President Goodluck Jonathan has been urged to heed calls by stakeholders to introduce a presidential broadband stimulus for the Nigerian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector so as to boost broadband internet access in the country. Nkemdilim Nweke, Executive Director, Operations, DigitalSENSE Africa (DSA) made the call in an address to the two-day Nigeria DigitalSENSE forum on Internet Governance and Broadband Evolution in Nigeria, which ended at the weekend in Lagos.
Nweke also said at the forum that by emulating United States president Barrack Obama who introduced a Broadband Stimulus recently, President Jonathan would give unparallelledstimulus to the Nigerian ICT sector.
“We, therefore, reiterate calls for President Goodluck Jonathan among other presidential aspirants in 2011 election, to borrow a leaf from President Obama by introducing a Broadband Stimulus for the Nigerian ICT sector and give a boost to infrastructure deployment,” she urged.
Nweke said that while access to high speed Internet was good, the need for a quality legal frame work to enable end users optimise it could not be overlooked. She charged the Federal Government to urgently address the issues of security, high cost access,devices and ensure that all primary and secondary schools as well as universities have well-equipped computer laboratories and are fully connected to the Internet. This, she said would make Nigerian youths, especially the students to be globally competitive.
While commending participants and partners on this year’s forum, she singled out the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), MTN Nigeria, Teledom Group, Starcomms, Omatek Computer Plc, Computer Warehouse Group among others for collaborating with DSA on the event. Also speaking at the forum the chairman of the occasion, Emmanuel Ekuwem, commended the organisers for sustaining the initiative, urging Nigerians to take interest on how the Internet is governed, stressing that, that was the only way to ensure good use of the internet for the benefit of all.
Ekuwem insisted that the good people of Nigeria, who are in the majority should not allow a few bad elements to continue to deface the image of Nigeria in the cyberspace through their fraudulent activities.
The forum witnessed presentations from industry experts, including Adewale Jones, the second vice president of the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) and Director, News Media and Information Security, NCC, Sylvanus Ehikioya, Senior Teaching fellow in International Trade Law with the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Nnemeka Ewelukwa as well as president, Nigeria Internet Registration Association, Mary Uduma, chief executive officer of IcoCool Contract, Destiny Amana and Legal Officer, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Emmanuel Edet among others. Issues of access, security and privacy, openness and infrastructure were discussed at tthe forum.
