The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), says it is working with all stakeholders to deepen penetration of broadband infrastructure and services with a view to support the growth of e-Governance and other critical digital economy objectives throughout Nigeria.
NCC Executive Vice Chairman,Prof Umar Danbatta stated this while highlighting the various regulatory measures of the Commission toward deepening the adoption of e-Government and other Internet-driven services in the country in a presentation delivered during the Nigeria e-Government Summit 2021 recently held in Lagos.
The presentation which was titled, “e-Government: Opportunities and Challenges”, focused on how government agencies and parastatals can take advantage of advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to improve service delivery to Nigerians.
Represented by the Commission’s Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Adeleke Adewolu, Danbatta stated that the
Commission recently unveiled its second Strategic Vision Plan (SVP)- 2021-2025, which enables it to effectively align with efforts of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) 2020-2030; the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025, and other digital economy polices and global best practices.
“Leveraging on the successes we achieved under our previous SVP, we are repositioning both the Commission and the entire industry to facilitate the availability of solid infrastructure and to proliferate digital platforms that effectively and efficiently enable digital inclusion throughout Nigeria,” he said.
Highlighting some of the activities of the Commission geared towards ensuring accessibility to efficient and affordable network infrastructure to power e-Government and other digital economy initiatives in the country, Danbatta, pointed out that, following the presidential approval of the Fifth Generation (5G) Policy, the NCC has developed a 5G Deployment Plan for Nigeria’s digital economy.
The NCC boss said the Commission has set up a committee to auction the 3.5 gigahertz (GHz) band for 5G deployment in Nigeria, and the details will be announced in due course. Prof. Danbatta also disclosed that the regulator is currently updating the National Frequency Allocation Table (NFAT) to achieve more efficient spectrum allocation and usage to reflect World radio communications Conference (WRC)-19 recommendations. He declared that the update of the spectrum allocation table is among several other initiatives being implemented by NCC to ensure efficient use of spectrum resource in the country.
Danbatta further called for increased collaboration of all stakeholders in other to remove barriers to investment which include multiple taxation and regulation, arbitrary pricing of bottleneck resources such as Right-of-Way (RoW), time-consuming and unfriendly approval processes, saying the task of attracting investments into the broadband infrastructure space is a collective responsibility.
“These factors discourage investments in digital infrastructure and reduce the speed at which we provide our people with access to seamless digital service infrastructure for e-Governance and other services,” he said.
Earlier, in his remarks, the Executive Chairman, DigiServe Network Services, Lanre Ajayi the advent of democracy has placed huge responsibilities on government from citizens expectations of citizens especially in the area of service delivery.
“Hence, e-Government, which is essentially about the deployment of technologies in government processes and service delivery to citizens, provides immense opportunities for governments to deliver services to citizens most effectively and efficiently,” he said.
The summit was organised by DigiServe Network Services Limited, in partnership with NCC, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) and the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON).
