Nigeria Ranked 64th In ICT Usage

STATISTICS by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) show that  Nigeria placed  64th out of 66 countries examined on the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
The ITU in its 2008 report used criteria such as the country’s business climate , availability of internet and communication facilities , legal framework and business policy focus to rate 66 countries in other to define their global competiveness.
The Director General of the National Information Technology development Agency (NITDA), Prof Cleopas Angaye disclosed this at a media parley yesterday in Abuja. Angaye  said Nigeria slipped down from its 63rd position in 2007 to 64th in 2008, while the United Stats maintained its first position both in 2007 and 2008.
The ITU statistics also gave Nigeria’s internet penetration statistics. In the year 2000, out of its 142,895,600 population, only 200,000 users had access to the internet; putting it at 0.1%. In 2006, the figures showed an increase in number of users to 5,000,000 with a 3.1% increase  and in 2009, the number of  internet users increased to 11,000,000, showing a 7.4%increase.
Angaye  however stated that despite the increase in the number of users, the penetration percentage was still very low as the figures were still in the single digit. He further  disclosed that one major challenge militating against ICT development in Nigeria is lack of adequate political will from decision makers.
“Information and Communication Technology is knowledge-based and could not been seen physically like physical infrastructures hence, most of our policy makers do not understand what it is all about. Accordingly, the political will is lacking for them to fully support and embrace new technologies,” he said.
He identified the menace of cyber crime as a factor for the poor investment by developed countries in the ICT sector in Nigeria, saying that urgent action is needed  by the National Assembly to pass the bill against the crime into law .
“Cyber crime is increasing .Nigeria is rated fourth or fifth in the world in terms of creating cyber crime. The real problems we are facing is people using our own pulse  networks to send outside. When they are coming in , we can catch them but they go outside to the internet café. We need to do a proper registration of networks in the country. We need to register our SIM cards which is also going on. Currently, the cyber crime situation is not very good. We need that law.”
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