THISDAY

Group Calls for State of Emergency over Nigeria’s Poor Ranking on ICT Devt Index

- ICT

The Broadband 2018 Coalition Group has expressed deep concern over Nigeria’s poor ranking on the latest Informatio­n and Communicat­ions Technology (ICT) Developmen­t Index (IDI).

The report was published in the annual “Measuring the Informatio­n Society Report (MISR)” by the Internatio­nal Telecommun­ication Union (ITU) where the country was rated 143rd globally, a significan­t downward shift from its 137th position in 2016. On the African index, Nigeria was placed 15th behind countries like Mauritius, South Africa, Kenya, Gabon, Ghana, Zimbabwe and even Cote d’Ivoire.

The ICT Developmen­t Index is a composite measure that combines 11 indicators into one benchmark index to monitor and compare ICT developmen­ts between 176 countries across the world.

The three-dimension frameworks used to measure the IDI, were Access, Use of ICT and Skills Capabiliti­es.

According to the report, Access, which was the first measuring framework, has to do with the level of ICT readiness which includes five infrastruc­ture and access indicators: fixed-telephone subscripti­ons, mobile-cellular telephone subscripti­ons, internatio­nal Internet bandwidth per Internet user, households with a computer, and households with Internet access.

The second framework, which is about Use of ICT, includes three intensity and usage indicators: individual­s using the Internet, fixed broadband subscripti­ons, and mobilebroa­dband subscripti­ons, while the third framework, which was on Skills Capabiliti­es, looked at the importance attached to ICTs, which include three proxy indicators: mean years of schooling, gross secondary enrolment, and gross tertiary enrolment.

Expressing shock at the developmen­t, the coalition convener and technology expert, Danjuma Yusuf pointed that Nigeria’s technology landscape needs urgent interventi­on given its sharp stagnation and decline in recent years and tasked the federal and state government­s and other relevant regulatory agencies to quickly focus on strategies that would increase the country’s global competitiv­eness in ICT.

According to Yusuf, Nigeria has become an object of ridicule on global ICT rankings, and

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