Investments
in Nigeria’s telecommunications sector
have hit N2.074 trillion (about $68 billion) as at July 2016 with N1.068 trillion
($35 billion) coming from Foreign
Direct Investments (FDIs)
Speaking in a
keynote address at the Nigerian Telecoms Investment Forum, at the just
concluded ITU Telecom World 2016, Bangkok, Thailand, the immediate past
Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Dr.
Hamadoun Toure, said these figures recorded so far in Nigeria point to the fact
that “the country is certainly a preferred destination for telecommunications
investors in Africa.”
Toure noted
that Nigeria is the place to invest because the population is large and there
is political stability coupled with a robust telecommunications regulatory
regime.
He further
explained that within 15 years when Nigeria opened its telecoms sector to the
global community, investments have grown in leaps and that from a paltry
400,000 connected lines in 2001, the country now has over 150 million connected
lines and a teledensity of 107 per cent. “The next growth for voice
communication is in Quality of Service and the new oil in Nigeria is ICT and
data transmission is the way to go,” he said.
On his part,
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) boss, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta,
disclosed that the regulator has begun digital transformation through the
National Broadband Plan (NBP 2013 – 2018) and that since broadband is the
catalyst for social and economic transformation, the commission has come to let
the global community know that investments are welcome.
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