CommTech Minister to 63m Nigerians online: We will connect more

Omobola Johnson, the Minister of Communication Technology has said that more Nigerian will be connected to the Internet as the nation’s online community peaks at 63 million.[blockquote right=”pull-right” cite=”Omobola Johnson, the Minister of Communication Technology”]”The Federal Ministry of Communication Technology is collaborating with Federal Ministry of Education and the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) and the National Research and Education Network to provide connectivity to 27 Federal universities in the first instance while subsequently expanding to include other tertiary institutions”[/blockquote]

The CommTech Minister said Tuesday that her Ministry will continue to focus on promoting ICT use in all sphere of Nigerian life and promote adoption of technology to drive transparency in government for effective public service delivery especially with Internet.

“Already our effort  are yielding results as depicted by the recent figure which shows that over 63 million Nigerians now connect to the Internet through major telcos’ networks”, she told attendees at the Nigeria Internet Governance Forum 2014 held in Lagos.

The Minister, represented by John Ayodele, Director of Telecommunications and Postal Services at the Ministry said that the Internet had evolved and grown over decades to become a most important infrastructure that pervades every sphere of human endeavour.

According to Johnson, her Ministry is working with major industry stakeholders to ensure that more Nigerians are wired. “We intend to continue to leverage on this result by ensuring the successful completion of our connect Nigeria program geared towards ensuring that necessary infrastructure is put in place to ensure persuasive broadband infrastructure all over Nigeria.”

The Ministry hopes to extend the use of Internet services to rural and undeserved areas as well as schools and hinted attendees at the event that, “our agencies, Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) and National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) will continue to focus on providing facilities in Public Access Venues (PAVs) funded by Universal Service Provision Fund and NITDA.”

”The Federal Ministry of Communication Technology is collaborating with Federal Ministry of Education and the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) and the National Research and Education Network to provide connectivity to 27 Federal universities in the first instance while subsequently expanding to include other tertiary institutions”, the Minister added.

The plan is also to continue to look at the job creation opportunities that abound on the Internet especially for Nigeria’s teeming youth population, according to Johnson, who asked stakeholders in the ICT sector to join forces.

Their working together must give a coordinated mechanism for Nigeria’s participation in regional and global Internet governance dialogue.

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