Democracy Day: Expert Lauds Significant Growth In ICT Sector

An Information Communications Technology (ICT) expert, Ismail Haruna on Monday lauded the significant growth accomplished in the sector in the past one year.

He made the commendation in an interview in Lagos citing some significant achievements in the sector that were recorded or in progress within the year.

Haruna, Chief Executive Officer, Harixm Solutions, said that as Nigerians celebrate Democracy day, it was pertinent to reflect on vital ICT sector’s development.

He said the progress recorded in the sector included the ongoing plans to roll out 5G technology, planned acquisition of MainOne by Equinix, the launch of Africa Data Centre and the berthing of several subsea cables at the shores of Nigeria.

According to him, the operation of cloud computing services by data centre operators and recent inauguration of Presidential Council on e-government will act as catalysts in driving Nigeria’s digital economy in 2022.

‘’The recent emergence of MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications Ltd for 5G deployment in the country is set to achieve faster digital transformation in 2022.

‘’Once there is good bandwidth systems and applications running on the spectrum at high-speed data, there will be ultra-speed integration of systems.

‘’There will be effective access with machine-to-machine (M2M) connection that will also help increase and better achieve financial inclusion,’’ he said.

Ismail said that download would be done in milli to nano seconds with improved customer experience (CX) to speed, access and connectivity.

According to him, it will enhance Electronic Commerce, Electronic Health, Electronic Government and also improve the national security.

The expert said that the launch of a 10-megawatt data centre facility called LOS1 in Nigeria by the Africa Data Centres (ADC), would further diversify Nigeria’s economy.

He said it would also enhance the country’s digital transformation agenda in 2022 which was made achievable, courtesy of the Federal Government and the Lagos State government.

Ismail said that the demand for data centres in the country and Africa at large, would be stimulated by the berthing of subsea cables called Equiano subsea cable being deployed by Google.

He noted that though the ICT sector had witnessed growth and contributed immensely to the nation’s economy within the last one year, there was, however room for Improvement going forward.