By Technology Times Reporter
Lagos, December 9, 2012: Airtel Nigeria has unveiled its new number range, 0701 in what the mobile phone company says reflects growing subscriber and network capacity.
The latest 0701 range adds to Airtel’s existing numbers that include 0802, 0808, 0708 and 0812.
The formal unveiling was at the Airtel Night of Influence, a high profile event hosted recently in Lagos by the mobile phone company.
Guests at the event were offered a special privilege to reserve their preferred numbers in the 0701 series. Numbers allocated to customers will become fully active as soon as Airtel finalizes arrangement to kick off with the implementation of the new number range, the company says.
Oba Otudeko, Chairman, Airtel, says that the network has capacity for double its existing 22 million subscribers.
Airtel added additional 5.5million subscribers in less than two years and its growing rapidly as it reaps the gains from its trend setting and revolutionary approach to empowering telecoms consumers, he adds.
The Airtel Night of Influence is a networking platform provided by the telecoms company for interaction and discourse on issues in the Nigerian and African political economy.
Fareed Zakaria, CNN Anchor and host of popular Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN provided insights and analyses of African and Nigerian political economy for the audience calling on Nigerian leaders to take charge of the country’s future by investing in the educational sector to provide quality foundational education for children.
Zakaria who spoke on the theme, Africa’s Political Economy: The Challenge of Leadership observes that a focused investment in human capital development and building strong institutions to safe-guard society from human failings are important requirements for lifting developing nations out of the lowest levels of economic growth.
Zakaria also advises that rather than “subsidizing the present or buying votes, leaders should invest in education, invest in Infrastructure, invest in healthcare and invest in the future.”
Citing Taiwan and South Korea, he further says that although these countries do not have natural resources, they have emerged strong economies with impressive GDP growth rates because of their efforts in developing human capital and building strong institutions.
He also noted that the United States of America currently exports human capital in Liquefied Natural Gas and other areas because the country had invested in research, training and development in those areas.
“There is so much human talent in Africa and in Nigeria. These talents need to be unlocked through education. It is an irony that countries experiencing high GDP growth are countries without natural resources. Look at Taiwan. What they have is typhoon… they do not have any natural resources; yet, they have managed to emerge as one of the countries with the highest GDP growth rate,” he said.
Guests included former President Olusegun Obasanjo; Ebitu Ukiwe, ex-Chief of general Staff Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe; Oby Ezekwesili, former minister and World Bank Africa director; Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, ex-Health Minister and Olu Akiolu, the Oba of Lagos.
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