Akpabio Wants Investment In ICT

Governor godswill akpabio of akwa ibom, on Tuesday in Lagos advised African nations to invest in Information Communication Technology (ICT), in order to meet up with their foreign counterparts.

Akpabio made the plea while speaking with newsmen at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA).

Our correspondent reports that Akpabio was on his way to Dubai to deliver a paper at the Nigerian Day of International Telecommunications Union ( ITU), Telecom World 2012.

The governor said that if governments in the developing countries failed to embrace ICT, it would be impossible for them to meet up with happenings in the developed world.

Akpabio said that his government recently established an e-library, which according to him, was the first of its kind in the West African sub-region.

He said that users of the library would have access to over 60 million down loaded e-books, e-journals, audio and video books.

The governor said that the users would also be able to learn new languages in the language laboratory, adding that the library was fitted with anti-theft book security device.

Akpabio said that Nigeria was not left out in the ICT revolution, adding that the country had moved from 600,000 telephone lines in 1999 to over 100 million mobile functional lines in 2012.

“Currently, global statistics on internet usage indicate that Nigeria is 11th in the world and first in Africa, with over 50 million estimated users.

“Among the 20 top countries in internet usage, Nigeria is the only African country included and has more internet users than some European countries like Spain, Italy and Turkey”, he said.

“Statistics for patronage of the leading social media platform, Facebook, also shows that Nigeria is among the leading countries in ICT/IT  in the world.