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Nigeria recorded an unprecedented 10% leap in broadband penetration within 12 months from September 2019 to November 2020 to outpace previous record of 30% in 19 years from 2000 to 2019, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, disclosed, this week in Abuja, while giving account of his stewardship since assuming office in August 2019.
According to the minister, broadband penetration is currently 45% and has remained a focal point of growth within the digital economy sector under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Pantami, who was speaking at a briefing organised by the All Progressive Congress Professional Forum, told newsmen that the unprecedented success in the area of broadband penetration was due to the enabling policies established by the federal government in its commitment to digitalise Nigeria.
His words: “On assumption of office, we had a statistic of 50 million Nigerians with no access to telecommunication facilities. We developed the National Broadband Plan 2020-2030 which targets a 90% penetration rate in terms of population and a 70% rate in terms of our total land mass within the next two years.
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“It also targets a speed of 25 mbps for urban areas while a 10 mbps speed is targeted for rural areas. So far, we have been able to achieve a 10% increase just within a year which brings the success rate to 45%. This is unprecedented and it is because of the President’s commitment to a digital Nigeria and support in approving our policies.”
The minister noted that a digital economy is an enabler of all sectors and its importance cannot be underplayed as only digital economies will be relevant in global affairs in the near future.
According to him, “broadband is the backbone of a digital economy as it has been identified by global experts that a 10% increase in Broadband penetration will increase the Gross Domestic Product of an economy by 1.6 to 1.8 percent.”
Nigeria’s burgeoning digital economy sector is one of the fastest growing sectors with the highest contribution to Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the country’s statistician – National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
