Over the past year, Nigeria’s ICT and telecoms landscape has seen a mixed bag of advancements and difficulties. Need to say the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu undoubtedly has a comprehensive plan in place to modernise Nigeria’s telecom industry.

However, despite a strong commitment to addressing critical issues in Nigeria’s ICT sector, stakeholders in the ICT space have posited that challenges remain that hinder the full realisation of these efforts.

Recall that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, through the Renewed Hope Agenda, draws all Nigerians to a more promising outlook. Inherent in his agenda is the pledge to embolden and support the youth and women by harnessing emerging sectors such as the digital economy.

In delivering this vision, the Honourable Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani unveiled a blueprint appropriately titled “Accelerating our Collective Prosperity through Technical Efficiency“ to support Nigeria‘s economic growth by enhancing productivity, facilitated by digital innovation.

Acknowledging the criticality of resilient telecommunications infrastructure to a robust digital economy, Dr. Tijanis Strategic Agenda 2023- 2027 sets targets to achieve a 50 percent improvement in Quality of Service (QoS) by the end of 2024; to boost Nigeria’s broadband penetration rate to 70 percent by the end of 2025; to deliver data download speed of 25Mbps in urban areas and 10Mbps in rural areas by the end of 2025; to provide coverage for, at least, 80 percent of the country’s population, especially the underserved and unserved populations by the end of 2026; to reduce the gap of unconnected Nigerians in rural areas from 61 percent to less than 20 percent by 2027; and to secure between 300 percent to 500 percent increase in broadband investment by the end of 2027.

Drawing from the Strategic Agenda of the Ministry, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission, (NCC) Dr. Aminu Maida, has placed three Strategic Focus Areas for the Commission: The Consumers, the Industry/ Licensees, and the Government.