Executive summary
ICT has been acknowledged to be one of the most critical tools underpinning socio
economic development in the 21st century. Its
global
importance
has led to
numerous countries transforming their ICT sectors to lend support to other critical
sectors in terms of efficiency, productivity and transparency, thus aiding job creation,
better governance and overall socio economic development.
Nigeria has embarked upon this path and during 2011 created the Ministry of
Communication Technology to ensure better coordination of ICT activities and
development in Nigeria. This National ICT Policy lays out the inputs required to
strengthen all productive sectors and ultimately transform Nigeria into a knowledge
based, and globally competitive country, in alignment with the National Vision 20:20
objectives. It
establishes a
comprehensive framework for the ICT sector that will
encourage and stimulate investment and also enable
rapid expansion of ICT
networks and services that are accessible to all at reasonable costs.
To ensure inclusiveness, the policy is the product of broad based consultation drawn
from the public and private sectors & academia, critical analysis of the regulatory and
legal environment, evaluation of institutional framework models, and an assessment
of other pertinent realities of the ICT development in Nigeria over recent years,
especially following liberalization of the telecommunications sector in 1999.
As the services delivered across ICT systems, applications and tools increasingly
leverage the same technical resources; there has been a global evolution towards
convergence in order to ensure holistic management of scarce resources and to
strengthen independent regulatory oversight. This ICT policy therefore has
convergence of regulatory activities across Telecommunications, Broadcasting, IT,
and Postal services, as one of the critical pillars of ICT sector development.
The sector has witnessed the fused discharge of both regulatory and development
activities across critical subsectors, which has led to suboptimal performance in
many respects. The policy therefore addresses a clearer delineation of duties,
specializations and focus. With respect to broadcasting a clear distinction is made
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