Nigeria attaches to this sector.
He said he is more Nigerian than his native Mali because Nigeria had always led the way.
“Nigeria should share its experience with other African countries,” he said.
His audience included Communications Minister, Adebayo Shittu, Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Dambatta, members of the diplomatic corps, chief executives of agencies under the Ministry of Communications and major telecoms companies from Nigeria, Thailand, senators and members of the National Assembly among others
Shittu, who spoke on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari said since Nigeria was now navigating from resource based to knowledge based economy, “we want to encourage you (the investors) to renew your confidence in our country”.
“Feel free to come to Nigeria and if visa is an issue, let us know. Our doors are open and the ease of doing business in Nigeria is being improved upon.”
el-Rufai, who served as panelist at the forum alongside Prof. Danbatta, Ms. Funke Opeke of MainOne Cable and Mr. Ibrahim Dikko of Etisalat, said technology as an enabler has helped Kaduna State to reduce land fraud and tax payments are now done online thus reducing incidents of leakages.
A former Minister of Federal Capital Territory told the audience that Kaduna will soon launch Smart Kaduna initiative and has contacted a major smart phone manufacturer to introduce pocket-friendly smart phones to Kaduna to boost the initiative.
Danbatta told the audience that the regulator has started digital transformation through the National Broadband Plan (NBP 2013 – 2018).
The NCC chief explained that since broadband is the catalyst for social and economic transformation, “we have come to let the global community know that investments are welcome in this area”.
He said of the 30 per cent target, Nigeria has hit 21 per cent so far, investments will be needed for 3G, 4G and to take services to underserved and unserved regions of Nigeria, “and we need to deploy infrastructure to those areas that have no services, we understand that and the strategy to address them hence we came out with the eight-point agenda to address this”.
Danbatta told the audience that Nigeria has a very flexible regulatory environment and “we are fare, firm and forthright in our activities”.
Ms. Opeke said MainOne Cable has keyed into the NBP and hence investments in the Infrastructure Company (Infraco) licence for Lagos to take broadband services to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Corporate organisations through metropolitan fibre optic links.
“We are building over 1,000km of fibre optic in Lagos and this is part of the building block to encourage broadband penetration,” she said.
Dikko whose company, Etisalat, has over 20million subscriber base said that Etisalat is encouraged to invest in Nigeria because “laws are very clear, policy is good because the NCC hears us out all the time”.
In his contribution, Vice President, New Consumers at MasterCard, Mr. Anand Menon praised Nigeria’s ICT sector for creating an enabling environment for business to grow.
“We at MasterCard believe in Nigeria,” Menon added.
