NCC: The future lies in ICT — but Nigeria yet to fully embrace it

Umar Danbatta, vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), says Nigeria is yet to fully embrace the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution.

Danbatta made this known during the 8th edition of beacon of information and communication technology (BoICT) lecture and awards in Lagos.

Represented by Sunday Dare, commissioner, stakeholders management, NCC, he said that the ICT revolution had no barriers or frontiers.

“Nigeria, though already plugged into the ICT ecosystem, is yet to harvest fully the dividends of the ICT revolution sweeping across the world.

“While our youth have fully embraced ICT, our government, institutions both public and private are still in the process of adopting ICT in their operations and activities. Yet, the future lies in ICT.

“Nigeria must make deliberate policies that will accelerate ICT penetration.

“Our educational curricular must integrate ICT at all levels of education and our systems and institutions must be brought into compliance by training and re-training our people,” he said.

He said that though government had made some commendable strides in adopting ICT in various aspects of its operations, more systematic and accelerated approach was still needed.

Danbatta said that ICT had become a one-stop shop for modern tools of development, innovation, employment opportunities and for a smarter world.

He said that as the world moved towards the fifth generation (5G) revolution and the internet of things (IoT), Nigeria must embrace fully the opportunities offered by the ICT.

Nigeria’s ICT initiatives, he said, must focus on cyber crimes, cyber security, indigenous software development, digital multimedia platforms, amongst others.