Continuing the verbatim series on Nigeria’s Minister of Communication, Abdul-Raheem Adebayo Shittu’s first formal meeting with journalists specialising in reporting and covering the Information and Communications Technology industry, in Lagos on Monday February 8, 2016, we bring to our audience his main speech at the event:
In 2003, I was the Attorney General (of Oyo State) under Senator Rasheed Ladoja. In 2011, I contested for Governorship election under the CPC (Congress for Progressive Change). Again in 2015, I sought to contest for the governorship election under APC (All People’s Congress); the attempt was not successful. When our President won, he made me a Minister.
I didn’t expect to be Minister of Communications; I expected to be the Attorney General because out of the 11 lawyers in the cabinet of General Buhari, I am senior most by date of call. Other than being the Attorney General, I expected that I would be either Minister of Works or Transport; the least I expected was being made Minister of Communications.
So, when it came, it was like a thunderbolt because I didn’t know anything about the ICT industry; the only thing I knew was that I have a handset which operates wirelessly. I also knew that there was internet, laptop and all of that. But once I came, I have to face the challenge of learning as fast as I can.
I got to the ministry a day after my Permanent Secretary was also posted there; so more or less, we are both strangers in a foreign land but we are happy that we are working together to ensure that we put in place all the strategies that are required to move the industry forward. I have discovered that the ICT industry is a very robust one; it’s also a very diverse one.
A lot of people see ICT as just handsets and laptops, but I have come to discover that it is much more than that. It is perhaps the most diversified industry of all the ministries that we have, in the sense that ICT revolves around our lives. I will give an example; Nigeria has over the years depended on oil to sustain our economy and to sustain our lives. In other climes where they don’t have oil, perhaps they have been living on agriculture.
But both petrol and agriculture are resources that get exhausted in the sense that perhaps you have one billion barrels of petrol; as you sell, it will be reducing. Again in agric sector, you know what it involves to invest in agriculture; if you start investing in agriculture today, it takes time for what you plant to germinate and harvest. And then, when you have sold out your harvest, it is gone for ever. You need new energy, new productive activities for you to replicate what you have already sold.
But I discovered that ICT is not so; ICT is self-sustaining industry in the sense that it is not a tangible resource, it is self-sustainable because it is about your brain; once the brain is sharp and once it has right ideas, you continue to draw endlessly and limitlessly from it.
Take for instance the handset we are using; what is being expended is just air, even though the operators will take money from you, what they sell is the fact that they are the ones who manage the air to be useful to you. It is not a resource that can get exhausted.
ICT for me and from my little experience is one industry that Nigeria can rely on to get back what we have lost in oil and agriculture. It is therefore no wonder that the wealthiest people on earth today made their money through ICT and what they are exploiting is just the technology to transmit voice and data.
When I came to the Ministry, I found out that the Ministry has five main parastatals. The first one is NCC (Nigerian Communications Commission), which licenses telecom operators and also regulates their activities. Again, we have NITDA (National Information Technology Development Agency), whose responsibility is to provide internet connectivity from one place to the other. NigComSat (Nigerian Communications Satellite) maintains Nigeria’s satellite in the orbit.
Now we have one satellite, and if it is properly harnessed, if all bodies including corporate organisations would patronise NigComSat, it will be enough to make all the money we need to develop as a country. It serves as storage facility for information in the space.
Again, we have Galaxy Backbone; what it does is to store all the information for Federal Government, to interconnect all government agencies. It is currently building a major infrastructure for which we are currently looking for about N2.1 billion to complete.
Then, we have NIPOST (Nigerian Postal Service), which is the major thing that catches my interest. Of course, we all know NIPOST, which is the first major infrastructure that we always know because of the 774 local governments in the country, NIPOST structures are in 550 local governments. For other local governments where NIPOST infrastructures are not available, you still find presence of NIPOST services, in the sense that there are agents who help NIPOST to collect letters and distribute in those areas.
So in all, you will see that there is no human being that is not affected by the services these agencies of government render. For instance, of the 180 million population we have, about 150 million are already hooked to the GSM technology and we are working hard to ensure that every Nigerian has access to GSM services. If that happens, you will find out that a lot of people would rather by credit (air time) on their phone than to eat, if they are left with the two choices. Because if a man has N100 and no credit on his phone, it would be better if he buys credit with that last Naira and reaches out to people than buying food with the money. And that shows the profitability and the potentials the service has for Nigerians.
So, these are some of the reasons why I feel that the real way to develop our economy is to really develop the ICT sector. If we develop it properly, there is no Nigerian who would not pay something to the industry on a daily basis, if not hourly basis. Of course, you know very well that internet is the facilitator of knowledge across the world. With internet, all knowledge is at your reach.
So, consequent upon all of these findings, I decided that the proper take off point would be for me to organise a retreat because when I came in, I had to meet with a lot of stakeholders in Lagos, Abuja, etc. to engage them in discussions to know what they are doing and the challenges they face and try to seek ways of ameliorating the challenges that are facing them and to see how best to assist them, because I know that by assisting them, we are assisting Nigeria as a whole.
I was doing that and consequently I decided that there was the need for us to hold a retreat towards getting more intellectual resources in order to package what I called a roadmap for ICT development in Nigeria. The roadmap came up about three weeks ago in Ibadan and about 400 people attended from the Ministry, from the industry and government agencies; and the press was adequately represented.
We have put together all the new ideas and that has led to what we now call the roadmap, whose final piece would come out within the next one week. After that, we are going to set up implementation committee to drive this. In all of these, I am determined to ensure that private stakeholders, particularly, leaders in the industry are made part of the implementation committee. It is not about government and the rest now, and I don’t even mind if people make money out of it. Nigerian companies must make money out of government initiatives.
What is more important to me is for us to evolve a plan of action which at the end of the day will benefit all Nigerians and also benefit the government because if the telecom companies are making money, naturally, they will pay more taxes to the coffers of the government. So, it will be a win-win situation for Nigerians, the government and the industry players.
These are some of the experiences I have had and I believe that as a major stakeholder yourselves, you have a duty to see this project turn Nigeria into a digitally smart country. All of us must contribute our quota.
A week before the retreat came up, providentially, the Ambassador of Rwanda visited me. In the course of our discussions, I discovered that those things that Nigeria ought to have done years back, Rwanda, a small country of about 12 million population has accomplished it. For instance, I am told that Rwanda has virtually used ICT to eliminate corruption completely from their system. How did they do it? Every system of payment in Rwanda today is through ICT. The society is becoming cashless and when a society is cashless, the opportunities for leakages are eliminated.
I had the privilege of telling Mr President about the Rwandan experience and I hope that I will have the opportunity to visit Rwanda to see things for myself with a view to replicating it in Nigeria.
So, I want to say that the revolution we are trying to bring about is not about Adebayo Shittu; it’s about Nigerians. The press must be seen working towards the same goal of value addition to Nigerians. If you don’t assist me – God forbid – I will still get my salary as Minister but the Nigerian people would have been short-changed because what ought to have happened to their lives would be missing.
So, I want to challenge every one of you to see me as your partner in progress. I am a servant and I need to be assisted. If you recruit a farmer and you didn’t give him the equipment to work, he is still entitled to his salary once he is recruited. We have a duty to serve as Nigerians. Today it’s my turn, tomorrow it could be any of you.
Finally, I want to say this, God Almighty created human beings; the black and the white, why is it that the white man is on the moon and 100 years after Nigerians, being the black are still where they are? This should be food for thought for all of us.
Thank you for your patience.