Closing Nigeria’s digital divide through strategic dialogue
As Nigeria records upticks in digital transformation from time to time, the need to bring onboard the rest of the community without access to telecommunications and other information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure in the country has continued to be a basis for genuine worries among stakeholders including the government.
Such concerns are particularly justified after the launch of a digital economy footprint by President Muhammadu Buhari himself on the 28th of November, 2019. Similarly, the launch of another document to drive broadband penetration to 70 per cent by 2025 underscores determined effort at eradicating digital divide in the country.
Championed by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) for a digital Nigeria, with its eight pillars, puts the country and players in the ICT sector on their toes to accelerate the pace of digitising the traditional economy to one driven by emerging technologies without being left behind in the comity of other nations.
Indeed, Nigeria has over the years recorded tremendous growth in the numbers of subscribers to telecommunications services in the country, especially that of basic telephony.
According to latest figure by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), active subscription to telephony stood at 200 million as of January this year, with a correspondent teledensity of 104.89 per cent.
In the same instance, industry statistics put total internet subscriptions at 151 million while high speed internet, constituted by 3G and 4G types of connectivity, stood at 82 million or 42.93 per cent as at January this year.
Despite this seemingly impressive figures, what is left unsaid most of the time is the concentration of the numbers in the urban centres whereby the federal capital territory, Abuja and 10 other states out of the 36 in the country have been reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to have more active telephone lines than people living in them.
The situation has been described by the Nigerian coordinator of Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) and immediate past president of Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Olusola Teniola as telecoms Service Saturation and this has contributed to digital divide in the country.
Despite the saturation of telecoms services and subscriptions in the urban, many other parts of the country remain underserved and unserved while many people living with disabilities have their special digital needs unmet.
This played out more visibly upon the incursion of Coronavirus pandemic that ravaged the global economy in 2020, leaving the people as well as other sectors of the economy to ride on the telecoms and ICT sector for their survival, and those without asset to perish in the daunting situation.
In the context of the COVID-19, stakeholders have resulted to facilitating several dialogs targeted at bridging digital divide and promoting digital inclusion in Nigeria for even opportunities for the people.
Another strategic dialog underway
One of such strategic brainstorming among stakeholders is the forthcoming Technical Conference on Bridging the Digital divide for Underserved or Unserved Communities and Persons Living with Disabilities in a COVID-19 Context in Nigeria.
The virtual conference is a brainchild of partnership between the the UK Government’s Prosperity Fund’s Digital Access Programme, Greenfields Law, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The virtual conference, scheduled to hold on 11 March 2021 will feature a presentation to the stakeholders of findings and recommendations from the diagnostic of an earlier study on the impact of the Digital Divide on underserved or unserved communities and persons living with disabilities during the persisting Covid-19 pandemic.
The study was commissioned under the UK Government Prosperity Fund’s Digital Access Programme and undertaken by Greenfields Law.
According to the organisers, the Honorable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, The British Deputy High Commissioner, state governors, local government officials and chief executive officers of telecommunications companies, civil society organizations and consumers are among the stakeholders expected to participate at the technical conference.
According to Osondu Nwokoro, the managing counsel of Greenfields Law and a leading telecommunications policy, law and regulation practitioner, the study was guided by extant national and international constitutional, legal, policy and regulatory provisions.
He explained that valuable information was garnered from women and girls, unemployed youth, persons living with disabilities in urban, peri-urban and rural areas from all the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria, civil society organizations, telecommunications service providers, the regulators and policy making agencies of government at various levels.
From this process, Nwokoro said, the information gathered was utilized to develop pragmatic Nigeria-specific solutions towards bridging the digital gap between the underserved/unserved communities and PLWDs and other vulnerable segments of the society and to facilitate their digital inclusion during this period of the COVID-19 pandemic which has significantly irreversibly altered the usual mode of socio-economic engagements.
The overarching essence of the study, according to him, was to aid the attainment of the aspirations of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, 2019 and the National Broadband Plan, 2020-2025. Meanwhile, Nwokoro also appreciated the UK Government for continuing to play a key role in supporting Nigeria’s digital sector and inclusive economic growth and sustainability.
