The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta have revealed that 119 million users now reach the Internet in Nigeria as of April 2019.
He made the announcement to indicate that broadband services are transforming the way and manner people live, work and play, and in patterns and tempo humanity never witnessed before.
This revolution according to the NCC Chief Executive, finds expression in education, agriculture, healthcare, commerce, transportation, governance and other sectors of the economy.
Danbatta affirmed this recently at the 7th Digital Africa Conference and Exhibition which took place in Baze University, Abuja where he was represented by Abigail Sholanke, NCC’s Director of Projects. Danbatta also noted that broadband penetration which stood at 8.50 per cent as of 2015 had risen to 33.70 per cent as at April 2019.
The EVC informed the audience that NCC has instituted a regulatory and licensing framework to further accelerate broadband availability, accessibility and affordability in Nigeria. The Commission has done so through the auction of the frequency spectrum in some bands as well as spectrum re-farming in order to optimise the resources. The NCC, according to the EVC, has also licensed Infrastructure Companies (Infraco) across the six geo-political zones in the country to facilitate the cascading of fibre to more remote areas of Nigeria.
Conclusively Danbattta, therefore, stressed the need for strategic collaborations between policy-making institutions and private sector players towards addressing the various challenges slowing down faster development of our digital ecosystem in Africa.
