The Government of the United Kingdom (UK) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) have unveiled plans to collaborate on critical areas of digital inclusion, cyber security and capacity building as a strategic step towards improving Nigeria’s competitiveness in the rapidly growing global digital economy.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Prof Umar Danbatta, gave the hint on the collaborative arrangement shortly after his meeting with a UK delegation led by the Senior Private Sector Development Adviser & Head Digital Inclusion at Department of Foreign &International Development (DFID) Alessandra Lustrati, led high-powered delegation from the UK, on a courtesy visit to his office in Abuja.
Danbatta had told the delegation that there were 200 access gaps in Nigeria and that the NCC was exploring different rural technology solutions to plug such gaps within the next tow years as against the 20 years projected.
On the mission of the delegation, he said: “This delegation is here to explore how the UK Government can channel a significant intervention to the tune of £1.2 billion to create wealth and posterity in selected countries around the world.
“ And this creation of posterity will leverage on the power of ICT to provide access to unserved and underserved areas in the country. The intervention is also on cyber security and capacity building, three key areas.
“With the right rural technology solution, we can do it faster, because at the rate we are plugging the gaps, it will take us about 20 years to conclude. These gaps deprive 40 million Nigerians of access to telecommunications services, out of 190 million.
“The good thing about getting a solution to the access gap problem is that, we know where the gaps are, we have our access gap map, we can actually point out where the gaps are”, Danbatta added
Commenting earlier, Lustrati told the EVC that the UK government was planning to commence the implementation of the intervention as from April next year, adding that the project is deliberately made “country-specific” to give countries like Nigeria options on the nature of the interventions they desire
