 Welcome to ITU Telecom World 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand. I'm very pleased to be joined in the studio today by Abdul Rahim Adebayo-Shutu, who is the Honourable Minister for the Federal Ministry of Communications for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Thank you very much indeed for being with us in the studio today, Mr. It's my pleasure being here with you. I'd like to start off by asking you a little bit about digital vision and your digital vision for Nigeria, for digital Nigeria, and what are your broadband objectives? Well, I recall that Nigeria is just coming onto the stage of digitization. Sixteen years ago, for instance, in the area of telecoms, all the lines in Nigeria had for a population of about 120 million at that time, were just less than 500,000 lines. And Nigerians had to struggle and go through a lot of experiences and so on to be able to make simple calls. We thank God that because of the initiative of our leaders, today, Nigeria, from less than 500,000, we have more than 152 million lines. I mean, that is to show the exponential growth that we have had over the last, say, 60 years. So for us, the major challenge is to ensure we have continuing access that Nigerians, wherever they may be, whether in the villages or the towns, the city centers, across rivers and all of that, are able to access, have access to digitization, not only in the area of telephone, but also in the area of data and in the area of Wi-Fi connectivity. We also not only want these to be universal across the country, but also to be affordable. When we had less than 500,000, for a line, you had to pay hundreds of thousands to get the line. It was not always available. But today, costs have come down considerably and we are also looking to ensuring that the costs go down further in terms of the cost, actually, and in terms of the quality of service. Again, we are trying to build capacity to leverage in terms of skin cell literacy. We want every Nigerian, particularly those who have the opportunity of being in educational institutions, to have opportunities, to learn about digitization, to learn about ICT, to use ICT to develop themselves, to use ICT to make their businesses easier and more cost-effective and for government itself to use ICT to make governments more transparent, more convenient, more accessible to all Nigerians. So these are the type of visions we are looking at and I can assure you that government is working very hard towards realizing all of these goals. One of the major challenges that you're facing at the moment in terms of the deployment of broadband in Nigeria? Well, easily the number one challenge is the fact of lack of adequate investment. Usually people are either not yet familiar with the opportunities that is also of money, not yet familiar with the opportunities within the system or where they are, they may not even have the capacity to contribute. So we are inviting the outside world international community, investors to be sure that Nigeria is one market where their investments will yield dividends within the shortest possible time. We are talking of a population of 182 million, that's certainly a very huge market. You are also talking of one country where a quarter of every black man is in Nigeria, across the world. Again, in the West African subcontinent, Nigerian population is more than that of the 14 other countries in West Africa combined and that will tell you that investing in Nigeria is like investing in the whole of the West African sub-region because all parts of West Africa look forward to Nigeria to provide leadership and to provide goods and services. Again for now they're still poor legal regulatory authority. We are working very hard on that, particularly with the coming on board of the new leadership in what is called NCC National Communications Commission, which is a regulatory authority. Again for now we still have inadequate infrastructure, again for the same reason of lack of adequate funding, you know there are problems and so opportunities arise for people who want to invest in WIFI connectivity, in broadband connectivity to come in either by having fiber optics connectivity through the ground or through even electricity lines. Lastly is the poor human capacity. We have not had enough training institutions for the workforce of ICT. If you have such an exponential market in ICT, you also expect to have a pool of skilled manpower to manage and handle the industry. For now there's a lot of deficiency in that regard for which we have evolved a policy of establishing an ICT university which will be the first of this type in Africa, which will be dedicated for skilled training in all aspects of the industry. I can tell you unfortunately that as of today there's hardly any university where telecommunications engineering is being taught. So one of the jobs or the assignments that this ICT university will be doing is to ensure that there are training opportunities in every aspect of ICT industry. So these are some of the challenges but I can assure you that government is not leaving any stone unturned to ensure that we provide enough you know spaces in our universities and in new institutions you know where people can be trained so that we have enough pool of skilled manpower to handle the management of the industry within Nigeria and even to export such skilled manpower across you know the West African and African region generally. And what are the policies or regulatory measures that government will implement to remove these barriers and promote broadband development? Well the first thing we are doing is to ensure that a level playing field is provided you know for all operators particularly through legislation you know for instance