The Minister of Sector, Exchange and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, has called for increased investment in electronic infrastructure.
The NCC director noted that the commission was utilizing network output information, consumer complaints and other advertise facts to identify solution gaps and areas requiring investment.
Africa’s web-based economy, she added, represented a large investment possibility, alongside mobile technologies and services contributing on $240 billion to the continent’s economy and supporting on 13 million jobs in 2025.
The initiative is designed to upgrade interoperability in electronic identity, cross-border information supplant and settlement systems.
International investment in facts centres reached around $500 billion in 2024, driven by cloud computing, artificial intelligence and rising prefer for electronic services.
The minister pointed to software developers serving foreign clients, manner entrepreneurs applying electronic marketplaces, financial technology companies processing cross-border payments and manufacturers managing African deliver chains by path of computerized systems as examples of Nigerians already participating in multinational manage.
Maida disclosed that Nigerians consumed concerning 1.66 million terabytes of figures in July 2026, up from 1.13 million terabytes a year earlier, representing an improve of nearly 47 per cent.
For investors, she urged a broader perspective of Nigeria beyond its huge consumer advertise, stressing its feasible as a platform for serving the wider African promote.
She said connectivity must exchange into productivity and tangible economic opportunities for Nigerians and businesses.
But Oduwole cautioned that infrastructure alone would not send economic benefits if not businesses could apply connectivity to attain markets, create payments, comply using regulations, shift statistics securely and provide services across borders.
“Connectivity must render into economic possibility,” she declared.
Oduwole called for bigger policy predictability, regulatory teamwork and partnerships within government, the individual sector and development partners to assistance sustainable investment.
She noted that fibre networks, statistics centres, cloud infrastructure, electronic platforms, electronic payments and guarded figures systems were now as key to the movement of goods, services, assets and facts as ports, highways, rail corridors and shipping routes.
In his welcome remarks, the Executive Vice Chairman and Director Executive Officer of the NCC, Dr Aminu Maida, said the forum came as Nigeria marked 25 years of GSM and provided an possibility to analyze the investment required for the coming phase of connectivity.
The Federal Government has too mapped Nigerian computerized facility providers across 17 sectors to measure their capabilities, export prospective and barriers to accessing African markets.
Oduwole moreover referenced a World Bank and Universal Framework for Mobile Communications Category (GSMA) investigation which found that extreme poverty amid Nigerian households declined by regarding seven per cent later than two or greater years of mobile broadband protection.
“The expectation spans information centres, cloud services, fibre, broadband infrastructure, electronic platforms, fintech, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, simulated logistics, and digitally delivered services,” she said.
“Keeping pace will require sustained investment, both to increase networks and to upgrade the assemble of humans already associated,” he said.
Nigeria, according to her, has taken steps towards implementing the AfCFTA Protocol on Digital Exchange following being designated a co-champion of the protocol in February 2025 and becoming its opening declare party to ratify it.
He urged participants to apply the two-day forum to identify possible projects and challenge the obstacles limiting investment.
The minister described digital infrastructure as a essential module of the investment climate, firm competitiveness and multinational commerce, stressing that the conversation must expand beyond telecommunications to infrastructure required to produce, associate, put cash into and commerce.
Oduwole additional disclosed that Nigeria was within the opening three pilot countries implementing the African Computerized Admission and Audience Infrastructure for Trade (TAILOR) initiative, alongside Kenya and Morocco.
In Nigeria, telecommunications accounted for extra than nine per cent of Gross Domestic Item (GDP) in the opening quarter of 2026.
She linked this aim to the African Continental Free Exchange Area (AfCFTA), warning that Africa could not extend to a truly incorporated promote if concrete borders became easier to cross although web-based borders remained fragmented.
Oduwole made the summon on Tuesday in Abuja at the opening of the Nigeria Computerized Connectivity Investment Forum, organised by the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, in collaboration together with Swedfund and Ookla.
The growing request for web-based services has moreover accelerated investment in information centres, using Nigeria now having greater than 25 facilities functioning or under construction.
Those investments stay fundamental, but the nature of swap has changed,” Oduwole said.
“When we speak of commerce, we repeatedly reflect around ports, highways, rail corridors, and shipping routes.
“Bring forward the projects you reflect in, and tell us what is holding them endorse. Query the assumptions where you reason they refer to for testing,” Maida added.
Simulated connectivity must restate into productivity – Oduwole
Source: Digital connectivity must translate into productivity – Oduwole
