Nigerians petition FG on broadband access

Stakeholders across the six geo-political zone of Nigeria have tasked the federal government on the need to toe the line of other countries in making broadband access available to its citizens.

Arising from the Broadband for Nigeria, BB4NG, Stakeholders’ Forum, held in Abuja to develop, refine and adopt an appropriate plan for the country, delegates at the event unanimously endorsed the Broadband Strategy Framework documents for Nigeria.

They argued that access to broadband internet should be seen as a Fundamental Human Right of every Nigerian. As such they said government should be actively involved in providing this access instead of regulating the providers.

The participants noted that countries like Australia and the United States have already invested a total of US$43 billion and US$7.3 billion respectively in harnessing broadband services to their people, because of the huge benefits to their countries and asked government to copy these countries.

Reviewing the document, the stakeholders’ stressed that government agencies must be encouraged and empowered to share resources which will help to reduce cost and waste. Equally, educational institutions must be given broadband internet access for training and research purposes and consumers in rural areas protected by government, they said.

However, they called for synergy between similar documents past and present especially in terms of statistics, details and content that will used as a benchmark to measure what is in the final e-document.

“The framework should address what government, private institutions, civil societies and other agencies should do in making the broadband a reality particularly reduction in cost”, the delegates advised.

Earlier on in his keynote address, the BB4NG Team Chairman, John Dada, noted that Nigeria’s success in improving access to voice communication has not been reflected in broadband connectivity.

Dada said broadband access gap between Nigeria and the rest of the world, including some African countries is getting wider. “Many of us here may be aware that South Africa has gazetted its broadband policy and broadband process in Ghana is now at a ministerial sub-committee level,” he said.

Thus he advised the stakeholders to come up with the right document that will convince government of the urgent need for broadband in the country.

Meanwhile, the President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, ATCON, Titi Omo-Ettu, giving the BB4NG Presentation of Background and Framework Documents, pointed out that there is uneven distribution of benefits to the over 150 million Nigerians.

Omo-Ettu noted that access to health; education, literacy, water, shelter as well as internet have remained poor in Nigeria, with a poverty rate of about 74 per cent in 2009 statistics.

In addition he said access to telephone has been confined to urban communities with less than 30 million subscribers, as such widening the gap between the “rich and the poor, the have and have-nots, literate and illiterate, urban and rural, e-literate and illiterate, access and no access, narrowband and broadband”.

The ATCON president said there is a need to plug these gaps as the benefits of broadband in the economy is immense especially as it will make those in the urban as well as rural areas to become more productive.

Omo-Ettu therefore called for government intervention to expand access and coverage beyond what is economically feasible.

Represented at the Forum are members of the Military, Consumer Advocacy Groups, Telephone Operators, Academia, Consultancies, International Agencies, Federal Government, State Legislature, Civil Society Organizations, Infrastructure Providers, Internet Service Providers, Research and Education Institutions, Professional Associations, Trade Associations, The Press, NYSC Members among others.

The agreement for the BB4NG project was signed in July 15, 2009 between the Nigeria ICT Forum of Partnership Institutions (ng ICT Forum) and the Association of Progressive Communications, APC, and was supported by the Partnership for Higher Education in AfricaEducation in Africa, PHEA, the Institute of International Education, Fantsuam Foundation, ATCON and Telecom Answers Associates.

The Framework document is being fine-tuned by the project team and in due course will be available for submission to Government.