in the sale of spectrum and in the sale of licenses these are always advertised and competitively bidded for so it is only unmarried that one can get licensing you know to operate and that one can get spectrum so no underhand dealings are allowed in this regard these certainly makes investment you know open transparent and everybody is happy because you know that if you merit it you will get it and these really encourages a lot of investment and it provides an enabling environment for players you know to operate in. The second you know the second thing we are doing is to ensure that incentives are provided to encourage operators to come. One of the means we are adopting is to ensure that you know pioneer status may be granted to those who deserve it such that they may have tax holidays over a period of time you know so that a part of you know tax holidays again the ease of doing business is also provided again we also make sure that it is easy for people to repatriate their profits and investments you know over time particularly in regard to their capital and profits you know these are some of the things we are doing in that regard again we are you know ensuring that there's an improvement in the development of policies and in the development of legal framework you know such that you know for those who want to invest in operation for those who want to invest in providing you know infrastructure and and and all of that they are encouraged without discrimination whether one is a foreign company or one is a local company you have you know fairly equitable opportunities you know within which to operate. Finally again we are also encouraging PPP you know process so that if private companies come they could collaborate with government you know in you know doing some of these things. May I add finally that we are also trying to ensure a few things five key issues you know one of the things is we are trying to build an ICT growth by improving infrastructure and quality of service across board whether you know both the private sector and government is keen in into this because we discover that this is a joint thing the government cannot on its own because of positive funds solely handle this so we engage in PPP with a private sector whether local or foreign Secondly we are doing our best to deliver ICT and broadband penetration again we have a fund called Universal Service Provision Fund which is you know also doing exactly what the private sector is doing particularly for the purpose of areas which may not be profitable to investing you know by the private sector you know the USPF fund is utilized in this again through this you know of course government is able to raise revenue and reduce waste the fourth policy thrust of the government in supporting the growth of the ICT industry is probably you know what we call policy of innovation innovative continuity for continuous innovation we must ensure that innovations are encouraged and competitions are also encouraged so that we can get the best finally we are working towards ensuring a migration of Nigeria to an ICT activity if you like you know so that you know ICT training will be ubiquitous in schools to be ubiquitous in communities and all of that and for these we're encouraging the establishment of you know innovative hubs you know and so on across schools and across various communities in Nigeria now we've seen a lot of Nigeria here Nigeria a Nigerian project one was one of the winners of the GemTech Awards last night which was fantastic congratulations for that so gender equality in mainstreaming technology there and you've got an amazing pavilion here as well what's the value of attending events for you such as ITU telecom world the value the value yes what I mean you know why do you think this is important well it is important because number one you see time was when Nigeria relies solely on petroleum as our major and sole revenue and Nigeria was earning almost and the something percent of its income through petroleum but you know very well that you know resources from petroleum are dwindling by the day because of the the fact that we had petroleum for more than 60 years we had gone to sleep but now we are awakening to the fact that petroleum requires extraction it requires a lot of effort for you to you know gain revenue from I see it he does not require any resource you know to be extracted it requires just your brain and so we are you know I'm working into the fact that there are a lot of countries we are in Bangkok now Bangkok in Thailand Thailand does not have petroleum and yet you can see very well that it is more developed than Nigeria that's why the result of the fact that Nigeria have had more resources natural resources than you know it if you go to Singapore you go to South Korea you go to even China these are countries we depended on you know I city to develop so if they can do it then Nigeria with its boisterous you know you know a citizenry must be able to do even much better so it has become compelling for Nigeria to invest more in I see it is so that we can fill in the gaps in of deficiencies you know in revenue and as well as use I CT to enable our lives to be better to enable our businesses to be more confident and to be a to enable governors to be more transparent and more service oriented to the generator of the pool so for us we don't have a choice and I am happy that the federal government of Nigeria headed by our president Muhammad Wuhari has keyed into the ICT revolution and we are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that we get the utmost from it that's fabulous and thank you very much these wonderful insights into your country and into your policies and we wish you all the very best of the future thank you so thank you