The Poor State of Broadband in Nigeria: An Impediment to National Development and Globalisation

Abstract

Harnessing ICT for development requires a strategic framework that takes advantage of various ICT roles which helps integrate the options made possible by technological revolution into the design and implementation of sector development strategies. As such, ICT is not just a sector of the knowledge economy, but a lens through which new possibilities and modalities of comprehensive development can be realised. There has been a competition among many nations nowadays toward the adoption of ICT as a veritable tool for national development and globalization. In spite of the rush towards the adoption of ICT by many African countries, the reports of WEF on NRI released for year 2013 reveals that many African countries are still ranked low. The review made in this paper is to investigate the causes of low rankings characterizing the African countries, Nigeria as a case study. This paper also investigated the present level of broadband ICT infrastructures available in the country and made suggestions on how the rate of broadband penetration could be increased. As a result, People from all walks of life such as youths, professionals, career personnel and host of others would benefit from the wealth embedded in ICT world. In conclusion, the recommendation was made on what to be done for Nigeria to move up some steps in NRI ladder. There are tendencies that when the country fully harness the benefits of ICT available within her that would develop the country economically and tackle the challenges of unemployment which seems to be one of the prevailing problems in Africa and even in some developed countries.Sarcastically in Nigeria, in spite of the satellite own by the country and several cables at the shore of the country, broadband penetration is presently less than 6%

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n12p51