MainOne’s Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Funke Opeke, believes Nigeria could become less dependent on natural resources if it fully implements its national broadband policy. She said in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja, while speaking on a panel at last week’s Commonwealth Broadband Forum.

Opeke, who was represented by Mr. Temitope Osunrinde, examined the role of a national broadband policy in driving the nation’s GDP. She said that following the re-basing of national GDP, the contribution of the ICT industry in Nigeria had risen from 5.6% to 8.69%. He also referenced the contributions of ICT to the growth of the Services Industry, which showed a post rebased GDP percentage growth from 29.04% to a whopping 51.59%

She stressed the need for sustaining the policy initiatives introduced to promote open access and manage spectrum more effectively to continue to drive economic growth.

In his words “Nigeria needs to move up the value chain beyond dependence on natural resources, and into the labor-intensive service economies and implementation of the Nation’s Broadband policy will enable this”.

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