Embrace digital acquisition, Dambatta urges youths
Posted by Ahmed Iyanda | 2 years ago | 1,546 times
Prof. Danbatta delivering his lecture at the 20&11th Convocation Ceremony of Fountain University, Osogbo
The Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission( NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta has reiterated the call for Nigerian youths to embrace skill acquisition programmes in order to be self-reliance.
Danbatta made the call on Thursday, January 13, 2022, while delivering the 10th and 11th combined Convocation Lecture of the Fountain University at Osogbo, Osun State.
In the paper titled: “Empowering the Nigerian Youth through Information and Communication Technology”, Danbatta recalled the impact of ICT revolution in all parts of human endeavor across countries and continents, insisting that technology will continue to penetrate and foster qualitative and quantifiable changes in all aspects of life.
Danbatta said, "In all continents of the world, people, organizations and countries have continued to witness leaps and bounds in economic, social and political activities through the instrumentality of ICT," according to him, has meshed computing, information and communication technology to catalyze development in ways and manners humans never envisaged decades ago.
"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.
" It would be a failing prophesy decades ago if anyone had said a company with no vehicle, just via an application, will control more than 75 million active commercial drivers in, at least, 80 countries. It would also be contested that through a mere app, a company will provide accommodation to millions of travelers and tourists in more than 100,000 cities of the world.
Similarly, just as Alibaba, without inventory, had over 828 million annual active customers across its China retail markets, as at June 2021. Needless to mention that the troves of contents synonymous with Facebook are actually generated by its 2.89 billion monthly active users.
The NCC boss stated that the foregoing contextual demonstrations of the possibilities of ICT explain 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.
Speaking further, Danbatta noted that the adoption of digital revolutions by government is creating multiplier effects across critical sectors, aiding job creation, better governance, youth empowerment and overall socio-economic development.
“It is the reason this objective reality is cited as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
Indeed, for over 10 years, ICT has consistently contributed more than 10 percent of Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the telecom sector alone contributed 12.45 per cent to GDP as at the fourth quarter of 2020,” he said.
Given that Nigeria accounts for 82 percent of Africa’s ICT market and 29 percent of continental Internet usage and sub-Saharan Africa being the fastest growing region for ICT adoption, the Federal Government, in its determination to ensure that the nation harness full benefits of ICT, instituted a broadband vision that will see Nigeria as a society of connected communities of high-speed broadband access and connectivity.
The EVC said the envisioned society will deliver Internet connectivity speed 10 megabits per second (Mbps) in rural areas and 25 Mbps in urban areas by 2025.
"Additionally, effective coverage will be available to, at least, 90 percent of the population by 2025 at a price not more than N390 per one gigabyte of data."
Speaking on the new development, Danbatta explained that the commission has connected to the policies of government through its Strategic Management Plan (SMP) 2020-2024 and the Strategic Vision Plan (SVP), 2021-2025, which streamline the provision of key extant policies for effective implementation by the Commission.
According to the NCC boss, the Federal Government’s policy in this direction is aimed at lifting Nigerians, particularly the youths, out of poverty, stressing that to achieve this, there was a need to impact skills to the youths who will, in turn, use the skills for self-employment.
He, however, charged Nigerian youths to take advantage of Federal Government’s laudable policies, which have found expression in many activities of the Commission targeting the Nigerian youths.
"These activities and interventionist programmes has, as primer, the ICT Hubs Support and Engagement programme, which brings youths together in the Nigerian tech ecosystem to deliberate and recommend frameworks and strategies for the development of the sector, '' he added.
