The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector is no doubt, one of the fastest-growing sectors of the country’s GDP and is emerging as its most important long-term growth prospect.
The adoption and utilisation of digital revolutions by the government is creating multiplier effects across critical sectors, aiding job creation, better governance, youth empowerment and overall socio-economic development.
Investors King recalls that the sum of N160.59bn was budgeted for the ministry for the year 2022. This is more than the combined N129.59bn allocated to the ministry from 2016 to 2021.
Indeed, for over 10 years, ICT has consistently contributed more than 10 per cent of the Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the telecom sector alone contributed 12.45 per cent to GDP as at the fourth quarter of 2020.
In the second quarter of 2021, the ICT sector contributed 17.92 per cent to the real GDP of the nation.
According to the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, in all continents of the world, people, organisations and countries have continued to witness leaps and bounds in economic, social and political activities through the instrumentality of ICT, which has meshed computing, information and communication technology to catalyse development in ways and manners humans never envisaged decades ago.
Danbatta who delivered a paper titled “Empowering the Nigerian Youth though Information and Communication Technology”at the 10th and 11th combined Convocation Lecture of the Fountain University at Osogbo, Osun State recalled the impact of ICT revolution in all parts of human endeavour across countries and continents, insisting that technology will continue to penetrate and foster qualitative and quantifiable changes in all aspects of life.
According to him, Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicle; Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate; Facebook, world’s most popular public-facing digitally-mediated social networking platform, creates little or no content; Alibaba, a leading global retailer, has little or no inventory, yet they have become signposts of prosperity riding wholly on ICT resources.
These foregoing contextual demonstrations of the possibilities of ICT explain the Federal Government’s policy decisions to strengthen ICT adoption in building a robust digital economy in Nigeria, eloquently expressed in the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), 2020-2030; the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP), 2020-2025 and other series of policies, guidelines and regulations derivative of the NDEPS and NNBP.