TELECOMMUNICATIONS Service Providers, under the aegis of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), have asked President Goodluck Jonathan to further unlock the potentials in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector of the country, for it to remain the fulcrum upon which other sectors of the economy could thrive.The President of the Association, Titi Omo-Ettu said in Lagos over the weekend that the Jonathan led government would need to give priority attention to ICT sector for the country to witness further development.According to him, with more government attention on ICT sector, through proper legislation, monitoring and more investment, the over dependence on the oil and gas would reduce drastically and would encourage local content development of the sector, which has long been canvassed by various stakeholders in the sector.Omo-Ettu, an engineer, also asked the Federal Government to tackle the countrys energy problem with all sincerity.The second is the manner of addressing the energy sector solutions and I suggest, he should learn from the modest progress we made in the telecommunications sector. That is to say government should begin to realise that not all problems have exclusive requirement of money and we should stop throwing money at the energy problem. I am saying, in other words, that what we did in the telecommunications sector was invariably to stop throwing money at the problem, but to allow sincere liberalisation to take place.So far there has been insincere implementation of liberalisation programme, in the energy sector and a change of emphasis is suggested. It requires true liberalisation, not mega billions of dollars of Nigerias money. Our reading is that the energy sector is just enriching a few people and that precisely was what we stopped doing in telecommunications sector.It was not a smooth sail to get the current status and I do not expect such solution to also be smooth sailing for energy. If this government confronts it, it will be confronting powerful moneybags. In the dawn of telecom liberalisation, we confronted an unwilling military oligarchy. Which is more dangerous to confrontAccording to him, the president would need to restructure the entire ICT industry for the country to take advantage of emerging technologies and modern management, besides making more people to have access to communications at affordable price. To make remarkable achievement in this, he said that, there was need for Nigerians to have access to broadband, need for government to issue the first National Operators License, improve on quality of service and the availability of human capacity development.The ATCON president stressed that government attention to ICT sector was low in the last few years and therefore, urged the new Jonathan government that would be inaugurated on May 29, to put all efforts in motion to ensure the sector becomes more competitive globally.
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