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As cost of data drops from N1,200 per GB to N350, ahead N390 2025 target
By Abubakar Yunusa
In what seemed like a cold friction between the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Pantami, and the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the National Communications Commission, NCC, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, both engaged each other over allegations of moves to whittle down the functions of the NCC.
The NCC is a parastatal under the supervision of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, for which Pantami is Minister.
The event took place at the 19th edition of President Muhammadu Buhari Scorecard Series in Abuja yesterday, which showcases the achievements of the President from 2015 to date. Pantami came along with heads of the agencies and parastatals under his Ministry, including the NCC EVC.
The engagements came following media enquiry over feelers on moves to amend the National Information Technology Agency (NITDA) Act, perceived to be a discreet move targeted at cutting down the areas of coverage and the functions of the NCC.
Responding to the question, Pantami admitted that he was aware of ongoing move to amend the NITDA act to accommodate activities under its jurisdiction which were not captured by the Act establishing the agency.
He said he was also aware of a number of activities of the NCC which were not captured by the Act establishing it, and which requires an amendment to incorporate those missing provisions in the Act.
He said as Minister in charge of both agencies, he wrote to the NCC and NITDA to work together to avoid any clash, friction or duplication of functions in the amendment of the NITDA Act. Recall that Pantami until his appointment as Minister was the Head of NITDA.
He said also that he has not received any formal complaint of misunderstanding or concern regarding the amendment of the NITDA Act, adding that nobody has mentioned such to him.
He then called on Danbatta to respond to the queries as to whether or not he is aware of any complaint or concerns.
Danbatta first responded that the amendment of the NITDA Act was ongoing, and that stakeholders are expected to make submissions on the Act.
He added that if there are any concerns, perhaps they will be made at the public hearing on the Act in the National Assembly.
Pantami also insisted that Danbatta responded to the letter he said he wrote to the NCC and NITDA bosses requesting them to collaborate to avoid any friction, to which Danbatta confirmed receiving and acting upon.
Pantami said as far as he was concerned, he discharges the duties of his office as Minister with Justice and fairness, and that he was not aware of any move to cut the functions of NCC.
Earlier in his presentation, Pantami gave an account of Nigeria’s inroad in the Information and Communication Technology advancements both at home and abroad.
He said as of 2019, Nigeria had no valid Broadband Plan because the previous one expired in 2018, creating a one year vacuum, until the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP) was launched by President Muhammadu Buhari on the 19th of March, 2020.
“The Plan is designed to deliver data download speeds across Nigeria of a minimum 25Mbps in urban areas, and 10Mbps in rural areas, with effective coverage available to at least 90% of the population by 2025 at a price not more than N390 per 1GB of data (i.e. 2% of median income or 1% of minimum wage).”
The government, he said, has already exceeded that expectation.
He said also that 72,153,824 people had broadband access in August 2019, which increased to 88,273,690 in November 2022 with over 16 million new people with broadband access.
“The cost of data dropped from N1,200 per GB in August 2019 to N350 (far earlier than the plan of making it N390 by December 2025),” he said.
He added that the estimated number of people living in the unserved and underserved areas declined from 33.7 million in 2015 to 31.16 million in 2019, while the number of clusters dropped from 207 to 114 during the period.
“ Based on the outcome of the new study in 2022, the number of clusters has further dropped from 114 to 97 clusters with an estimated population of 27.91 Million,” he said.
According to him, “based on the National Broadband Plan, we were able to have 90% broadband coverage by December 2025. However, we recently gave a license to Starlink to provide services and this has given us 100% coverage, about 3 years ahead of schedule.”
He disclosed that based on the National Broadband Plan, the country achieved 90% broadband coverage by December 2025. “However, we recently gave a license to Starlink to provide services and this has given us 100% coverage, about 3 years ahead of schedule. I announced the partnership between Nigeria and Space X at the US Africa Leaders’ Forum (USALF) in December 2022,” he said.
The National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), he said, was launched by President Muhammadu Buhari on the 28th of November, 2019 to drive the development of Nigeria’s digital economy.
“The ICT sector has had 3 unprecedented highest ever contributions to the GDP, in Q1 2020 (14.07%), in Q2 2021 (17.92%) and in Q2 2022 (18.44%),” he said.
The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector, according to him, was the fastest growing sector in both the fourth quarter of 2020 and the entire year 2020, among others, based on the report by the National Bureau of Statistics.
“ The sector’s 14.70% double digit growth rate played a principal role in supporting our country to exit the recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic a year faster than experts predicted.
“ The growth rate of the sector exceeded 4 times the next fastest growing sector of Q4 2020, which had a growth rate of 3.42%. As part of the development of the digital economy ecosystem, over 2,000 projects and programmes were initiated from August 2019 to date,” Pantami said.
