President Goodluck Jonathan has urged all African countries to become more active participants in the digital revolution going on in the world.
The Nigerian President made the call on Tuesday at an international conference on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena.
A statement by the spokesman for the President, Reuben Abati, said President Jonathan observed that because of the strong correlation between the efficient deployment of ICTs and socio-economic development, Nigeria and other African countries stood to gain a lot from the effective adoption of the new technologies.
“Africa and Africans must be active participants in the digital revolution that is taking place all around the world. We must in fact be at the forefront of that revolution, creating information societies and knowledge based economies.
“African governments must facilitate and support the deployment of the necessary ICT infrastructure required to connect our citizens to each other and the rest of the world, we need to educate our citizens on ICTs and make them digitally literate so they can actively participate in this revolution, we need to encourage the development of our local ICT industries, creating companies to drive added domestic economic value, create jobs and support sustainable growth in GDP,” the President told the gathering which was hosted by President Idriss Deby of Chad,” President Jonathan said.
The President said that to ensure that Nigeria got the full benefits of new information and communication technologies, which include improving national commerce, the development of an ICT workforce, the creation of high skilled, high paying jobs, improved international competitiveness and the establishment of stronger, more competitive small and medium businesses, the Federal Government was judiciously implementing a National ICT Policy, National Broadband Strategy and Roadmap and the Guidelines for Nigerian Content in the ICT industry.
“The results of our efforts in this regard include an ICT sector that is 19% of our Services sector which in itself is 54% of total GDP. In addition to this, the ICT sector has an enabling effect on other sectors of the economy contributing a further 2.56% of added value,” President Jonathan said.
He said that in addition to encouraging and facilitating the development of ICTs within Nigeria, his administration was also helping to increase the geographic spread of high capacity broadband networks to support the harmonious and integrated development of regional economies in Africa.
“With over 10 terabytes of undersea cable landing on our shores we are, through the bi-lateral Nigeria-Niger Joint Commission, extending that capacity to Niger and we are in the process of entering into an MoU with the Chadian Government to interconnect the optic fibre networks of Chad and Nigeria,” President Jonathan told guests and participants in the conference.
Noting that information and communication technologies and the internet have clearly become catalysts that can expand the scope and scale of socio-economic development, President Jonathan commended his Chadian counterpart for hosting the conference.
He further wished participants successful and fruitful deliberations.
President Jonathan had travelled to Chad to hold talks with Chadian President, Idriss Deby to hold talks on how both nations can forge a stronger alliance against terrorism and violent extremism.
The talks is expected to result in further actualisation of agreements for greater cooperation against insurgents and terrorists in the West African region reached by Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon at a meeting in Paris earlier this year.