The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Ibrahim Pantami, in this interview with Senior ICT Editors in Abuja,
on Monday, stated emphatically that the ministry has worked un-relentlessly to resolve the lingering challenges that have held the growth and development of the sector down.
Excerpt…
QTN: On the effort Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy to fast track Nigeria’s economic activities since the present pandemic broke out.
ANS: You will agree with me that there are now many activities going on virtually across different sectors and across cities and towns simultaneously. This is due largely because of the convergence of many sectors especially as made possible by the ministry. It has also apparently become more difficult to draw a line of demarcation between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector and media. They are converged today. Drawing a line of demarcation is becoming difficult by the day, that is why the only relationship is we provide the digital platform and the media provides content.
QTN: What is the nexus here between the ministry and the media?
AND: We have the technology and the media has the content that is what merged us together. With the technology, the content cannot be developed and without the content, the technology is useless. Vice-versa. We will further come up with more policies that will promote the sector, few other sectors that are critical to our country for good governance.
QTN: How about relationship with the parastatals?
ANS: Our position at the ministry is to execute policies, assign duties to parastatals and direct them to implement. For instance, parastatals do not have the power to initiate projects. They can come up with provisions for media in our future budgets because we are determined to promoting multi-media journalism, online media and real-time journalism. Of course, that cannot be done without building capacity for members of the 4th estate of the realm. Today, there are many tools for research, whether: It is watchdog journalism, investigative journalism or marketing journalism. We should bear in mind that responsible journalism is a pillar for good governance while irresponsible journalism is a pillar for bad governance. It is because of this that the ministry encourages you the (media) to be just and fair in whatever you do. This is very key to the survival of our country. Whatever the media does must have a standard that must be respected, core values that cannot be compromised in any situation you find yourself. I, therefore, encourage you to always report with fairness, integrity and the way things are for the good of all.
QTN: Any ray of hope for further reduction in the cost of data?
ANS: The ministry is currently and constantly working on all it’s policies and hopefully by 2025, probably 40% of the cost of data will be dropped.
QTN: Any other recent achievement, especially in the area of RoWs charges by state governments.
ANS: Most of the challenges that were lingering in the sector for 15 years, we have now been able to resolve them, notable among these challenges is the issue of the Right of Way RoW. This has been lingering since 2006 and in less than a year we resolved it, to the extent that some players in the sector described the resolution as miracle. An example is in Kwara state, before now, the cost of RoW from one LGA to another is N560 million. With my modest intervention and engagement with virtually all the governor’s, the cost of RoW in Kwara State was reduced to N150 million. This is what we mean by providing enabling environment for investors. According to the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Opertors of Nigeria (ALTON), Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, said 70% of money spent by service providers before the intervention went to RoW. The overriding objective and priority of the ministry and governance is to protect the interest of our citizens, while the President Muhammadu Buhari Administration is working hard to ensure that the interest of our citizens are protected because they are the ones suffering more than any other one. With this intervention, there is no doubt that the cost of broadband must come down. What I think that is also very important here is that, when government intervention of this nature takes place, you the media is expected to support the government to task and challenge the service providers to up their game and bring the cost of data down. Since the prices go up due to the challenge of RoW, it should now come down because the cost has drastically reduced.
QTN: On the protection of telcos infrastructure?
ANS: President Muhammadu Buhari, has made it clear and communicated to us that telecom infrastructure should and must be protected. We have deployed all sorts of strategies at different levels and through agency collaboration to put a stop to vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure. Also, these are areas they (Operators and Service Providers), spend money, however, as it is now, the cost of data in Nigeria is not the highest in Africa but because our minimum income is low compared to minimum wage of some countries in Africa.