Experts Task Buhari on Digital Economy for National Development

Experts in information and communications technology (ICT) sector, the financial sector and management development sector, have urged the incoming administration led by Muhammadu Buhari, to leverage digital economy in his administration, describing it as a sine qua non for national development and in sustaining the Nigerian economy.

They spoke at the sixth Annual Pan-African 1:1 Investor Conference organised by Renaissance Capital in Lagos recently.

'Digital Economy' in technical parlance, implies an economy mainly driven by digital computing devices.
Managing Director, Smile Communications Nigeria Limited, Mr. Michiel Buitelaar, while speaking during a panel session, described Nigeria’s digital economy as huge, and will impact virtually all segments of the economy, if well harnessed.

"Thus, in the face of dwindling oil revenue with increasingly pressure on the economy evident in budgets deficit, infrastructural deficit, high unemployment rate, harsh business environment, corruption, among others, there is need for the incoming government to leverage digital economy in diversifying the Nigerian economy and in addressing the challenges," Buitelaar said.

He identified infrastructural advancement as overriding factor for the immediate expansion of sectors such as agriculture, transportation, banking  and finance, health-care/medicine, and education.

He said Smile Communications had already aligned itself with the key statistics expected for the Nigerian digital economy by 2018 as released by the Federal Ministry of Communications Technology, especially for the emergence of an industry that is less fragmented.

The federal government plans to attain 30 per cent broadband penetration by 2018 from the present less than 10 per cent.

Earlier, the Keynote speaker, Professor Pat Utomi, while addressing investors and captains of industries at the conference, shared similar views with Buitelaar.

He said thrust of the in-coming administration should be centered on making corruption costly and unattractive through public service entrepreneurship and goal oriented. He advised the incoming government to reinvent sectors like mining and building clusters of strong institutions, while leveraging ICT.

Global Chief Economist at Renaissance Capital, Mr. Charles Robertson, said: “We see great long-term potential across Africa, particularly, in Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt.”

We believe Nigeria will be a trillion dollar economy by 2025 and it will keep doubling in size every 10 years. GDP per capita is likely to reach around $15,000 by 2050. Following the April elections, the new government represents the best opportunity in recent years to push forward reform for Africa’s largest economy, Robertson said.

Addressing the gathering on how digital economy will transform the Nigerian economy, Buitelaar said "Digital economy will be the driver of the agricultural, transport, health-care/medicine, education, banking and finance sectors, among others.

“We do believe the new digital ICT will influence other sectors. For example, in agriculture, like I have seen in other countries, the efficiency and productivity is very likely to explode once all the digital economy has entered into their arena. It is also our expectation that the impact will become more pronounced within the next ten years," Buitelaar said.

Specifically on expected broadband impact on digital economy, he extolled the outgoing administration of President Goodluck Jonathan for approving the National Broadband Plan, while expressing confidence in the Buhari government’s compelling posture for firm implementation of the plans.

“I think the federal government is doing quite well, especially, by releasing a National Broadband Plan, but I will argue that the next government continues with the plan in an even ‘forceful’ manner.

Similarly, spectrum allocations should be looked at too; it is more of technical, but very important in the nation’s quest for more ubiquitous broadband,"
Buitelaar said, adding "There are sub-sectors that the broadband availability will immediately impact their operations such as the delivery viz a viz ecommerce, e-payment, education and other clusters of business. These are crucial reasons the digital economy should be allowed to blossom”.

Nigeria is a wonderful country, and the incoming government should do something as regards the image of the country and perception in the rest of the world. That alone is capable of convincing foreign investors about the country’s business climate. In the area of infrastructure, I do believe that the whole country will benefit in smart investments in infrastructure. There are issues in transport, power and payment systems, but if these issues can be addressed, with a couple of other commitments, I believe in the next few years the country will be reaping large chunk of benefits from them, he said.    

Buitelaar added that the company would not rest on its oars until Nigerians have access to qualitative and affordable broadband services.

He said, “From the Smile Communications’ perspective, we have penchant interest in the provision of high quality service. Later this year we will rollout service in a couple of other cities. We are serious about providing superfast broadband, high availability, high-quality and reliable offering, because Nigerians deserve qualitative service."