Local Content, Key To Nigeria’s Telecoms Sector Growth – Minister

The Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, said in Abuja  that local content development was key to the growth of Nigeria’s telecommunications sector.

She told newsmen that the ministry was working hard to ensure that local content development became prominent in the fast-growing telecommunications sector.

“A very big part of what we are doing which is local content and what that means is that you will see an industry that is growing at 30 per cent year-on-year and we are doing our analysis and we are seeing that not enough Nigerians are participating in this very fast-growing sector of the economy.

“So local content is really in many areas, the local content in terms of the capacity, the software development that I talked about and doing things in Nigeria for Nigerians; it’s about the device manufacture and making sure that many more devices are manufactured in Nigeria,

“Even down to the SIM cards, the chip cards and all that we see, it’s making sure that that is done here, so domiciling much more of the production and productivity of the ICT industry in Nigeria.

“We started the analyses; we are looking at what is done offshore, what is done locally, what more we can bring in.

“We are talking to the industry, we got our consultants working with us and we hope that within the next few months we will come up with some local content guidelines that will be very definitive to say that there are certain things that we must buy made-in-Nigeria.’’

Johnson decried the fact that most of the equipment and software in the sector were imported, while most of them could be manufactured and assembled in Nigeria.

She said the ministry was already working with consultants to ensure that within the next few months some local content guidelines would be instituted.

She said she was already using made-in-Nigeria computers, which she described as efficient and comparable to imported ones.

“Today I use a made-in-Nigeria computer. I have no problems with it. It’s in my office. I send my e-mails, I do everything with it and as individuals, I think we should begin to showcase that. Let people know that theses goods are just as good as the imported ones,’’ she said.

The minister also called on Nigerians to embrace made-in-Nigeria gadgets, and asked Nigerian manufacturers to also ensure that they adhered to standards that were in tune with international best practices.