An Information Communication Technology (ICT) expert, Mr Oluwafemi Osho has appealed to the government to make more fund available to develop internet infrastructure across the country.
Osho, a lecturer, Cyber Science and Security Department, Federal University of Technology, Minna, said this on Monday in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) while reacting to the accessibility of internet facilities among citizens across the country.
According to him, the communication industries have the responsibility of putting the infrastructure in place with the political will from the government.
“The truth is that broadband and some internet infrastructures are improving in the country but the populations accessing them are also increasing.
“The government is making a lot of effort to ensure that internet accessibility is inclusive, but they should not also forget that the number of people opportune to use the internet are on the increase.
“We hope that communication companies and the government will invest more in digital infrastructure to commensurate the rising population of internet users,” Osho said.
NAN recalled that a recent report by Cable says that internet download speed in Nigeria was among the slowest in the world ranking 176 in 207 countries.
The Worldwide broadband speed league 2019 report noted that it took an average of over seven hours to download a five-gigabyte movie in High Definition (HD) in Nigeria.
The Cable report added that Africa with vast landmass had not committed enough resources to broadband penetration to harness the benefits from digital economy as the rest of the world.
The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), however, on its part in April said that the country had achieved 33 per cent broadband penetration, which was equivalent to 63 million Nigerians enjoying the service.
The Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Danbatta, had said “the commission is ready to drive the process of attaining 70 per cent broadband penetration in the next couple of years, if that is set as the new target by the Federal Government.” (NAN)
